Worth noting for Tony hawk's Pro Skater 1 was the fact that in the exact same year as the launch of the game, Tony Hawk nailed the now famous 900, televised at that prior summer's 1999 x-games. This undoubtedly was a landmark achievement, it added an insane amount of credibility and notoriety to Tony as an athlete but also to the sport of skateboarding-- the fact that it was mere months prior to the game's release definitely helped increase interest.
For skaters probably but my 5 year old self had no clue about anything skateboarding related. My parents would always rent random games. I fell in love with the game and skateboarding immediately lol.
@@TheSaturdaySpot Yes I know, but you're not going to make any headway with people who don't believe by screaming this. If you're a real person, you look like a bot or just an insane person.
I had no idea about this event taking place months before the release! In all honesty, you could even argue the trick was plotted as a marketing tactic on the side! Just imagine how many times Hawk affirmed to himself “pull the trick or else the game sales will fail”
Rough take on THPS4... I'd call that the true pinnacle of the series so it's weird to see you slam everything about it, haha. Might be a nostalgia thing, but the controls and levels are great and the open world was way better than being limited to two-minute runs on the level.
As someone who played from the beginning, THP4 on release didn't look exciting and I only every played a borrowed copy from a friend. It was fun but felt way less action packed which really does stem from the lack of timer. It went from feeling like an event at every level to feeling like you're just going around doing chores. The series later did that concept a lot better with thug 1/2 and AW.
@@Greenleaf_I'm playing through 4 now and while there's a lot of great stuff you hit the nail on the head here. It doesn't feel as exciting as 3 and often feels like you're meandering around just going through the motions up until you hit the later levels/pro goals and the difficulty ramps up. The experimentation with skitching, luge segments, mini games, that weird bullseye goal on Alcatraz etc are more miss than hit. Still a great game but feels less relentless than 3 while less focused/dramatic than THUG onwards
I feel like thug through american wasteland had the best feeling controls. The bert sliding and parkour really added a lot to american wasteland. Also, the bank transfer in american wasteland was very forgiving, which was fun.
that soundtrack got me into several of those mid aughts emo bands. some punk bands too, even a couple rappers. the last truly great one all round I feel (not counting the THPS 1/2 remaster set)
Bank Drops don't get enough appreciation. Being able to drop to the ground with a burst of speed over any slanted surface really opened up the possibilities in a level in a cool way. Same with stalls and being able to instantly halt your momentum and change direction.
nada spin, air rolls, double jump, the level of freedom kept increasing and peaked with american wasteland, i just wish the levels were more classic like thug
What happened? Activision happened. Over and over again. Underground 2 was my entry point and I loved that game... but this was Neversoft's sixth THPS game by then. Sixth yearly game no less. By Project 8, they were knackered and that wasn't even near the end point. Activision just didn't let the series breathe and this is the timeline that we ended up with.
@@Wol1427better than getting proper modern sequels? Not at all. I would take good new games over remakes of games I can emulate on a 10 year old phone 🤷🏾♀️
yeeeeeahhh once he got to THUG i was like 😅😅😅 nahhh bruh getting off the board was legendary and it had the best create a park and story felt amazing soundtrack....
"games were seen as juvenile to a wider audience. Something that kids did." This, and that was the less severe era. People think I'm lying when I say that when I was a kid in the early 90's, saying you played games got you bullied and made fun of for being a loser nerd. While my older brother legit had to hide his commodore 64 in the garage and cover it with a towel when friends from the football team came over lest he be ostracized, as playing games in his day could get you your ass kicked. Kids these days can't fathom such a reality.
That was definitely a case by case basis but was by no means the rule. Plenty of teens played video games in the early 90s and didn't get bullied or made fun of. The Mortal Kombat arcade machines would be crowded with teens.
@@desuretard8654 Sorry, my older brother is 12 years older than me. And yeah plenty of kids did play arcade machines, but what I am saying is that it was definitely not the socially accepted/cool thing despite what advertising of the time, and hindsight might lead one believe and remember. Attitudes changed very vast though, but I was just on the edge of that final "class of" that saw games as being for losers. Girls especially did. A big part of why the whole "tits or GTFO" and girls don't use the internet thing were so widespread in the 00's.
For me, 4 and THUG are my favorites. I get the appeal of the timer, but I loved being able to skate around the levels and explore without having a timer. The addition of Rodney Mullen's flatground tricks and all of the videos made them way more appealing to me. I grew up playing the first 3, I was 7 the first time I played THPS and immediately made my dad go buy me a skateboard. But those are my favorites. Great video
@@IITaDHGdALToNII I agree. The Alcatraz level was my favorite. I spent what felt like hours just exploring it. I also liked the campy humor of the characters in the more story driven games. It did start to fall apart after THUG2 though
5:52 Do not forget Millencolin! Millencolin's No Cigar is imo one of the best songs or even the best of the franchise, along with Committed, Cyco Vision, The Worlds Collide and You. And yeah, you mentioned Powerman 5000 there, I know.
I'm from a southern area of the United States that still is very rural, that never had any places to skate, and back in those days there was no exposure to the sport due to being pretty dang isolated and the population being generally very poor, most could not afford cable. So no MTV, ESPN, or any other channel I can think of that'd show skateboarding of any sort. When the PS1 Tony Hawk games came out a lot of kids in my school thought skateboarding was some fantasy sport made up for the game. Kinda funny looking back.
man I cannot believe you called Philly in THPS2 boring. If you're actually intersted in skateboarding and the culture surrounding it Philly is such a cool level. The two main spots in Philly's map are massively culturally important spots to skateboarding. Love park is one of if not the most iconic skate spots ever and FDR is a major DIY that has a huge amount of history to it. It might not translate the best because ledge skating in the Tony Hawk series isn't really a thing but the fact that the level was that accurate especially at that time in skateboarding was really huge. The reason you drain the fountain is because the city of Philadelphia would drain the fountain every winter and people would skate the fountain gap.
That's because people need to be entertained by dynamic props and features that take away from the art of skating. Philly is a great street-skating level because it requires creativity. It's like a blank canvas compared to all of those obnoxiously overdesigned international levels in the successive games.
24:23, I wanted to comment on this because American Wasteland has the BIGGEST EXCUSE for being wacky. Underground 1, kind of wacky but semi-believably. Underground 2 though had Bam Margera committing acts of terrorism across the world, which is kind of ironic because he is now wanted by the Philadelphia Police Department. However American Wasteland, in the story takes place in a comic. In the starting intro, it shows a dude picking up the comic of American Wasteland, and a handful of cutscenes take place through a heavily artistic artstyle. This game has the BIGGEST excuse for being extremely absurd, and I congratulate it for at least having a reason for being wacky.
Fucking tragic what happened with Bam. Part of him died with Ryan Dunn and it was all seriously downhill from there, gotta wonder how different things would be if Dunn was still around. Sure he'd probably still be a crazy dick, but I doubt he'd be the complete disaster he is now.
I remember playing so much Pro Skater 2 on Sega Dreamcast. Pro Skater 4 is a game I've rented in the past, but it's one where I could never remember what it was like. THUG had its moments and I loved most of the gameplay. American Wasteland was fricking awesome! I absolutely love going through the story mode. I never played Tony Hawk's Ride because the included controller never worked. At least the 2020 remake of 1 & 2 kicked ass.
On the subject of Tony Hawk levels irl I went to Balboa Park about 2 years ago completely unaware that it was the place that the San Diego level in THUG (my favorite level in my favorite game) was based off of and it blew my whole entire mind. I had no idea that any of these levels were so closely based on real life locations, the layout of the place was nearly exact and it was a massive trip being somewhere I've never been before and yet knowing it so intimately.
I believe that getting rid of the 2 minute timer was a really good thing, because personally i would like to keep riding instead of being forced to stop after only 2 minutes. And i think the franchise took a dive since THUG2 where it started having more of a "Jackass" style.
Agreed, and there is a very good reason it never came back in other popular skateboarding games. It felt too "Arcady," and tbh sometimes you just want to tricks.
One of my proudest accomplishments is 100%’ing Pro Skater 4 on Xbox twice (and I actually have pics to back it up). While I agree that it did lead to the end of the series’ strongest peak, I’m happy we got it, Underground, and the predecessors. Good stuff all around
So weird to see the spine transfer glazed over, that alongside the manual were the two best mechanic upgrades to the edition. Currently playing thps3 and can't stop hitting R2 over transfer lines. Not being able to air from one transition to another was a crucial aspect of real life skating the games were missing out on. 3 is OK, airport level is sick but not a patch on 2 and 4's locations overall.
