Maybe you had to be there to fully appreciate it.
Or perhaps you somehow missed it even if you lived through it.
Regardless, I am here to tell you: “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” was a whole mood.
There was a time when this game repped a significant piece of our world’s culture.
I don’t believe I’m overstating things when I say this. The skating scene was blowing up, this game was blowing up, and it all became the sort of thing that, while it was certainly juvenile and maybe a little bit silly, it was also the sort of thing that a LOT of people got into.
So, let’s set the stage a little for the younger folk (and the people who like to reminisce).
Way back in the fall of 1993, ESPN, not content to keep swimming through the bags of money they were already making through cable rights deals, made the somewhat illogical decision to launch a second network, because, well, who hates money, amirite?
They went with the novel name of “ESPN2” with its on-air personalities regularly referring to it as “The Deuce.”
Cute.
Now, backing up a smidge, I say the venture was “somewhat illogical” because only the tiniest of details – a giant, gaping lack of programming – was a potential stumbling block.
Oops!
Well, this lack of programming foresight encouraged the folks at ESPN to get creative about what they’d put on, which led to the creation of the X Games … as well as many, many jokes about scraping the bottom of the barrel for something, anything to put on the air. ESPN2 sorta became synonymous with airing ridiculous events that were decidedly not sports-related, barely sports-related, or maybe even (in the best case scenario) somewhat sports related.
Anyhow, most of it had a tenuous connection to “traditional” sports (or no connection at all).
The aforementioned X Games was a made-from-scratch Olympics-style competition for offbeat, alternative sports like snowboarding, motocross, BMX, and of course, skateboarding, that made its debut in 1995. And the X Games, despite its nature as a corporate creation with a limited appeal outside of a niche audience, grew in popularity over time.
These events, after all, were more sports-like than something like lumberjacking or billiards.
Eventually, people began to figure out there was money to be made in marketing to a demographic that was interested in watching what was essentially counter-culture entertainment.
“Eff the man! Buy more product!”
It was probably inevitable. I mean, there were sports drinks to peddle. What I recall most about that era, culturally, was that everything back then had to be “cool.” It was a requirement. It’s why video game commercials of the era were ridiculous and looked like this:
So OF COURSE the X Games became a thing.
And one of the biggest players on this brand-new stage was Tony Hawk.
Hawk, a professional skateboarder, was so popular that it’s probably unnecessary for me to have just typed that he is a professional skateboarder. In the same way that people know Michael Jordan is a basketball player, or Mario is a video game character, Tony Hawk came to be the embodiment of his entire sport.
You already know who Tony Hawk is.
But if you weren’t around back then (or very, very young), you might not understand that at least some of the reason the man is synonymous with skateboarding is the existence of “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.”
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater at a glance
Genre: Sports
Released: 1999
Platform: PlayStation
No. 36 on Game Informer’s Top 100 Games of All Time
The game with Tony’s name and image taped across the cover was absolutely a marketing boon for him and his sport. And credit to him: Hawk astutely negotiated a royalties-laden payment plan for the use of his name and likeness, which netted him considerably more money as the game ended up becoming wildly popular. He understood that his sport was booming, and he leveraged that into a better deal for himself.
It’s one of those stories that contributes to the icon’s status as a “legend.”
Though let’s be fair. A lot of Hawk’s accolades came from his ability to move around with a board and four little wheels under his feet. And his talent and refined skill in navigating courses – particularly half pipes – helped spearhead a ton of interest in skateboarding in particular, and the X Games at large.
A seminal moment of this movement toward edgy “extreme” sports was Tony Hawk’s 900 … a trick that he executed a few months before his video game’s release.
The “900” was basically Hawk launching himself up and down a half pipe until he had enough momentum to soar up into the air and spin himself around roughly a gazilllionty times in midair before landing his skateboard safely back into the half pipe to the adoring cheers of his fans.
It was a difficult trick, and great drama was built over the course of a competition in 1999 (again, just before the launch of the game bearing his name) when he attempted over and over to land it successfully. He failed, repeatedly, but the crowd got behind him, he kept going, and eventually, he landed it.
This was arguably the most memorable moment to emerge from the entire history of the X Games, and of course Hawk was at the center of it, and of course it was right before the launch of his video game.
The man understood the stage and the opportunity. So much so, in fact, that the legend goes he lobbied for the inclusion of the trick in the game as one of his character’s special moves after he landed it at the X Games, and the developers complied, programming the trick into the game at the last minute.
Hawk bought in because the bones of the game were good, but he wasn’t the only one who was confident that the game would be a winner. Activision/Neversoft recognized the momentum created by Hawk’s star rising (and the quality of what they’d built) and released two separate Playstation demo discs of the game, which offered gamers a taste of the action. They were confident gamers would play the early section of the game, the famous “Warehouse” level, and want to buy more.
CDs were extremely cheap to manufacture, so bonus and demo discs – really once PCs started using them as the standard, but even more so once the PlayStation launched – became an inexpensive and effective way to market games.
Pizza Hut even got involved in the action with Tony Hawk, releasing a free copy of the demo with pizza orders.
The exposure generated excitement, which generated more exposure, which generated more excitement, and so on and so on.
This marketing worked. I ordered a pizza, with a free copy of the game, shortly after watching Tony Hawk land the 900. And I was completely into it. I bought the full version of the game a few months later.
