A game I've played for years WITHOUT a gamepad.
The graphics were amazing for its time, you got some great animation and modeling, and the moves were smooth and fluent, but these days they barely compete with newer games. But, as they often say, graphics aren't everything. In this case, it's completely true.
The gameplay is in one word, amazing. I've rarely played a game where you can control the character so smooth as this one. Of course you gotta crawl before you can skate, what means that you gotta figure out the basics before you can actually start busting out some moves. Luckily, there's a tutorial voiced by Tony Hawk himself (I think, it was a long time ago) which will help you on your way. Once you mastered the basics, it's time to set some nice scores and combos.
The improved combo system is something not seen before in earlier THPS games, as it allowed the player to "revert" from a (half-)pipe when landed, and switch into a manual directly after, without losing your streak. In earlier games this couldn't be done. Also, the balance system is greatly improved. While it was a bit choppy in earlier games, this one nailed it nicely. But of course as you progress and your combo becomes longer, you lose more balance.
This game is nothing compared to actual skateboarding, as you can pull of stunts so fast and easy, it's not natural. But that's what makes the game so amazing, the fact that you can pull all that off.
You have a choice of characters like before, and with a lot of additions including Bam Margera and even the Doom Guy (with a cheat). You can also create your own skater, and you have a lot of options with that as well.
There are also a nice bunch of levels to skate in. My personal favorite is Airport, but most of you will like Rio the most for it's so-called "combo line".
The multiplayer is nice, but tricky, as in hosting a game. Back then it all worked a bit differently with servers. The host of the game actually hosted from his computer and using his connection. There is a master server, but it only relays the connections. This means that if the host has a router, chances are the connections are blocked, and you gotta open the ports.
But once you host a game, you can play with up to 7 other people in several games, including Trick Attack, which goal is who gets the highest score, and other quite exciting games. You can still find people playing online even today, even though there are only 20-30 people online on average.
THPS3 is also easy to mod. You can turn off certain things as a host using special downloads, like the slapping, where you can literally slap a person off of his skateboard. This is quite annoying when playing games like Trick Attack or Graffiti, so most hosts disable it.
As I said before, I've been playing this game without a gamepad for quiet some time, and I can get scores over 400 million points in one combo. So a gamepad isn't really necessary, it all depends on what you're used to. I'm a keyboard player, FPS and whatnot, and I do just fine.