I spent countless hours on American wasteland just building custom parks. Don’t forget this was one of the first games made where if you had an Xbox, you could actually play the songs stored in your hard drive inside the game. It was completely revolutionary.
I think the physics change with Project 8 is really what did it in. By then, people have moved on to the more realistic Skate series, and the physics in the next Tony Hawk games were just not up to par with the worst of it being HD and 5. When THPS1+2 brought back the original physics, it was automatically a good game. Sure it was a remake, but it proved that the problem was mainly gameplay related.
I hate that 4 is usually overlooked/looked down on. Maybe unpopular opinion, but as a kid I hated the 2 minute timer, so I have the fondest memories of 4. I played countless hours of it on the ps2, and is my favorite one looking back on the series, granted with a heavy amount of nostalgia.
You forgot to mention how Tony Landed the 900 right before the game came out, which did a huge boost for the games momentum. Literally Tony called the team at Neversoft after he did it and was asking for them to put it in the game while the team was already on it stating “You rule”
Got into the series kinda late so I'm definitely in the minority but THPS 4 is my favorite. Put countless hours in that game, I loved exploring the maps which felt huge at the time. I feel like having a timer would have took some of that appeal away.
As someone who almost literally grew up at the skatepark, the THPS games were absolutely iconic. Skateboarding was my life through my teens; competitions, filming skate vids, watching the premiers of the videos from pro teams, hanging out at the skate shop, demos, making roadtrips to every park in my home state, building ramps, spending 6+ hours/day at the park, and, of course, the video games. It's crazy to hear how other people perceived the series because my experience with the series was very different than the opinions protrayed in this video. Where the creator points out THPS4 as the start of the problems, I remember that one being significantly better than the 3 before it. To me, that's when an already good franchise became even better. 1, 2, and 3 were great games, but I remember playing 4 more than any of the previous releases when it came out. I particularly liked the change from having a two minute timer to the open world quest style gameplay because it meant that I got to play for longer periods without stopping. It felt less like an arcade game and more like some skater exploring their city. In terms of THUG and THUG2 allowing you to do things other than skateboard, I also felt like this was a welcome addition. These sections of the games really felt like they drew inspiration from things like Viva La Bam and the Jackass crew, both of which were intimately linked to the skateboarding scene; or at least the scene I was a part of. It gave the games that sort of "mess stuff up and have fun while wrecking the city" type of feel and humor which resonated with a lot of skateboarders. They also added a lot of pro skaters that were popular at the time not just as playable characters, but story characters. It felt like you got to interact with the pros a little bit which was nice. To me, I never experienced the lack of identify the creator talks about in this video. It was the franchise evolving in a way that included more of the real-life skate scene and I remember feeling absolutely hyped when I played these games for the first time. Seeing the stories with the pro skaters was awesome. It was like a bunch of my childhood heros all came together to create something just for me and my friends. American Wasteland was probably one of the most forgettable games in the series for me personally. I could barely remember any of the locations or the story the creator featured in the video. RIP Carlsbad though. In my opinion, Project 8 was the best example of smooth and seamless skateboarding in the entire series. this game and THPS4 are tied for my two favorite games of the series and I spent significantly longer playing both of them than any of the other entries. I remember the nail-the-trick feature as being really cool and innovative at the time. I don't agree that this was an example of the series treading water. For me, it was a revival of the series and a welcome change after American Wasteland. The idea of competing with other skaters to get on the team really resonated with me as I was someone who took part in multiple competitions as a teenager. I think Proving Grounds was the only game in the series that I never actually got a chance to play. I can say though that seeing a young Nyjah Houston brings back a lot of nostalgia as I got to meet him during a local Element demo when he still had his dreads. Downhill Jam was absolute trash. There definitely was, and I guess still is, a scene for skateboard racing, but it's much much smaller than the regular skateboarding scene. It used to be more popular when skateboarding was in its infancy but it became clear very quickly that doing tricks on skateboards was much more entertaining for most people than racing. I remember being excited about Ride and thinking that it had great potential in concept, but when I actually tried it I remember it being extremely clunky and not very accurate to how skateboarding is actually done in the real world so that killed it for me. The SKATE series was another one that I thought was going to be really good but I just couldn't get into it. As much as it was more realistic (still nowhere near realistic enough for me), I just straight-up enjoyed the feeling of playing the Tony Hawk games more. The SKATE series for me feels more like I'm playing with a virtual tech deck than actually skateboarding. Despite the Tony Hawk games being significantly less realistic, they somehow felt closer to actual skateboarding to me.
I wish you would do a long form breakdown of thug 1,2 and American waste land.. I like the tight and concise break downs but I wouldn't mind see you give more of a critical analysis of the series. Level for level, bar for bar, word for word, I wanna here what young tactical bacon thought about these games, all that aside good on you mate. This is a classic.
Ill be honest, im surprised not a lot of people show love to THPS4. I loved that game when i was younger on my PS2. Id put it in my top 4 with THPS2, 3 THUG and 4. Those 4 i sunk the most hours into
After Proving Ground, Neversoft took over the Guitar Hero franchise from Harmonix, who had to give it up because they were bought out by MTV Games while the GH series was owned by Activision. Neversoft wound up making 7 GH games (III, Aerosmith, World Tour, Metallica, 5, Band Hero, and Warriors of Rock) before becoming a support studio tasked with helping on Call of Duty games (they worked on MW3, Ghosts and Advanced Warfare), after which they were shuttered. So arguably, while the waning interest and eventual knee-capping of the TH series did serious damage to the studio, it was arguably actually the downfall of the GH series that killed Neversoft.
You said something like "When you focus more on the other things and less on the Skating things might be going downhill". Just makes me think of Skate 4 when they keep talking about how they want to focus on offboard mechanics for people who aren't skaters or aren't that into skating...
Just imagine if GTA VI put a skateboarding as a free mode in the game. All those ledges, staris, gaps and rails across LS, LC, VC...lol. Btw, tnx for the effort to put this video up!
I grew up playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater on my Dreamcast. I was so young though, I could never get past the mall. When I finally played Thug1 I was still so small my thumbs couldn't even reach the analog sticks. However, because of the difficulty selection and the ability to get off your board, Thug 1 was the first Tony game I was able to beat. So, I agree with the observation that Thug1 was more accessible to the younger generations.
I would argue that the series was ran into the ground by Activision releasing yearly major titles and releasing on the mobile platforms as well. If Neversoft had longer dev time they could have fleshed the ideas presented a lot more and also work on new directions for the series. In an alternate history after THPS3 they didnt release 4 and use that time to reinvent the series more than they achieved with THUG.
Imagine how IRRELEVANT was Proving Ground that I wasn't even aware of its existence 💀 and I even played Downhill Jam. My favorite game is THPS 3... I even got it a few weeks ago for my N64 and I loved it just like the time I played over the PSOne. THPS 2 was clearly the peak of the franchise and the one that everyone will remember and I even got it for GBA.
Been a Fan of Tony Hawk since the first Game still remember going to buy it…. And the second one. Didn’t play the Third Game till after I completed THPS4. I slowly collected the other Games as Retro Collecting!
This series was a huge part of my childhood. I started with 2 and played every one after that except for 4 and Proving Grounds. I loved 2 and 3, but honestly Project 8 stuck with me the most. I loved that game, man. I can't imaging the hours I put into that game.
As a kid, I played the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games but mostly the first 2. I never played Tony Hawk's Underground but I did try out Project 8 and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. I didn't bother with Pro Skater 5 but I did play Pro Skater 1+2. It was also cool that Vicarious Visions was the developer since they worked on the handheld ports of the THPS games. They did well.
I got Tony Hawk Ride for christmas and was stoked. I tried for 2 weeks to get the board to calibrate, got a replacement board and still couldnt calibrate it. Never even got to try the game.
I feel, maybe based on nostalgia, that the THUG series was peak tony hawk. American wasteland is the assend if you will to that peak, pushing that game engine to it's limits, and if any game deserves a remake it's definitely American wasteland.
What not everyone knows is that Demo of THPS1 allowed combining tricks. You could make a backflip and add while doing it kickflips or grabs. I played that demo so much that after I got the full version I felt something was off and I could not connect as many tricks as before. I really did not like addition of manuals. They added freedom but the planning of best route was destroyed. In THPS1 you had to find perfect route and it was part of the experience. Manual in theory expanded that but you had the impression they were safety nets more than a feature.
