Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

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About

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a series of skateboarding sports video games.

History

On September 30th, 1999, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was released for the PlayStation video game console. The game, which featured 3-D renderings of professional skateboarders and popular soundtrack of hip-hop and punk rock music, was soon ported onto numerous other consoles, including Nintendo 64, GameBoy Advanced and more.

The game begat numerous sequels. The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise released 12 games, including Tony Hawk's Ride, Tony Hawk's Underground, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and more.^[1]

Remaster

On May 12th, 2020, Tony Hawk announced on Twitter a remaster of the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games for PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4. Featuring most, if not all, of the original soundtrack, and online multiplayer, the game is set for a release date of September 4th, 2020, and will be developed by Vicarious Visions. A trailer for the remaster was uploaded the same day (shown below).

Reception

The original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater received near universal acclaim. The review aggregate Metacritic gave the game a score of 92 out of 100 (based on 18 reviews).^[2]

Fandom

On Facebook, ^[3] the verified account for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 has more than 200,000 likes and 200,000 follows.

Impact

The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise is the most successful skateboarding video game in history. In 2006, it was calculated that the series had sold a combined 10 million copies of its various titles. The game also became the de facto engine for various games, such as Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX and more.

Most games in the initial run of the series received generally favorable reviews. However, when the rights to the game expired, and the title switched from the developer Neversoft to Robomodo, the games received negative reviews.^[4]

Tony Hawk's Pro Skate Parodies

The cover for the video games, as well as the title has inspired numerous parodies, particularly creating portmanteaus and puns based on the title.

On April 19th, 2018, Twitter ^[5] user @SeshohoCian tweeted a photoshopped version of the cover of the game, which was altered to read "Tony Hawk's Existential Crisis." The post (shown below, left) 1,700 retweets and 3,400 likes in four months.

On August 21st, Instagram ^[6] user @sean_speezy posted a photoshop of a tomato over Hawk's face and the title "Tony Hawk's To'Mater 5." The post (shown below, center) received more than 500 likes in one week.

On August 26th, Redditor ^[7] redditiscancer666 posted a variation of the game called "Tony Hawk's Pro State." The post received more than 14,000 points (89% upvoted) in 24 hours.