It's hard to talk about important games without delving into the ugly world of autobiography, but I strongly believe the best games are the ones that are important not only to the world of gaming, but also to our own development. The titles that intersect at the moment where both the industry and our lives changed are always going to be the ones we resonate with, and that's why the Masterpiece series can be hit and miss with readers. Some people share that timing with the writers who have taken a crack at a particular title, while others do not.
Tony Hawk is a game I discovered in the basement of my good friend Scott's house, and I tried it only because his brother left it on in the PlayStation. Scott and I were supposed to do something that day, but I ended up playing the game for hours, even finding myself left alone in Scott's basement. By the end of the day, I had my own copy.
Games sometimes take hours to sink their hooks into us, but Tony Hawk was the first game that was able to make even the clumsiest fools believe that skateboarding had to be the most fun you could possibly have. Tony Hawk was a rhythm game long before Guitar Hero came along; when you began to nail trick after trick, the game and controller disappeared. It was just you and the air.
The first Tony Hawk title was revolutionary, but something magical happened with the second game. First, the soundtrack was much better. I know that taste in music is a subjective thing, but if you think the soundtrack to Tony Hawk 2 is bad... you're wrong. I can't hear a single one of those songs without twitching and reaching for a controller. The addition of the manual meant that tricks didn't need to end just because you had to get to another area on the level. It felt like you could go forever.
The game introduced the ability to create your own skater and skate park, as well as giving you a system to level up your character. Those additions were interesting, but the important thing was how restrained the game still felt compared to future entries. You still only had two minutes to run wild in each level, trying to complete a number of objectives. You had to explore the world, learn where you could and couldn't go, and master each environment to get ahead. The game never seemed claustrophobic, even after you learned each level inside and out. There was always a new run to perfect, trick to try, or you could just enjoy the feeling of nailing a run perfectly in one go.
It's easy to get emotional about Tony Hawk 2 and just how well everything clicked. Close your eyes for a moment and remember the sound of the wheels, how it felt to lock into a long grind. Let your fingers remember the rhythm of each trick, how it all seemed to flow together when you were on a roll. We like to think that games happen as if by magic, or that the developer was struck by lightning and everything just came together, but the controls and play of the first two Tony Hawk titles were otherworldly, and that only comes with intense playtesting and iteration. These games were acts of love.
I've spoken to a number of real-life skaters who grew up with the Tony Hawk games, and they all have told me that while the game is nothing like real-world skating, it does a good job of describing how skating feels when they dream. The ramps are just a little higher, you have more time in the air, and you can get right up from even the most brutal crashes. Everything in the world of Tony Hawk exists for the benefit of skating. There is no one to get in your way or say "no." You have a lot of time in the air to decide what to do, and you can hold your tricks for a long time. I've heard people nitpicking the game's realism or a few of the animations, but everyone agrees that nothing else captures the feel of what it's like to be a gifted skater.
This is why so many snobby guitarists dislike Guitar Hero, in fact. It used to be that you had to practice for years before you were given even a taste of what it felt like to do these things well. Now anyone with a game console and a few hours of practice can fly close to the sun.
Tony Hawk 3 wasn't bad, and Tony Hawk 4 definitely had its fans, but the series began to lose its spark after the second iteration. Tony Hawk 4 abandoned the timed runs in favor of an open world to explore, and that's where things really went south. By the time the series lost the "Pro Skater" subtitle and moved to Underground, the dream had officially died. Suddenly you could get off the board, and explore the levels on foot in a clumsy bid to make the game feel "modern." This was the beginning of the endless flow of terrible gimmicks.
Does anyone remember Project 8 fondly? How about Proving Ground? Shred? If the series died when the in-game character left the board, the corpse of the series was completely defiled when gamers were asked to get on a board with Ride. The game was released for $150 at a time when people were getting tired of expensive peripherals after the rhythm game trend had crested, and Activision wisely kept the game far away from critics.
Are we ever going to get another good Tony Hawk title?
Not bloody likely. Activision ran the series into the ground because, well, why enjoy milk for life when you can turn the meat rancid? If the game were to be brought back, I'd expect it to be some open-world MMO madness that uses motion control and comes with a monthly fee. The joy of Tony Hawk was in the limited time you had to do whatever you could in challenging environments. Those ideas were dead long before the Tony Hawk name was used to sell poorly designed plastic skateboards.
Still, we have the originals, and the time we spent with them, and that's forever. Or at least until we die. Maybe that's why the first games were so compelling: you were given too little time to do less than what you wanted. Such is life.
Fonte: Ars Technica
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