The place I got my haircuts at when I was little had a PlayStation 1 and some games to play while you get your haircut. One of the pro skater games was available. I THINK it was 3 on account of the other two games they had (Harry Potter and the Phikospher’s Stone and Scooby Doo Cyber Chase) being released 2001 like 3, but I’m not entirely sure. This means Tony Hawk was one of the first games I ever played, despite that I haven’t played any of the games since. Since I was 4 or 5 I had no idea how to play nor did I know who this Tony Hawk guy was so I stuck with the series I knew and never looked back. Though you and Liam Triforce are making a good arguments to give the series (more specifically the first 3 or 4 games) another chance
A Pro Skater game set in a future world where skateboarding is so mainstream and so much money is pumped into it that it developed to the point where rocket boards and jumping robot sharks is the norm for Big Skateboarding. You play as a poor skateboarder working his way up from skating in his old skate park up to the big arena events. I wonder if that could work? Silly, but also critical of the silliness and offering a degree of social commentary. Basically: Yeah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous are shallow and empty. However, if given the choice between skateboarding in your local park for no money and skateboarding with a rocket board in front of a huge crowd then getting with the groupies afterwards, but elitists will call you a sell-out and make mean videos critical of you, you'd realise that most people would choose the second option unless they're extremely insecure.
Proving Ground, Project 8 and American Wasteland I got joy out of, stories were memorable and felt closer to the skate world, but at that time I think skaters actually wanted a more realistic game, and Skate beat them to it. THUG 2 and THPS 4 are completely underrated and are absolute classics. THPS 2 is the most iconic and most replayed game for me. It was the game I started with. But THUG 1 was the height of the franchise, easily. It was still so mainstream. I remember playing Blink's self titled album on repeat and skating in Moscow every day for months. Big respect to that franchise
Bro, the fact you actually liked THAW was such an unexpected twist, especially since you kept finding more and more reasons to hate on each subsequent game. Biases aside, THAW is a very flawed game but it has excellent features too and shouldn't be dismissed like it usually is. THUG2 is still my favorite in the series though.
THPS4 was my favorite of the pro skaters, it had the most tricks and refinement you could do. THUG series whackyness made the wild side of tricks being unrealistic perfect. Wasteland added bikes and i never really played Dave Mira games so it was cool. Project 8 and Proving ground made the story aspect of TH games intriguing, also the slow motion and am,sick,pro was fun. Sadly TH went down hill after and Skate made a new and great skate system. TH will always be fun no matter the time. Skating is just fun.
What really killed the series was the drift towards realism in Project 8 and Proving Ground (especially Proving Ground with its 2007 bland greyness) and a ton of the devs who had been there from the start leaving between Underground 2 and Project 8 because they had just got sick of making the same game over and over.
Long shot in the dark here, HELP! Tactical and Chat: What is that game at 35:23 ? The one subway chick - "Some concepts have an extremely limited shelf life..." . I remember playing the S out of that but cant remember the name. Thank you.
I jumped in with Pro Skater 3 and stopped playing after Project 8. I did not play another Tony Hawk game until the Pro Skater 1+2 Remaster. My childhood fav however was THUG.
Pro Skater 2 was my first video game. I was a loyal fan all the way through Proving Ground which was a major bummer, despite trying to convince myself otherwise. THPS2 and THUG are my personal favorites. Can't tell you how many hours of my life I've spent playing these games.
I dropped at Proving Ground, the "pushing/pressure" mechanic destroyed it for me. Breaking your combo line right at the start because you didn't pushed enough or didn't kept the tempo of the pushing breaks the basic interest of the series for me. I did give a chance to Downhill Jam (which was fun in its racing type of way) and Ride (which is a cool concept that turned bad because of the board design). Never tried 5 because it is still at full price even though it is the worst from what I've heard.
Great video, but that part about most skaters being kids and teenagers is unbelievably false. Yeah, there are a lot of little kids skating because skateboarding is still growing in popularity, but one of the unique things about skaters (5 years in HS with your homies doesn't count), is that they don't quit. Age and even the most fucked up injuries rarely deter them. I'm 32, but a lot of the most active skaters I see around here are in their 40s and 50s. The reason we're different from other sports fans is that skateboarding isn't really a sport by default. Everyone has a different relationship with it, so a video game targeting skateboarders isn't gonna appeal to them all because their tastes vary too much. The key to the THPS series' success was that it captured the attention of the mainstream.
Could it have been? THUG 2 and AW had a handful of early Internet culture and memes scattered about as Easter Eggs, primarily Star Wars Kid and Homestar Runner references. If Chris Chan emerging into the cultural phenomenon (s)he is today lines up with the development cycle of AW, I'd buy it.
I set up the game cube for my kids and was really disappointed playing 4. I have every one through proving ground and always liked the new additions, but now it just seems all over the place if that makes sense. I really liked the simplicity of the earlier games
Watching this I can see it. It's exhausting going through the series and it had yearly releases, sometimes even more than one a year. After THAW it really lost that luster and important feeling, had they been able to cool it and done one every other year I can see the overall trajectory being much better
This is a very very unpopular opinion but Proving Ground, most specifically the Xbox 360 version, was the best game of the series, gameplay wise, after Underground 2 and American Wasteland. The offset camera angle in particular was a nice change. It's too bad it wasn't included as an option in THPS1+2 HD.
i had so much fun with project 8, i was some punk dude with some chinese hat, the ragdoll physics made a huge difference along with the polish in graphics (specifically ps3/360). I think they should have built upon project 8, activision should have took advantage of the brand and competed with skate while keeping its identity, tony hawk should have added more realism while still focusing on over the top stuff, stuff that would encourage skaters to become more innovative with their tricks, skate was great an all, but it reminded us of the reality of skating and how weve pretty much reached a limit in that world.
I enjoyed 3 when it came out, THPS on ps2 was a dream. I recently replayed it and did y love the levels as much. I kind of like the levels to be some level of realistic. So the airport and cruise ship seemed silly playing it again 20 years later. I don’t mind funny goofy goals, but I want my levels mostly grounded. The gameplay elements 3 added though are paramount.
The reason THPS had so much success is because it was the only skating game out there. By the time it hit 3 the gameplay had gotten stale but it sold because again it was the only one out there. Even watching the gameplay you include in the video the gameplay is really jerky and once you learned to manual/rail/grind you could just infinitely link tricks and the game lost its shine quickly. Once Skate dropped in 2007 it was the nail in the coffin clearly as it had very refined and intuitive controls, fun challenges and while you could link with manuals/grinds/rails you also gained lower points for repeated tricks within a single path. The seamless world you played in and the nearly infinite number of lines to choose from and link made it an instant classic and undoubtedly was the Hawk killer. I find myself going back and just free skating Skate and Skate2 fairly regularly, I can't say I have ever gone back to revisit the Hawk games because they just had too much arcade in them.
On Tony hawk's underground if you got the secret tape and got the school level you could hop the big wall and the Carlsbad Gap is there in the back left corner of level
Tony Hawk 3 blew my mind. My brother had a gamecube. Didn't know the terminology at the time, but it was that 60fps. It was so fluid. I remember my brother doing an endless combo on the luggage area in the Airport. Pretty sure you could freeze the gamecube, or one of the systems up by getting the score too high.
That Sobe project placement. It's probably just my failing memory and the oddworld Sobe placement but fuck do I NEED a sobe. I remember really enjoying it but I was a very young kid. At that age anything with sugar tastes like the greatest thing ever created.
THPS2x isn't a remake. It's more of just a straight up re-release with additional content. Graphically and gameplay wise it's the same game despite being on newer hardware
To me THUG1 is the best TH Game. Awesome Music, awesome Controls (Ignore on Foot Control) a Nice Story, awesome Levels. It really feels like an Adventure. As a whole THUG is the Best TH Game. Of course, when you really love the 2min Arcade thing, then THPS3 is the best.
I remember my dad getting the first Tony Hawk on PS1 and I loved it all the way until project 8 that’s when it fell off for me and I started to play Skate
It was the yearly release cycle....that's what happened. Neversoft was forced to iterate every year to keep the franchise going whether they had something worthwhile or not. It's clear by the end they started cramming as much stuff in the game as possible to justify every sequel, but if they would have had a few years between each game, the franchise would have lasted much longer.
