Look, I’m going to be honest with you – I was never a sports game guy. Growing up with my beloved Genesis and later my Dreamcast, I was all about Sonic, Streets of Rage, and whatever weird Japanese arcade ports Sega was bringing over. Sports games felt… I don’t know, boring? Predictable? You kicked a ball or threw a ball and tried to score more points than the other guy. Where’s the creativity in that? But in 1999, something happened that completely changed my perspective on what sports games could be, and it involved a bald skateboarder who was about my age and apparently way cooler than I’d ever be.
I was hanging out at my buddy Mike’s place – he had a PlayStation while I was still stubbornly clinging to my Dreamcast, waiting for it to save Sega from themselves – when he fired up this new skateboarding game. “Dude, you gotta see this,” he said, which is exactly what every gamer says when they want to show off something new. Usually I’d roll my eyes, but there was something different about the energy coming from his TV. The music hit first – this driving punk track that actually sounded cool, not like the generic rock most games used. Then I saw Tony Hawk dropping into what I’d later learn was called the Warehouse, and within thirty seconds he was pulling off this insane chain of tricks that looked completely impossible but felt totally natural.
Mike handed me the controller after his two-minute run ended, and I figured I’d humor him for a few minutes before we got back to playing some Crazy Taxi or Power Stone on my system. Except… damn. Within seconds I was grinding rails I didn’t even know I could grind, linking tricks together in ways that made no logical sense but felt incredible. The whole thing had this perfect arcade-style accessibility that reminded me of why I loved Sega games – easy to pick up, but you could tell there were layers of depth underneath that would take forever to master.
What blew my mind wasn’t just that the game felt great to play, but that it had this scoring system that actually encouraged creativity. Most sports games are about winning and losing, right? Score more goals, get more touchdowns, whatever. But THPS was about expressing yourself through movement. Every trick could flow into the next one, and the longer you kept your combo going, the higher your score multiplier climbed. It was like… imagine if Street Fighter rewarded you for creating your own custom combos instead of just memorizing preset ones. That’s the kind of creative freedom we’re talking about here.
I ended up buying my own copy the next week, which was a big deal because I was in college and had approximately zero dollars at any given time. But I’d become completely obsessed with this combo system. The risk-reward element was perfect – you could play it safe and land basic tricks for decent points, or you could keep pushing your luck, chaining together increasingly complex sequences for massive scores. Fail to land it though, and you’d lose everything. It created this constant tension that had me literally on the edge of my dorm room bed, controller gripped so tight my knuckles were white.
The genius of it was how the levels were designed specifically to enable this kind of creative expression. These weren’t realistic skate parks – they were these elaborate playgrounds where every surface existed to be tricked on. The School level alone probably kept me busy for months, just figuring out how to connect different sections through precise manuals and wallrides. I’d discover that you could link the gymnasium to the outdoor area through this ridiculous sequence involving a grind, a gap jump, and a perfectly timed manual, and it felt like uncovering some kind of secret knowledge.
Remember how Sega games always had those moments where you’d find a hidden path or discover some new way to approach a level? THPS had that same energy, except instead of finding secret routes through Green Hill Zone, you were finding secret lines through suburban California. Every session revealed new possibilities, new ways to chain areas together, new routes through familiar spaces. The secret tape locations became these legendary challenges – spotting that glowing VHS cassette somewhere seemingly impossible to reach, then spending hours figuring out the exact sequence of moves needed to grab it.
And can we talk about that soundtrack for a minute? Holy crap. I thought I had decent taste in music – I was into some punk bands, liked what was on alternative radio, owned a few CDs that weren’t completely embarrassing. But THPS introduced me to this whole world of music I’d never experienced. Goldfinger’s “Superman” became permanently burned into my brain, but in the best possible way. Dead Kennedys, Rage Against the Machine, Suicidal Tendencies – bands I might never have discovered otherwise became part of my regular rotation.
The music wasn’t just background noise either. It was perfectly integrated with the gameplay in a way that created these incredible moments of synchronization. You’d be building up this massive combo, the tension mounting as your multiplier climbed higher and higher, and then you’d land that final trick right as the chorus kicked in, and it felt like the game was celebrating your success. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it in gaming – where the music, the visuals, and the gameplay mechanics combined to create these perfect moments of flow state.
What really impressed me was how authentic the whole thing felt. This wasn’t some corporate committee’s idea of what skateboarding should be – you could tell it was made by people who actually understood skate culture. Having real pro skaters wasn’t just a marketing gimmick; each one had their own stats, special moves, and skating styles that reflected their real-world personalities. I knew nothing about Rodney Mullen before playing THPS2, but after seeing his incredible technical moves in the game, I went down this rabbit hole of watching actual skateboarding videos. Turns out he was even more insane in real life than his video game version suggested.
