Every stage (with the exception of competition stages) in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 has three score challenges: High Score, Pro Score, and Sick Score. These challenges get harder as you get deeper into the game, and in Philadelphia from THPS2, the Sick Score challenge asks you to get 250,000 points in two minutes.
The first time you see that number, it might seem bafflingly high. However, because of a simple trick, this is actually really, really easy. In fact, you don’t even need to unlock the skatepark. I managed to hit 300,000 by the 0:59 point of the match.
The trick is to turn to your left as soon as you start the stage and grind the concrete embankment. The way the embankment is staggered forces you into grind transfers, and each transfer resets your rail balance meter. So you can essentially grind out a 50,000+ combo with very little effort, so long as you can effectively recover out of it (you’ll also want to throw some variation into your grinds to maximize your score). You can then turn around and hit the whole grind section again. If you can do this successfully just five times in a run, you should hit the Sick Score with plenty of time to spare.
The main thing you have to be careful of, though, is the last section of this grind is longer than the others, and your balance meter can move really fast when you’re deep into a grind combo. You can either risk grinding the full thing, or attempt to flip trick out of the grind early to log your combo score.
If you go for the full grind, then flip-trick into a manual (which is what I do), it’s easy to end up underneath the balcony area of the rotunda (the place where you grind the wire to unlock the skatepark). If you attempt to do any sort of flip tricks under here, you’ll bump your head and biff, wiping out your score for the entire combo.
Don’t worry, I’ve also included a video. I did biff it once, but I still managed to reach 300,000 points in just over a minute using this trick.