In my opinion The franchise died after THPS3. A lot of it had to do with removing the time-limit. The physics in 3 were perfect. Literally perfect. I would have paid 60$ a year for 15 new maps with challenges honestly. I played THPS from the start all the way until Project 8 (which was the first one I didn't 100% completed, while I completed almost every Tony Hawk game multiple times before. Although the first 3 I finished with practically every character.
6:40 It's kinda odd showing the PlayStation footage here... Though the Tony Hawk games released the earliest on PlayStation, other ports had better visuals and presentations; particularly the Dreamcast versions. As long as you stick to the Dreamcast versions, the graphics look better than you expect, but not as good as the later entries that came out on Xbox.
If i had a time machine I'd go back to a summer day of 9th grade skating all day and playing tony hawk 3 with my friends. I can almost feel it exactly like it was when i watch the canada level.
I just wish VV could have gotten to remake underground or a new game as 1+2 hit the gameplay on point and just really needed a better character creator to be the perfect experience imo (also I've played every Neversoft game growing up the Vicarious Visions hand held ports to Nintendo systems and HD (the only Robomoto game I played) it bums me out seeing the series die off and I feel the best thing they could have done given they mastered the gameplay is take time not being a yearly thing to craft really well made levels with great combo lines and secrets while also fleshing out the character creator and other customization elements
TLDR: Bobby Kotick cares for Call of Duty more than the rest of their IPs. Right after teams like Vicarious Visions and Toys for Bob made great games, They made them COD Support Devs.
Dude I think I was part of that minority. I would get the new Hawk games every time I had the money! I had Pro Skater 1-3, Underground 1-2, and American Wasteland. These games were my passion even though I knew there wasn't much change after 3. It didn't matter to me at all, I would replay every single one over and over again all through my childhood and teen-hood! The only reason why I couldn't get the rest of the games was because I couldn't find them :( When 4 came out, I didn't have the money to get it so I had to wait on that, then the underground games came out and I got those. After AW the same thing happened and I couldn't get project 8 or proving grounds because I could never find them on stores! Sadly I had to "part ways" with my Tony Hawk collection when we had to move countries because things kept happening to my collection slowly as time went on :( Heat warped my Pro skater 1-2, pro skater 3 was stolen, THUG 2 suffered from disk rot, and american waistland cracked for no reason, the only surviving one was THUG man. I still play the ever living shit out of that game. Some day I'll save up to buy those games again man, I swear. Die hard fan right here.
I think as I got older I wanted more realism in my Skateboarding video game. I played Tony Hawk games before I actually started Skateboarding. Eventually I realized Tony Hawk video games aren’t realistic to what Skateboarding is as a whole. So when Skate came out people who actually skated gravitated towards that game being close to realism of real Skateboarding. Then Tony Hawk came with the Ride version. Which consisted of the Skateboard controller. Which was interesting and fun for all of two days. Then it became clunky and hardly responsive to the trick you motioned. Then Session Skateboard Sim came out. That truly changed Skateboarding games and it’s possibilities. With being able to control how you catch the board with both feet, how you flicked the board. Tony Hawk video games just can’t compete anymore with the competition. SkaterXL is another one, but in my honest opinion that game feels super arcade like. Shaun White skateboard game I never gave the time of day to. So I can’t share any thoughts on that. But I think To y Hawk games certainly needs something new to compete with where the modern era of Skateboarding games are eventually going to go. Which I hope is a GTA V style open world with Skateboarding. Where we can buy cars, buy houses, buy apartments/condos, buy land, have sponsors, film video parts, and just be skaters online and create a skateboard community. Now obviously nothing will compare to real Skateboarding. But certainly getting close to Tony Hawk just becoming a game of the past. The only thing I think games like Session need to add is that first person perspective that we as skaters actually view from.
Fantastic analysis. My jumping in point was the Pizza Hut demo of THPS and my dropping out point was THAW. I almost dropped out after THUG 2, but I'm glad I stuck around for American Wasteland.
15:29 you're right about that. My introduction to the Tony Hawk series was THUG. I was hooked and started playing it all from there. Wasn't until around THUG 2 or American Wasteland that I would also go back and play the older Pro Skater titles on my PS1. I think i was around 7 years old when I first played THUG. Edit: To add, the journey stopped for me after Proving Ground. I only had Project 8 on the PSP and I really didn't like it. Not realizing how limited it was compared to the console version that I'd usually play them on. I probably would've played Project 8 the whole way through if it weren't for that. But yeah, i lost interest at that point after Proving Ground. I moved solely to Skate 2 or would revert back to the older Tony Hawk titles
The most annoying thing to me in Project 8 is the Camera Position. Why is it so zoomed in, this is so annoying for a TH Veteran like me. It makes the game really unfun to play. Edit: I checked and saw it was Proving Ground what I played, but from the footage in the video, I see that this was the case in this game already.
Played THPS when it came out, thought it was neat. Completely missed THPS2. Fell in love with the series at THPS3. I personally loved 4, THUG 1&2, and THAW, each in their own way. Project 8 was my hard jump off point. Everything felt simultaneously too heavy and too floaty. Camera was too close. Environment felt too grounded, bland and washed out (a common problem for early 7th gen games) and going from wild and wacky, cranked up to 11 style gameplay and story, the game fell about as flat as it could for me. At the end of the day, I still think THPS3 is my favorite and the absolute peak of the series all these years later.
now looking back i really think the franchise could be saved simply by building off of thps 1+2. its such a perfect game. feels great, looks great. and yes its "just" a remake but oh man did they prove that they know what fans want. for me personally the best tony hawk game of all time. activision really has something great there thanks to vicarious visions but i sadly dont think they will ever capitalize on that. even as a game thats constantly updated it would be cool if it was successful. like imagine thps 1+2 but it frequently gets new cosmetics, new maps, new challenges. would be a dream for me but i dont think theres money to be made there for activision. hence why they put all their studios on cod now.
Worth noting for Tony hawk's Pro Skater 1 was the fact that in the exact same year as the launch of the game, Tony Hawk nailed the now famous 900, televised at that prior summer's 1999 x-games. This undoubtedly was a landmark achievement, it added an insane amount of credibility and notoriety to Tony as an athlete but also to the sport of skateboarding-- the fact that it was mere months prior to the game's release definitely helped increase interest.
For skaters probably but my 5 year old self had no clue about anything skateboarding related. My parents would always rent random games. I fell in love with the game and skateboarding immediately lol.
JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO HEAVEN
@@TheSaturdaySpot Yes I know, but you're not going to make any headway with people who don't believe by screaming this. If you're a real person, you look like a bot or just an insane person.
@@TheSaturdaySpot AMEN
I had no idea about this event taking place months before the release! In all honesty, you could even argue the trick was plotted as a marketing tactic on the side!
Just imagine how many times Hawk affirmed to himself “pull the trick or else the game sales will fail”
Finally, someone on the internet giving American Wasteland the respect it deserves!
Wasteland rules, but I only recently got a chance to play it. Now it's my third favorite just next to 3 in second and THUG in first.
Caddicarus did say in his skateboarding games video that it's one of his favorite Tony Hawk games.
Still play my collector’s edition. 🔥
I'm still waiting for the underground 2 praise personally
@@WebMasterGG THUG2 is the best game. best maps best gameplay, it isnt my favorite ost maybe like top 5 THPS ost, nd thats saying something
Rough take on THPS4... I'd call that the true pinnacle of the series so it's weird to see you slam everything about it, haha. Might be a nostalgia thing, but the controls and levels are great and the open world was way better than being limited to two-minute runs on the level.
Their love for the crappy ps1 games are too much to appreciate the wackiness of the 4th and the underground series especially american wasteland
As someone who played from the beginning, THP4 on release didn't look exciting and I only every played a borrowed copy from a friend. It was fun but felt way less action packed which really does stem from the lack of timer. It went from feeling like an event at every level to feeling like you're just going around doing chores. The series later did that concept a lot better with thug 1/2 and AW.
Thps4 is the best in the series imo even has a London level
@@Greenleaf_I'm playing through 4 now and while there's a lot of great stuff you hit the nail on the head here. It doesn't feel as exciting as 3 and often feels like you're meandering around just going through the motions up until you hit the later levels/pro goals and the difficulty ramps up. The experimentation with skitching, luge segments, mini games, that weird bullseye goal on Alcatraz etc are more miss than hit. Still a great game but feels less relentless than 3 while less focused/dramatic than THUG onwards
THPS4 is definitely up there as my favorite but he's not exactly wrong. THPS4 feels more like a proof of concept for what would later become THUG.