The cultural impact was immediate and obvious. Suddenly everyone was talking about skateboarding. Kids who’d never stood on a board were debating the merits of different deck brands. Skate shops that had been struggling to stay afloat were seeing increased traffic. The X-Games went from this niche cable TV event to something people actually cared about. THPS didn’t just reflect skate culture – it actively spread it to millions of people who might never have been exposed to it otherwise.
I was definitely one of those people who briefly tried actual skateboarding because of the game. At 20 years old, I was probably too old to start, but that didn’t stop me from buying a complete setup and attempting to ollie in my apartment complex’s parking lot. The disconnect between effortlessly pulling 900s with a PlayStation controller and barely managing to pop the board six inches off the ground in real life was both humbling and hilarious. I gave up after a few weeks of minimal progress and some spectacular falls, but the game had given me this deep appreciation for what real skaters could do.
Each sequel refined the formula in ways that kept expanding the possibilities. The manual system in THPS2 was a revelation – suddenly you could link street tricks with vert tricks, maintaining combos across entirely different sections of a level. The revert mechanic in THPS3 took this even further, allowing you to transition from ramp tricks back to street skating without breaking your combo. These might seem like small additions, but they exponentially increased the creative potential.
By THPS3 and THPS4, the series had reached this perfect balance of accessibility and depth. The levels became these elaborate puzzle boxes designed specifically to reward exploration and experimentation. The create-a-park mode let you build your own skateboarding playgrounds, and I probably spent more time in the level editor than actually playing the included levels. There was something incredibly satisfying about designing the perfect flow between different obstacles, creating these elaborate courses that looked completely insane but skated beautifully.
What struck me most about the series was how it proved that sports games didn’t need to be realistic to be authentic. THPS captured the spirit and freedom of skateboarding better than any simulation could have. It understood that what made skating cool wasn’t the technical difficulty or the physics – it was the creativity, the self-expression, the ability to look at urban environments and see possibilities instead of obstacles.
The influence on other games was immediate and lasting. Suddenly every action sports game was trying to capture some of that THPS magic. SSX took snowboarding in a similar arcade direction. Even racing games started incorporating trick systems and creative scoring. The idea that sports games could be about personal expression rather than just winning and losing became this new template that developers are still following today.
When EA’s Skate series launched years later with its more simulation-focused approach, I appreciated what they were trying to do, but it always felt like a reaction to Tony Hawk rather than something completely new. The analog stick control system was clever, and it definitely felt more like actually skateboarding, but I kept coming back to THPS for those moments when I wanted to feel like a skateboarding superhero rather than a clumsy beginner learning to kick-turn.
The series eventually lost its way, as successful franchises often do. Later entries tried to innovate in directions that moved away from what made the original games special. Underground added story modes that nobody asked for. The skateboard controller experiments with Ride and Shred were disasters that missed the point entirely. By the time Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 came out in 2015, it was clear that the magic had been lost somewhere along the way.
But then 2020 brought us Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, this incredible remake that understood exactly what made the originals work. Playing it was like muscle memory kicking in after twenty years – within minutes I was chaining together combos I hadn’t attempted since college, the fundamental rhythms of the game still burned into my neural pathways. My teenage kids, who’d never played the originals, became just as obsessed as I’d been, proving that great game design is truly timeless.
Looking back, what THPS accomplished was creating this perfect middle ground that sports games had never found before. It was accessible enough for complete outsiders like me to pick up and enjoy immediately, but deep enough to reward hundreds of hours of practice. It was authentic to skate culture while being welcoming to people who knew nothing about skateboarding. It proved that making something more arcade-like didn’t mean dumbing it down – it meant distilling the essence of what made the sport exciting.
The impact extends far beyond skateboarding games. Any time I see a game that treats player creativity as its core mechanic, that builds environments as interactive playgrounds rather than static backdrops, that uses licensed music as an integral component of the experience – I see echoes of what Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater pioneered. It changed my entire perspective on what sports games could be, transforming me from someone who dismissed the entire genre to someone who understood that at their best, they could be about so much more than just simulating athletic competition.
Even now, more than twenty years later, I’ll occasionally fire up one of those early games and drop into the Warehouse level. The opening chords of “Superman” kick in, I start chaining together tricks I haven’t thought about in years, and for a few minutes I’m transported back to that dorm room, discovering that video games could capture not just the mechanics of a sport but its soul. In a medium often focused on violence and competition, THPS offered something different – the pure joy of creative expression through movement, the satisfaction of turning the mundane world into your personal playground, and the proof that sometimes the most authentic way to represent something is to make it feel impossibly, beautifully fun.
Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
