With the new Revert Pack (aka Pro Skater 3 pack) looming only days away, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD developer Robomodo has released a title update which reportedly adds the ability to revert in all levels. This is a change from the initial decision made to only allow reverts on the new levels. We have not booted up the game since the update went live, so we cannot yet confirm this information, though several users have reported this new functionality.

The change may come with both welcoming arms and an angry mob with pitchforks. On the one hand those who play the game simply for the fun of it will enjoy being able to string combos into larger numbers. On the other, purists may be upset at the fact that they can no longer play the original levels as the gaming gods intended. Leaderboard junkies will also have to replay levels to attain higher scores as it’ll be much easier to hold a combo.

On a different and more personal note, I took it upon myself to challenge those who are naysayers to the game. While not all of the complaints can be addressed, I wondered if many of the complaints regarding controls weren’t actually the fault of the 360 controller itself — analog sticks are never as precise for performing combos, and the default d-pad is too loose to feel accurate. I had recently purchased the outer shell of the silver transforming d-pad controller, so I set to work disassembling my plain white controller and installing its internals into the transforming d-pad shell. Once assembled I took my avatar for a little skate through the mall.

Now I’m not the most talented gamer out there. I’ll never be in the top 100 on any leaderboards (unless there are only 100 players). That being said, using the transforming d-pad in its “up” position I found that my scores improved by a 15-20% margin. So while it may not be a fix-all for everyone, it does lend a bit of evidence to the idea that not all of the game’s faults lie in software issues. In fact I was so pleasantly surprised I started to look for a way to buy modified shells for my other controllers. I found some really terrible hackjob tutorials on YouTube for installing a transforming d-pad in a stock shell, but I wanted a quality job done on my controllers. I found only one professional outlet that did such, QuickdrawMods. I sent in the front halves of my white, red and black controllers for d-pad conversion. Expect a full review of these soon.