I feel like thug through american wasteland had the best feeling controls. The bert sliding and parkour really added a lot to american wasteland. Also, the bank transfer in american wasteland was very forgiving, which was fun.
that soundtrack got me into several of those mid aughts emo bands. some punk bands too, even a couple rappers. the last truly great one all round I feel (not counting the THPS 1/2 remaster set)
Bank Drops don't get enough appreciation. Being able to drop to the ground with a burst of speed over any slanted surface really opened up the possibilities in a level in a cool way. Same with stalls and being able to instantly halt your momentum and change direction.
nada spin, air rolls, double jump, the level of freedom kept increasing and peaked with american wasteland, i just wish the levels were more classic like thug
What happened?
Activision happened. Over and over again. Underground 2 was my entry point and I loved that game... but this was Neversoft's sixth THPS game by then. Sixth yearly game no less.
By Project 8, they were knackered and that wasn't even near the end point. Activision just didn't let the series breathe and this is the timeline that we ended up with.
Ended up with an amazing remake of two amazing THPS games..... 🤔🤔🤔
Pretty good timeline tbh....
@@Wol1427 Yeah, and a 3+4 dead in the womb. Fucking cheers.
@@Wol1427 and then vicarious visions were thrown in the blizzard dlc mines and thps3+4 got canned. timeline ruined again.
@@Wol1427better than getting proper modern sequels? Not at all. I would take good new games over remakes of games I can emulate on a 10 year old phone 🤷🏾♀️
same thing happened with COD! yearly releases were not a good thing.
THUG always stands out to me heavily because it featured my home town. Skating around Balboa Park and San Diego blew my mind as a kid
Lucky, when you live in another Country, like me in germany, you didn't knew this were real Citys, until you get told xD
THPS4 and THUG were my two favorites as a kid. Loved the story in THUG.
agreed, dear brother
Never played 4 it seemed out of place with massive levels and individual goals
I think it's crazy, and really cool how people can have such different opinions. I love every minute of THUG, it's my favorite Tony Hawk game by far.
same!!! i always wish Skate had taken on a drama-driven narrative the way THUG did.
💯 that's mine too
Me too
He nailed everything but thug games
yeeeeeahhh once he got to THUG i was like 😅😅😅 nahhh bruh getting off the board was legendary and it had the best create a park and story felt amazing soundtrack....
"games were seen as juvenile to a wider audience. Something that kids did."
This, and that was the less severe era. People think I'm lying when I say that when I was a kid in the early 90's, saying you played games got you bullied and made fun of for being a loser nerd. While my older brother legit had to hide his commodore 64 in the garage and cover it with a towel when friends from the football team came over lest he be ostracized, as playing games in his day could get you your ass kicked.
Kids these days can't fathom such a reality.
That was definitely a case by case basis but was by no means the rule. Plenty of teens played video games in the early 90s and didn't get bullied or made fun of. The Mortal Kombat arcade machines would be crowded with teens.
Dude, it's a commodore 64 in the early 90s.
@@desuretard8654 Sorry, my older brother is 12 years older than me.
And yeah plenty of kids did play arcade machines, but what I am saying is that it was definitely not the socially accepted/cool thing despite what advertising of the time, and hindsight might lead one believe and remember.
Attitudes changed very vast though, but I was just on the edge of that final "class of" that saw games as being for losers. Girls especially did. A big part of why the whole "tits or GTFO" and girls don't use the internet thing were so widespread in the 00's.
For me, 4 and THUG are my favorites. I get the appeal of the timer, but I loved being able to skate around the levels and explore without having a timer. The addition of Rodney Mullen's flatground tricks and all of the videos made them way more appealing to me. I grew up playing the first 3, I was 7 the first time I played THPS and immediately made my dad go buy me a skateboard. But those are my favorites. Great video
4 was an amazing game, I think sandbox is better than 2 mins constantly restarting
@@IITaDHGdALToNII I agree. The Alcatraz level was my favorite. I spent what felt like hours just exploring it. I also liked the campy humor of the characters in the more story driven games. It did start to fall apart after THUG2 though
5:52 Do not forget Millencolin!
Millencolin's No Cigar is imo one of the best songs or even the best of the franchise, along with Committed, Cyco Vision, The Worlds Collide and You.
And yeah, you mentioned Powerman 5000 there, I know.
Yeah, that's the song that comes to mind when I think of #2.
I'm from a southern area of the United States that still is very rural, that never had any places to skate, and back in those days there was no exposure to the sport due to being pretty dang isolated and the population being generally very poor, most could not afford cable. So no MTV, ESPN, or any other channel I can think of that'd show skateboarding of any sort. When the PS1 Tony Hawk games came out a lot of kids in my school thought skateboarding was some fantasy sport made up for the game. Kinda funny looking back.
It will forever be painful to hear non-skaters speak on skate video games.
man I cannot believe you called Philly in THPS2 boring. If you're actually intersted in skateboarding and the culture surrounding it Philly is such a cool level. The two main spots in Philly's map are massively culturally important spots to skateboarding. Love park is one of if not the most iconic skate spots ever and FDR is a major DIY that has a huge amount of history to it. It might not translate the best because ledge skating in the Tony Hawk series isn't really a thing but the fact that the level was that accurate especially at that time in skateboarding was really huge. The reason you drain the fountain is because the city of Philadelphia would drain the fountain every winter and people would skate the fountain gap.
That's because people need to be entertained by dynamic props and features that take away from the art of skating. Philly is a great street-skating level because it requires creativity. It's like a blank canvas compared to all of those obnoxiously overdesigned international levels in the successive games.
Yeah Philadelphia was fine
24:23, I wanted to comment on this because American Wasteland has the BIGGEST EXCUSE for being wacky. Underground 1, kind of wacky but semi-believably. Underground 2 though had Bam Margera committing acts of terrorism across the world, which is kind of ironic because he is now wanted by the Philadelphia Police Department. However American Wasteland, in the story takes place in a comic. In the starting intro, it shows a dude picking up the comic of American Wasteland, and a handful of cutscenes take place through a heavily artistic artstyle. This game has the BIGGEST excuse for being extremely absurd, and I congratulate it for at least having a reason for being wacky.
Fucking tragic what happened with Bam. Part of him died with Ryan Dunn and it was all seriously downhill from there, gotta wonder how different things would be if Dunn was still around. Sure he'd probably still be a crazy dick, but I doubt he'd be the complete disaster he is now.
I remember playing so much Pro Skater 2 on Sega Dreamcast. Pro Skater 4 is a game I've rented in the past, but it's one where I could never remember what it was like. THUG had its moments and I loved most of the gameplay. American Wasteland was fricking awesome! I absolutely love going through the story mode.
I never played Tony Hawk's Ride because the included controller never worked.
At least the 2020 remake of 1 & 2 kicked ass.
The rest of the MS don't often comment on my videos, so it's weirdly heartwarming to see you here.
I had Tony hawk pro skater 2 on pc, and I’ll say it’s a really unique experience to land tricks using a joystick haha
On the subject of Tony Hawk levels irl I went to Balboa Park about 2 years ago completely unaware that it was the place that the San Diego level in THUG (my favorite level in my favorite game) was based off of and it blew my whole entire mind. I had no idea that any of these levels were so closely based on real life locations, the layout of the place was nearly exact and it was a massive trip being somewhere I've never been before and yet knowing it so intimately.
That’s a super cool experience haha
I believe that getting rid of the 2 minute timer was a really good thing, because personally i would like to keep riding instead of being forced to stop after only 2 minutes. And i think the franchise took a dive since THUG2 where it started having more of a "Jackass" style.
Agreed, and there is a very good reason it never came back in other popular skateboarding games. It felt too "Arcady," and tbh sometimes you just want to tricks.
Tony Hawk said there was talk at Vicarious Visions about remakes of THPS3+4, but after being acquired by Blizzard, it was pretty much cancelled.
Talks resurfaced again for the 25 year
One of my proudest accomplishments is 100%’ing Pro Skater 4 on Xbox twice (and I actually have pics to back it up). While I agree that it did lead to the end of the series’ strongest peak, I’m happy we got it, Underground, and the predecessors. Good stuff all around
Manualing the bridge railing in chicago ;)
So weird to see the spine transfer glazed over, that alongside the manual were the two best mechanic upgrades to the edition. Currently playing thps3 and can't stop hitting R2 over transfer lines. Not being able to air from one transition to another was a crucial aspect of real life skating the games were missing out on.
