Playstation's Best

Playstation’s Best
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
Neversoft | Activision | 1999 | Sports - Extreme
IN THE MID 1980s, A YOUNG DEVELOPER named
Matt Householder sat in his kitchen, attempting to come
up with an idea for a new Epyx videogame. They had published,
to great success, a series of sports titles including
Summer Games, Winter Games and World Games. But
what was left? Serendipitously, Householder’s wife looked
out the window and saw a kid skateboarding down their
street. Why not a videogame about extreme sports? Work
on the classic California Games began soon after.
Fast forward ten years. With the unexpected success of
snowboarding titles like Coolboarders and 1080, publishers
began looking for “X Games” titles to add to their library.
Activision was one of the first out the gate, releasing
Neversoft’s skateboarding masterpiece Tony Hawk Pro
Skater in 1999. Tony Hawk producer Scott Pease explains
the allure of alternative sports games: “The basketball, football,
and hockey games are great, but they haven’t changed
that much over the years. The rules for those games are
written in stone and will never change. Extreme sports, on
the other hand, are more malleable. From a game design
standpoint you have a lot more freedom to experiment with
new modes of play, new locations, characters, and elements.”
Tony Hawk is not a straight sports game; it is, in effect, an
adventure. Levels are sprawling, and the player is free to
skate and perform tricks without even attempting to achieve
some goal. “At first,” Pease explains, “this was a little disconcerting
for people - they kept asking ‘Where’s the finish
line? What do you do?’ After playing with it a while, they
realized the answer was ‘Anything you want to.’” Special
tricks, unique to each character, allow the player to perform
stunts that are near impossible in real life. Top real-world
skateboarders and skating meccas (such as Portland’s
Burnside) lend their images to the title.
In the wake of Tony Hawk Pro Skater, extreme sports games
of every variety attempted to cash in on the craze; games
based on BMX racing, surfing, and even Razor scooters (in
two separate titles, no less) were released. None of these
competitors could match the intuitive control, top-notch
music, and innovation of THPS.
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