Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2: The Times, They Are A-Changing

Hey Cole, 

Thanks for your thoughtful letter. It means a lot coming from you. 

For me, the Tony Hawk nostalgia came a bit later in my life. I never played the Pro Skater games. The most I saw of them was some kids playing the Game Boy version at karate camp. Tony Hawk’s Underground and specifically THUG 2 are the Tony Hawk games I have that die-hard nostalgia for. Compared to THPS, these games were 50% more bombastic, 100% more Jackass: The Television Show The Video Game, but as a 12 year-old with a PSP I loved them. My actual, real-life nostalgia is for THUG 2 and it’s soundtrack. That game single-handedly got me into both Less Than Jake and Atmosphere. 

After THUG 2, the quality of releases truly did drop off. I remember Tony Hawk’s American Skateland as the game I picked up alongside a GBA Micro. That thing sucked. I think Project 8 is a bad video game, but I had fun with it at the time. I had all but checked out from skateboarding and extreme sports games after what happened to Tony Hawk and getting burned by spending $60 on SSX for the Xbox 360 (another bad game, I’m sure you see the trend here). I look back on my days of playing THUG and watching the X-games on Spike TV as a phase, one I feel warm and fuzzy for, but not something weaved into my identity in the way you seem to live for skating. But the thing is, in the dire situation that is 2020, I found myself living for video games. And the Tony Hawk remake was one of the best I played all year. 

As a remake it is perfect at being playable and bottling nostalgia. This version of these games adds key moves from later entries and maintains a game feel that is smooth, and more or less what I remember from THUG (minus the getting off your board stuff). But it applies these mechanics in a way that doesn’t break these classic THPS maps. Moves like the revert and manual are essential to what Pro Skater became, even if they weren’t in the first game. They don’t ruin it. They make it better.

This type of treatment only works because the level design holds up. In retrospect, the intricate maps filled to the brim with secrets and combo opportunities are what makes these two games classics. The team at Vicarious Visions understands this. As a result, it’s a remake that feels modernized in all the right ways. New goals in THPS 1 felt natural to me as a newcomer. Having the soundtrack play through loading screens AND a dedicated skip button? Genius. The smoothness of the way this remake plays brought me back to the remarkable flow-state that I can only describe as ‘being good at Tony Hawk.’ To me, this feeling rivals character action games. In many ways Tony Hawk 1+2 is the Devil May Cry V of skating games, perfecting 20 years of a genre into a beautiful, 60 FPS, buttery smooth piece of craft. But this game is more than a fine piece of craftsmanship, right Cole?

For me, the real nostalgia is the music. I never listened to either of these games’ soundtracks before. Of course, I’d heard “Superman”, “Guerrilla Radio” and “You”, but just like THUG 2 in 2006 this game managed to introduce me to some incredible ‘90s and early 2000s punk bands. Lagwagon and Millencolin own, OK? I don’t even hate all the new stuff. A lot of the modern tracks suck, but era-appropriate songs like “Can I Kick It?” and “Firecracker” fit right in. I certainly wish they had more modern punk and emo ala JunkBunny and Destroy Boys. The newer songs by the crusty old pop-punk bands that were always featured in Tony Hawk games were admittedly an odd choice (sorry, LTJ). Some of them get the job done in the context of the gameplay, but they are no “No Cigar.” Not even close. 

It has been a rough decade for skating games, but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 showed me maybe it has been a good decade for skater culture. Cole, you mentioned all the ways in which this remake feels so inclusive and loving, which is something I felt too. The game felt reflective, whether truthfully or not, of the skater community as a whole. 

This space was adjacent to and mirrored the punk scene. Both transformed as they gained mainstream popularity, and became hijacked by the conservatism of 2000s American culture. I too have been seeing a culture change first-hand. Going to emo and punk shows is not what it was when I was growing up. The bands I see now openly talk about gender issues in the industry and encourage the audience to vote in between songs. I’m glad to hear skating is experiencing similar growth. I can feel it through this remake. I can feel that there is as much love for these classic games and skateboarders as there is for the people keeping skating alive going into this new decade.