3 is OK, airport level is sick but not a patch on 2 and 4's locations overall.
I spent countless hours on American wasteland just building custom parks. Don’t forget this was one of the first games made where if you had an Xbox, you could actually play the songs stored in your hard drive inside the game. It was completely revolutionary.
I think the physics change with Project 8 is really what did it in. By then, people have moved on to the more realistic Skate series, and the physics in the next Tony Hawk games were just not up to par with the worst of it being HD and 5. When THPS1+2 brought back the original physics, it was automatically a good game. Sure it was a remake, but it proved that the problem was mainly gameplay related.
It was legit illegal to skate in the town I lived in while growing up in the 90s/early 2000s.
How many Officer Dicks were in your town? Assume The Position!!!
I hate that 4 is usually overlooked/looked down on. Maybe unpopular opinion, but as a kid I hated the 2 minute timer, so I have the fondest memories of 4. I played countless hours of it on the ps2, and is my favorite one looking back on the series, granted with a heavy amount of nostalgia.
You forgot to mention how Tony Landed the 900 right before the game came out, which did a huge boost for the games momentum. Literally Tony called the team at Neversoft after he did it and was asking for them to put it in the game while the team was already on it stating “You rule”
Yeah I think Tony had that extra special move and it was worth the most points a single move could be in the game (not a grab or grind)
Got into the series kinda late so I'm definitely in the minority but THPS 4 is my favorite. Put countless hours in that game, I loved exploring the maps which felt huge at the time. I feel like having a timer would have took some of that appeal away.
As someone who almost literally grew up at the skatepark, the THPS games were absolutely iconic. Skateboarding was my life through my teens; competitions, filming skate vids, watching the premiers of the videos from pro teams, hanging out at the skate shop, demos, making roadtrips to every park in my home state, building ramps, spending 6+ hours/day at the park, and, of course, the video games.
It's crazy to hear how other people perceived the series because my experience with the series was very different than the opinions protrayed in this video. Where the creator points out THPS4 as the start of the problems, I remember that one being significantly better than the 3 before it. To me, that's when an already good franchise became even better. 1, 2, and 3 were great games, but I remember playing 4 more than any of the previous releases when it came out. I particularly liked the change from having a two minute timer to the open world quest style gameplay because it meant that I got to play for longer periods without stopping. It felt less like an arcade game and more like some skater exploring their city.
In terms of THUG and THUG2 allowing you to do things other than skateboard, I also felt like this was a welcome addition. These sections of the games really felt like they drew inspiration from things like Viva La Bam and the Jackass crew, both of which were intimately linked to the skateboarding scene; or at least the scene I was a part of. It gave the games that sort of "mess stuff up and have fun while wrecking the city" type of feel and humor which resonated with a lot of skateboarders. They also added a lot of pro skaters that were popular at the time not just as playable characters, but story characters. It felt like you got to interact with the pros a little bit which was nice. To me, I never experienced the lack of identify the creator talks about in this video. It was the franchise evolving in a way that included more of the real-life skate scene and I remember feeling absolutely hyped when I played these games for the first time. Seeing the stories with the pro skaters was awesome. It was like a bunch of my childhood heros all came together to create something just for me and my friends.
American Wasteland was probably one of the most forgettable games in the series for me personally. I could barely remember any of the locations or the story the creator featured in the video. RIP Carlsbad though.
In my opinion, Project 8 was the best example of smooth and seamless skateboarding in the entire series. this game and THPS4 are tied for my two favorite games of the series and I spent significantly longer playing both of them than any of the other entries. I remember the nail-the-trick feature as being really cool and innovative at the time. I don't agree that this was an example of the series treading water. For me, it was a revival of the series and a welcome change after American Wasteland. The idea of competing with other skaters to get on the team really resonated with me as I was someone who took part in multiple competitions as a teenager.
I think Proving Grounds was the only game in the series that I never actually got a chance to play. I can say though that seeing a young Nyjah Houston brings back a lot of nostalgia as I got to meet him during a local Element demo when he still had his dreads.
Downhill Jam was absolute trash. There definitely was, and I guess still is, a scene for skateboard racing, but it's much much smaller than the regular skateboarding scene. It used to be more popular when skateboarding was in its infancy but it became clear very quickly that doing tricks on skateboards was much more entertaining for most people than racing.
I remember being excited about Ride and thinking that it had great potential in concept, but when I actually tried it I remember it being extremely clunky and not very accurate to how skateboarding is actually done in the real world so that killed it for me.
The SKATE series was another one that I thought was going to be really good but I just couldn't get into it. As much as it was more realistic (still nowhere near realistic enough for me), I just straight-up enjoyed the feeling of playing the Tony Hawk games more. The SKATE series for me feels more like I'm playing with a virtual tech deck than actually skateboarding. Despite the Tony Hawk games being significantly less realistic, they somehow felt closer to actual skateboarding to me.
I wish you would do a long form breakdown of thug 1,2 and American waste land.. I like the tight and concise break downs but I wouldn't mind see you give more of a critical analysis of the series. Level for level, bar for bar, word for word, I wanna here what young tactical bacon thought about these games, all that aside good on you mate. This is a classic.
"from 2 to THUG" sounds like the title of a lost track from Compton days of rap.
I've got THPS3, THUG 1+2 and AW, Proving Ground all on disc and 1+2 Digital..Still hop on them weekly
Ill be honest, im surprised not a lot of people show love to THPS4. I loved that game when i was younger on my PS2. Id put it in my top 4 with THPS2, 3 THUG and 4. Those 4 i sunk the most hours into
After Proving Ground, Neversoft took over the Guitar Hero franchise from Harmonix, who had to give it up because they were bought out by MTV Games while the GH series was owned by Activision.
Neversoft wound up making 7 GH games (III, Aerosmith, World Tour, Metallica, 5, Band Hero, and Warriors of Rock) before becoming a support studio tasked with helping on Call of Duty games (they worked on MW3, Ghosts and Advanced Warfare), after which they were shuttered. So arguably, while the waning interest and eventual knee-capping of the TH series did serious damage to the studio, it was arguably actually the downfall of the GH series that killed Neversoft.
4 is the best one. Having the freedom without the timer and the addition of different skaters, also great maps
Only someone who can't get all objectives in 1 run would have this opinion. 😊
You said something like "When you focus more on the other things and less on the Skating things might be going downhill". Just makes me think of Skate 4 when they keep talking about how they want to focus on offboard mechanics for people who aren't skaters or aren't that into skating...
No hope in EA. Skate 3 already felt like a sellout. There was nothing it did better than 2. It felt like a soul-less board selling simulator.
Skate 4 is looking fantastic. What are you talking about?
Just imagine if GTA VI put a skateboarding as a free mode in the game. All those ledges, staris, gaps and rails across LS, LC, VC...lol. Btw, tnx for the effort to put this video up!
I grew up playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater on my Dreamcast. I was so young though, I could never get past the mall. When I finally played Thug1 I was still so small my thumbs couldn't even reach the analog sticks. However, because of the difficulty selection and the ability to get off your board, Thug 1 was the first Tony game I was able to beat. So, I agree with the observation that Thug1 was more accessible to the younger generations.
I would argue that the series was ran into the ground by Activision releasing yearly major titles and releasing on the mobile platforms as well. If Neversoft had longer dev time they could have fleshed the ideas presented a lot more and also work on new directions for the series. In an alternate history after THPS3 they didnt release 4 and use that time to reinvent the series more than they achieved with THUG.
Imagine how IRRELEVANT was Proving Ground that I wasn't even aware of its existence 💀 and I even played Downhill Jam. My favorite game is THPS 3... I even got it a few weeks ago for my N64 and I loved it just like the time I played over the PSOne. THPS 2 was clearly the peak of the franchise and the one that everyone will remember and I even got it for GBA.
Been a Fan of Tony Hawk since the first Game still remember going to buy it…. And the second one. Didn’t play the Third Game till after I completed THPS4. I slowly collected the other Games as Retro Collecting!
This series was a huge part of my childhood. I started with 2 and played every one after that except for 4 and Proving Grounds. I loved 2 and 3, but honestly Project 8 stuck with me the most. I loved that game, man. I can't imaging the hours I put into that game.