A person could write a whole book on the marketing win that was this video game.
But that still doesn’t tell the whole story, because it doesn’t really speak to the quality of the game itself.
A thing can be popular without being good.*
* How else does one explain the Michael Bay “Transformers” movies?
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was both popular AND good.
Where the game was revolutionary from previous skateboarding games was partly due to a third-person, behind-the-skater perspective, which created a more immersive experience for gamers, but more absolutely thanks to a deep reservoir of gameplay mechanics that were satisfying to use.
Different buttons corresponded to specific tricks and moves, each of which could be chained together to rack up big scores (a necessity for clearing and unlocking levels). The array of moves was wide and varied, and along with specific collection goals tied to exploration of a particular zone, the customization available for a run through a level became quite granular.
“Am I going to try to collect all of the letters that spell out ‘S-K-A-T-E’ and if so, where do I need to go?”
“Am I going to try to break my high score, and how would I go about doing that?”
“Do I want to grind on a parked car while skateboarding through this alley, or should I focus on a larger goal and not risk wiping out?”
These sorts of strategies could, and probably should, have been mapped out prior to the beginning of a level. A running timer dictated that choices NEEDED to be made, and while they could be made on the fly (and often were), having in mind a clear objective generally led to greater success.
The fortunate part of the depth of options, though, and why the game worked as well as it did, is that the game “felt” right.
Nailing a basic trick often defied what we could call real-life physics, but it felt close enough to the real thing, and satisfying enough to pull off, that it encouraged repeat business. So when linking or chaining tricks together, none of it felt disposable or boring. It all felt good.
It didn’t end there. Chaining enough successful tricks together rewarded the player with a stats boost that allowed your skater to jump higher and skate faster, unlocking the potential for even greater tricks and more physics-defying leaps. The game would reward you for doing well by encouraging you to take greater and greater risks. As a result, any wild run featuring multiple successful tricks, death-defying vaults across impossible jumps, and huge, brain-melting scores, would be sure to feel absolutely exhilarating.
It was addictive as hell.
This game’s visuals … they’ve aged. It’s not as bad as looking at Lara Croft with a box head and triangular boobs, but it’s from that same era of super blocky graphics. Though, in all honesty, they still got the job done. And what’s more is the game has been remastered in a recent release for modern platforms (the game, paired with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, is essentially unchanged save a couple of quality of life improvements) that smooths out the rough edges and provides a much nicer look.
The soundtrack for the game is a time capsule in itself, a smorgasbord of punk, ska, and alternative tracks that were:
- Very much of that time and space.
- Pretty dang badass.
Rocking out to Goldfinger’s “Superman” while ignoring the concept of gravity with stupid kickflips and grinds in the upper reaches of the Warehouse level … I pretty much defy a person to not crack a smile in those conditions.
It truly was a marvelous time.
So what makes it worth playing today?
I like to look at retro games as being a kind of history lesson for the younger set. Yes, a game should have an underlying quality to it to merit playing the thing to begin with, but a historically important game can help a person understand a bigger picture … in relation to gaming, culture, society, what have you.
It’s why I take the time to explain that for an entire generation, Ms. Pac-Man is inextricably tied to pizzerias. Instead of monkeying around on our phones to kill time while our pizzas were cooking (the phones hadn’t been invented yet!), we played Ms. Pac-Man. It was light entertainment, but it was communal. Millions of people experienced it. And because of that shared experience, people hold that game in even greater esteem today than they otherwise would.
Ms. Pac-Man is still good, mind you, an essential play. But finding that cabinet out in the wild is the best way to experience it the same way people did 30 years ago.* The context is important. One can visualize the experience sans cabinet, and that can be good enough in a pinch (this is why emulation exists), but it doesn’t tell the full story.
* Pizza and red cups optional, though honestly, who would turn down pizza and soda?
The Tony Hawk Pro Skater sequels that immediately followed Tony Hawk 1 were excellent, adored by fans and critically acclaimed. They introduced mechanics, features, and environments that many people would argue elevated the series to new heights.
But in debating which game to include on this list, the deciding factor for me really came back to this concept of reliving (or experiencing for the first time) a specific time and place.
The 900, and the peak of alternative sports as a spectator sport, coincided with the release of Tony Hawk 1. And Tony Hawk 1 was a revelation. Other skateboarding games had existed before, but none NAILED it in the same way that this one did. And it paved the way not only for a slew of sequels, but also every kind of alt-sports game you can think of to ride in on its coattails.
I’ll always think of the first game not only as a game that captured my own attention, but also as a vehicle for making the counter-culture more mainstream.
Random people took up skateboarding. More people than ever watched the X Games on TV. Punk and ska was discovered by thousands of new listeners. And counter-culture shows like “Jackass,” found an eager audience.
Alternative was IN.
In an era when college dorm rooms were being dominated by first-person shootouts, traditional sports games, and Sims-like … well, sims, Tony Hawk carved out its own niche and demanded the attention of gamers everywhere, regardless of personal taste, interest, or background.
We were all skateboarders for a while there, because Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was just such a quality, worthwhile experience.
The game truly captured a moment in time, somehow managed to elevate it, and itself become an important part of the overall painting.
That’s a 10/10 game, my friends, and a game all players should experience.
Dave’s Score: 10/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (Playstation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast)
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (remaster): PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Nintendo Switch