Gaming Origins: The Tony Hawk Series

If there is one thing I absolutely love in this world it’s the Tony Hawk games. Not all of them are winners, but I have played and been able to enjoy almost all of them in one form or another.

My favorites out of all of the games would have to be Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and Tony Hawk’s Underground. Honorable mentions to Project 8 and Proving Ground if I may. I spent a lot of time playing those dang Tony Hawk games as a kid. I’ll admit I tried taking up skateboarding for real as a youngster, but I found ollieing to be much easier when I had to simply press the X button on my PlayStation controller. There is no other game series out there that I have put as much time into as the Tony Hawk series, simple as that.

You know the way some people really get into games? That’s how I was with the Tony Hawk games. I wasn’t staying up for hours and hours when I should have been sleeping – but I was playing them a lot! With a new Tony Hawk game coming out every year I played them constantly. I was always playing other games of course, but I spent a lot of time playing the Tony Hawk games over a good number of years.

With that much time devoted to one style of game I was able to play beyond the games fighting game-like mechanics and started focusing on my runs and the best way to get the most amount of points. Even if I was playing alone, which happened to be most of the time, I eventually focused more on figuring out the one combo I could string together throughout the entire run in order to beat a certain goal or get a higher score. The later games introduced mechanics like the reverts and spine transfers that made it much easier to form ridiculous combos. Combining those mechanics with the strong knowledge of a level’s layout would allow you to combo your way around the entire level, never running out of speed or places to perform a trick. I still have never formed the same muscle memory in other games the way I have with the Tony Hawk games. I wouldn’t call myself an amazing Tony Hawk player, but there is no game series out there I can play as well.

You have to grind those Roll Call rails if you want to complete all the goals in School II!

In all honesty the thought of writing about the Tony Hawk games hadn’t crossed my mind until I recently purchased and played Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD.  I had sort of forgot about the series until I picked up HD on Steam and after about an hour or so, I hated it.

The physics and engine were different, there was no multiplayer or leaderboards, and the fan service was half baked at best. After giving it some more time I couldn’t help but like it just because I got to skate around in some of my favorite Tony Hawk levels again. That being said I don’t think Pro Skater HD is a great game even if it is one of the better Tony Hawk games to come out in a while.  It’s a lazy attempt at bringing the series back to it’s roots in order to attract the hardcore fans that may have left but it also does nothing to attract new players.

The mechanics of Tony Hawk are very similar to that of a fighting game, meaning that they can be tough to adapt to and understand, let alone execute in a meaningful way. If you are interested in getting into the Tony Hawk series I would suggest starting with Pro Skater 2, and then playing 3 and 4. You could skip the other PS2 and Xbox games and dive straight into Project 8 and Proving Ground for the 360 and PS3 if you wanted to. I really like Tony Hawk’s Underground because of the levels, but the only significant mechanic it introduces is getting off the board . The on-foot platforming sequences are fairly weak and the later games require you go get off the board less and less.

Let those dang kids get off their skateboards and all hell breaks loose!

The story of the Tony Hawk series is very similar to that of it’s main developer, Neversoft. At one point they were both on top of the world. Neversoft was making the best skateboarding games and was one of the coolest developers out there. The first four Tony Hawk games were by far the most critically acclaimed and even some of the titles after that were good too. But with a decline in popularity for the Tony Hawk series and shifts to other projects, Neversoft eventually became a shell of it’s former self. Now they are one of the teams working on Call of Duty Ghosts. Prior to that, Neversoft captained the sinking Guitar Hero ship after Harmonix went on to make Rock Band.

I’m not very hopeful for the future of the Tony Hawk series. It’s a future many saw coming and a future I can’t imagine Activision is all that interested in despite their contract with Tony to keep making games until at least 2015. If none of the future games end up being any good then I’ll still be a little disappointed. In the end there will always be some great games in that series and ones I love and would recommend to anyone who hasn’t played them before. There is still some magic in those older games that hasn’t really faded away, and for me that magic won’t ever fade completely.