As a kid, I played the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games but mostly the first 2. I never played Tony Hawk's Underground but I did try out Project 8 and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. I didn't bother with Pro Skater 5 but I did play Pro Skater 1+2. It was also cool that Vicarious Visions was the developer since they worked on the handheld ports of the THPS games. They did well.
I got Tony Hawk Ride for christmas and was stoked. I tried for 2 weeks to get the board to calibrate, got a replacement board and still couldnt calibrate it. Never even got to try the game.
I feel, maybe based on nostalgia, that the THUG series was peak tony hawk. American wasteland is the assend if you will to that peak, pushing that game engine to it's limits, and if any game deserves a remake it's definitely American wasteland.
What not everyone knows is that Demo of THPS1 allowed combining tricks. You could make a backflip and add while doing it kickflips or grabs. I played that demo so much that after I got the full version I felt something was off and I could not connect as many tricks as before.
I really did not like addition of manuals. They added freedom but the planning of best route was destroyed. In THPS1 you had to find perfect route and it was part of the experience. Manual in theory expanded that but you had the impression they were safety nets more than a feature.
THUG 1 + 2 and American Wasteland were probably my favorite on the series that i played the most.
The place I got my haircuts at when I was little had a PlayStation 1 and some games to play while you get your haircut. One of the pro skater games was available. I THINK it was 3 on account of the other two games they had (Harry Potter and the Phikospher’s Stone and Scooby Doo Cyber Chase) being released 2001 like 3, but I’m not entirely sure.
This means Tony Hawk was one of the first games I ever played, despite that I haven’t played any of the games since. Since I was 4 or 5 I had no idea how to play nor did I know who this Tony Hawk guy was so I stuck with the series I knew and never looked back. Though you and Liam Triforce are making a good arguments to give the series (more specifically the first 3 or 4 games) another chance
A Pro Skater game set in a future world where skateboarding is so mainstream and so much money is pumped into it that it developed to the point where rocket boards and jumping robot sharks is the norm for Big Skateboarding. You play as a poor skateboarder working his way up from skating in his old skate park up to the big arena events.
I wonder if that could work? Silly, but also critical of the silliness and offering a degree of social commentary. Basically: Yeah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous are shallow and empty. However, if given the choice between skateboarding in your local park for no money and skateboarding with a rocket board in front of a huge crowd then getting with the groupies afterwards, but elitists will call you a sell-out and make mean videos critical of you, you'd realise that most people would choose the second option unless they're extremely insecure.
Proving Ground, Project 8 and American Wasteland I got joy out of, stories were memorable and felt closer to the skate world, but at that time I think skaters actually wanted a more realistic game, and Skate beat them to it.
THUG 2 and THPS 4 are completely underrated and are absolute classics.
THPS 2 is the most iconic and most replayed game for me. It was the game I started with.
But THUG 1 was the height of the franchise, easily. It was still so mainstream. I remember playing Blink's self titled album on repeat and skating in Moscow every day for months.
Big respect to that franchise
Dude project 8 on ps2 is a banger. I loved that game. The physics feel almost completely different to me
Bro, the fact you actually liked THAW was such an unexpected twist, especially since you kept finding more and more reasons to hate on each subsequent game. Biases aside, THAW is a very flawed game but it has excellent features too and shouldn't be dismissed like it usually is. THUG2 is still my favorite in the series though.
Man, I remember never being able to jump the helicopter in Hawaii.
THPS4 was my favorite of the pro skaters, it had the most tricks and refinement you could do. THUG series whackyness made the wild side of tricks being unrealistic perfect. Wasteland added bikes and i never really played Dave Mira games so it was cool. Project 8 and Proving ground made the story aspect of TH games intriguing, also the slow motion and am,sick,pro was fun. Sadly TH went down hill after and Skate made a new and great skate system. TH will always be fun no matter the time. Skating is just fun.
What really killed the series was the drift towards realism in Project 8 and Proving Ground (especially Proving Ground with its 2007 bland greyness) and a ton of the devs who had been there from the start leaving between Underground 2 and Project 8 because they had just got sick of making the same game over and over.
3 was ICONIC in the hood, KRS ONE on the Snow level was an everyday play for me after school
@Udokee that part lol, by 4 I was outside actually skating fuck gaming & by the time project 8 came out I needed that slow mo to learn more tricks lol
Long shot in the dark here, HELP!
Tactical and Chat: What is that game at 35:23 ? The one subway chick - "Some concepts have an extremely limited shelf life..." . I remember playing the S out of that but cant remember the name. Thank you.
I jumped in with Pro Skater 3 and stopped playing after Project 8. I did not play another Tony Hawk game until the Pro Skater 1+2 Remaster. My childhood fav however was THUG.
Pro Skater 2 was my first video game. I was a loyal fan all the way through Proving Ground which was a major bummer, despite trying to convince myself otherwise. THPS2 and THUG are my personal favorites. Can't tell you how many hours of my life I've spent playing these games.
IMO it was Project 8 where things started to go downhill for the series.
I dropped at Proving Ground, the "pushing/pressure" mechanic destroyed it for me. Breaking your combo line right at the start because you didn't pushed enough or didn't kept the tempo of the pushing breaks the basic interest of the series for me. I did give a chance to Downhill Jam (which was fun in its racing type of way) and Ride (which is a cool concept that turned bad because of the board design). Never tried 5 because it is still at full price even though it is the worst from what I've heard.
Great video, but that part about most skaters being kids and teenagers is unbelievably false. Yeah, there are a lot of little kids skating because skateboarding is still growing in popularity, but one of the unique things about skaters (5 years in HS with your homies doesn't count), is that they don't quit. Age and even the most fucked up injuries rarely deter them. I'm 32, but a lot of the most active skaters I see around here are in their 40s and 50s. The reason we're different from other sports fans is that skateboarding isn't really a sport by default. Everyone has a different relationship with it, so a video game targeting skateboarders isn't gonna appeal to them all because their tastes vary too much. The key to the THPS series' success was that it captured the attention of the mainstream.
? Guitar Hero wasn't exactly "treading water"...
My jumping off point was THPS4. Something seemed off by it and haven’t played a new one since. I’ll just keep playing 1-3.
Wow, I didn't think that it was Chris Chan in THAW)))
Could it have been? THUG 2 and AW had a handful of early Internet culture and memes scattered about as Easter Eggs, primarily Star Wars Kid and Homestar Runner references. If Chris Chan emerging into the cultural phenomenon (s)he is today lines up with the development cycle of AW, I'd buy it.
I set up the game cube for my kids and was really disappointed playing 4. I have every one through proving ground and always liked the new additions, but now it just seems all over the place if that makes sense. I really liked the simplicity of the earlier games
Watching this I can see it. It's exhausting going through the series and it had yearly releases, sometimes even more than one a year. After THAW it really lost that luster and important feeling, had they been able to cool it and done one every other year I can see the overall trajectory being much better
This is a very very unpopular opinion but Proving Ground, most specifically the Xbox 360 version, was the best game of the series, gameplay wise, after Underground 2 and American Wasteland. The offset camera angle in particular was a nice change. It's too bad it wasn't included as an option in THPS1+2 HD.
Project 8 is such visual overload. Everytime a clip from it popped up I squinted a little, it's so bright
i had so much fun with project 8, i was some punk dude with some chinese hat, the ragdoll physics made a huge difference along with the polish in graphics (specifically ps3/360).
I think they should have built upon project 8, activision should have took advantage of the brand and competed with skate while keeping its identity, tony hawk should have added more realism while still focusing on over the top stuff, stuff that would encourage skaters to become more innovative with their tricks, skate was great an all, but it reminded us of the reality of skating and how weve pretty much reached a limit in that world.
Well thats was a great retrospective 😎 I always kinda wondered what happened between THUG 2 and TH5 but never really looked into it. Thats done now 😂
I enjoyed 3 when it came out, THPS on ps2 was a dream. I recently replayed it and did y love the levels as much. I kind of like the levels to be some level of realistic. So the airport and cruise ship seemed silly playing it again 20 years later. I don’t mind funny goofy goals, but I want my levels mostly grounded. The gameplay elements 3 added though are paramount.
The reason THPS had so much success is because it was the only skating game out there. By the time it hit 3 the gameplay had gotten stale but it sold because again it was the only one out there. Even watching the gameplay you include in the video the gameplay is really jerky and once you learned to manual/rail/grind you could just infinitely link tricks and the game lost its shine quickly. Once Skate dropped in 2007 it was the nail in the coffin clearly as it had very refined and intuitive controls, fun challenges and while you could link with manuals/grinds/rails you also gained lower points for repeated tricks within a single path. The seamless world you played in and the nearly infinite number of lines to choose from and link made it an instant classic and undoubtedly was the Hawk killer. I find myself going back and just free skating Skate and Skate2 fairly regularly, I can't say I have ever gone back to revisit the Hawk games because they just had too much arcade in them.
On Tony hawk's underground if you got the secret tape and got the school level you could hop the big wall and the Carlsbad Gap is there in the back left corner of level
Tony Hawk 3 blew my mind. My brother had a gamecube. Didn't know the terminology at the time, but it was that 60fps. It was so fluid. I remember my brother doing an endless combo on the luggage area in the Airport. Pretty sure you could freeze the gamecube, or one of the systems up by getting the score too high.
I can still listen to superman to this day its such a great song and takes me back to a time where getting older was still all in my mind.
Thps 1 and 2 were my childhood and that menu music awwww man that's pure nostalgia bliss.
Thnx for the video, finally someone respects underrated THAW 👍
That Sobe project placement.
It's probably just my failing memory and the oddworld Sobe placement but fuck do I NEED a sobe. I remember really enjoying it but I was a very young kid. At that age anything with sugar tastes like the greatest thing ever created.
THPS2x isn't a remake. It's more of just a straight up re-release with additional content. Graphically and gameplay wise it's the same game despite being on newer hardware
To me THUG1 is the best TH Game. Awesome Music, awesome Controls (Ignore on Foot Control) a Nice Story, awesome Levels.
It really feels like an Adventure.
As a whole THUG is the Best TH Game. Of course, when you really love the 2min Arcade thing, then THPS3 is the best.
I grew up playing THP2 and never stopped, I played them all. But THUG2, TAW and THP2 are my favorites
I remember my dad getting the first Tony Hawk on PS1 and I loved it all the way until project 8 that’s when it fell off for me and I started to play Skate
It was the yearly release cycle....that's what happened. Neversoft was forced to iterate every year to keep the franchise going whether they had something worthwhile or not. It's clear by the end they started cramming as much stuff in the game as possible to justify every sequel, but if they would have had a few years between each game, the franchise would have lasted much longer.
In my opinion The franchise died after THPS3. A lot of it had to do with removing the time-limit. The physics in 3 were perfect. Literally perfect. I would have paid 60$ a year for 15 new maps with challenges honestly.
I played THPS from the start all the way until Project 8 (which was the first one I didn't 100% completed, while I completed almost every Tony Hawk game multiple times before. Although the first 3 I finished with practically every character.
6:40 It's kinda odd showing the PlayStation footage here... Though the Tony Hawk games released the earliest on PlayStation, other ports had better visuals and presentations; particularly the Dreamcast versions. As long as you stick to the Dreamcast versions, the graphics look better than you expect, but not as good as the later entries that came out on Xbox.
If i had a time machine I'd go back to a summer day of 9th grade skating all day and playing tony hawk 3 with my friends. I can almost feel it exactly like it was when i watch the canada level.
20:46 everyonce in a while my game audio sounds just like this
I just wish VV could have gotten to remake underground or a new game as 1+2 hit the gameplay on point and just really needed a better character creator to be the perfect experience imo (also I've played every Neversoft game growing up the Vicarious Visions hand held ports to Nintendo systems and HD (the only Robomoto game I played) it bums me out seeing the series die off and I feel the best thing they could have done given they mastered the gameplay is take time not being a yearly thing to craft really well made levels with great combo lines and secrets while also fleshing out the character creator and other customization elements
TLDR: Bobby Kotick cares for Call of Duty more than the rest of their IPs. Right after teams like Vicarious Visions and Toys for Bob made great games, They made them COD Support Devs.
Dude I think I was part of that minority. I would get the new Hawk games every time I had the money!
I had Pro Skater 1-3, Underground 1-2, and American Wasteland. These games were my passion even though I knew there wasn't much change after 3. It didn't matter to me at all, I would replay every single one over and over again all through my childhood and teen-hood! The only reason why I couldn't get the rest of the games was because I couldn't find them :(
When 4 came out, I didn't have the money to get it so I had to wait on that, then the underground games came out and I got those. After AW the same thing happened and I couldn't get project 8 or proving grounds because I could never find them on stores!
Sadly I had to "part ways" with my Tony Hawk collection when we had to move countries because things kept happening to my collection slowly as time went on :(
Heat warped my Pro skater 1-2, pro skater 3 was stolen, THUG 2 suffered from disk rot, and american waistland cracked for no reason, the only surviving one was THUG man. I still play the ever living shit out of that game.
Some day I'll save up to buy those games again man, I swear. Die hard fan right here.
I think as I got older I wanted more realism in my Skateboarding video game. I played Tony Hawk games before I actually started Skateboarding. Eventually I realized Tony Hawk video games aren’t realistic to what Skateboarding is as a whole.
So when Skate came out people who actually skated gravitated towards that game being close to realism of real Skateboarding. Then Tony Hawk came with the Ride version. Which consisted of the Skateboard controller. Which was interesting and fun for all of two days. Then it became clunky and hardly responsive to the trick you motioned.
Then Session Skateboard Sim came out. That truly changed Skateboarding games and it’s possibilities. With being able to control how you catch the board with both feet, how you flicked the board. Tony Hawk video games just can’t compete anymore with the competition.
SkaterXL is another one, but in my honest opinion that game feels super arcade like. Shaun White skateboard game I never gave the time of day to. So I can’t share any thoughts on that. But I think To y Hawk games certainly needs something new to compete with where the modern era of Skateboarding games are eventually going to go. Which I hope is a GTA V style open world with Skateboarding. Where we can buy cars, buy houses, buy apartments/condos, buy land, have sponsors, film video parts, and just be skaters online and create a skateboard community.
Now obviously nothing will compare to real Skateboarding. But certainly getting close to Tony Hawk just becoming a game of the past. The only thing I think games like Session need to add is that first person perspective that we as skaters actually view from.
Fantastic analysis. My jumping in point was the Pizza Hut demo of THPS and my dropping out point was THAW. I almost dropped out after THUG 2, but I'm glad I stuck around for American Wasteland.
15:29 you're right about that. My introduction to the Tony Hawk series was THUG. I was hooked and started playing it all from there. Wasn't until around THUG 2 or American Wasteland that I would also go back and play the older Pro Skater titles on my PS1. I think i was around 7 years old when I first played THUG.
Edit: To add, the journey stopped for me after Proving Ground. I only had Project 8 on the PSP and I really didn't like it. Not realizing how limited it was compared to the console version that I'd usually play them on. I probably would've played Project 8 the whole way through if it weren't for that. But yeah, i lost interest at that point after Proving Ground. I moved solely to Skate 2 or would revert back to the older Tony Hawk titles
The most annoying thing to me in Project 8 is the Camera Position. Why is it so zoomed in, this is so annoying for a TH Veteran like me.
It makes the game really unfun to play.
Edit: I checked and saw it was Proving Ground what I played, but from the footage in the video, I see that this was the case in this game already.
Played THPS when it came out, thought it was neat.
Completely missed THPS2.
Fell in love with the series at THPS3.
I personally loved 4, THUG 1&2, and THAW, each in their own way.
Project 8 was my hard jump off point. Everything felt simultaneously too heavy and too floaty. Camera was too close. Environment felt too grounded, bland and washed out (a common problem for early 7th gen games) and going from wild and wacky, cranked up to 11 style gameplay and story, the game fell about as flat as it could for me.
At the end of the day, I still think THPS3 is my favorite and the absolute peak of the series all these years later.
Man... the amount of time I spent playing Tony Hawk 2 and BMX XXX is absurd.
Personally THPS4 was my favorite. But 2 is a close second.
now looking back i really think the franchise could be saved simply by building off of thps 1+2. its such a perfect game. feels great, looks great. and yes its "just" a remake but oh man did they prove that they know what fans want. for me personally the best tony hawk game of all time. activision really has something great there thanks to vicarious visions but i sadly dont think they will ever capitalize on that. even as a game thats constantly updated it would be cool if it was successful. like imagine thps 1+2 but it frequently gets new cosmetics, new maps, new challenges. would be a dream for me but i dont think theres money to be made there for activision. hence why they put all their studios on cod now.
tHPS4 was the first ps2 game I played, I remember my brothers brought home a ps2 and pro skater 4, good times.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 was always my favorite.