Skateboarding Games

The sport of skateboarding is rich in history and revolutionary skaters who have served to revolutionize this popular pastime. Although many consider this a recreational activity, it is actually a popular and growing past time that has produced many iconic figures who are continuing to contribute to the industry such as Tony Hawk. Although everyone has different opinions regarding the best skaters in history, there are many figures that deserve recognition as one of the top 5 skateboarding legends of all time.

Although skating is a relatively new activity, it has spawned many iconic and legendary individuals who have served the sport in a wide variety of ways. Some helped to bring the sport into the mainstream, while others either created or popularized many elite tricks that novice skaters aspire to master. Ultimately, there are many classic and fast rising stars worthy of recognition.

Tony Hawk

Tony Hawk is probably the best known legend of the sport. Even those who are not die hard fans of this sport have heard of him at some point. He has many significant accomplishments on his resume, which include being the first individual to land a trick known as the “900.” He is also widely known for the extremely successful video game franchise that bears his name.

Rodney Mullen is another name in the minds of most fans, and many are still quick to cite Mullen as the most influential skater of all time. He is known to have created many of the most significant tricks in the sport’s history. Some include the kickflip, the flatground ollie, and the heelflip.

Bob Burnquist is another very popular skater among fans. He is also credited with landing some of the most difficult tricks in the business, including the “mega fakie to fakie 900″. He specializes in switch stance skating and has been responsible for the creation of many innovative vert tricks. He is widely known for his come from behind win in the 2001 X-Games.

Geoff Rowley

Geoff Rowley is another fan-favorite who has inspired many young skaters to explore this fast-growing activity. He appears alongside Tony Hawk in many of Tony Hawk skateboarding games. This icon is also known for his 50/50 trick performed on the Staple’s Center ledge in Los Angeles in 1999. This trick, and the subsequent photograph of the trick, helped to launch him into the upper echelon of popular skaters.

Eric Koston began skating in 1986 while growing up in San Bernardo, California. He gained sponsorship in 1991 and quickly became a professional in 1993. He is a favorite among fans, and he has appeared in many skating videos and skateboard games as well. Koston popularized a trick known as the “crooked grind”, and he also invented the “banana bunny grind” and the “fandango”.

Any list of the top 5 skateboarding legends will be a point of debate. All fans have a personal favorite, and many qualified and influential individuals certainly deserve recognition. Although it is a relatively young sport, it has produced many classic legends and is sure to bring many more young skaters to the forefront of the industry as it continues to grow in scope.

Since 1986, when Atari released 720 Degrees, skateboard fans have been able to grind, ollie, pop and flip virtual boards for high scores in the realm of console gaming. Skateboarding games are now a well-populated genre, and over the years, they have featured regularly on the bestseller lists.

This article will focus on two legendary game franchises and their most recent offerings for seventh-generation gaming consoles: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Some titles in the two franchises are also available on handheld consoles, mobile platforms and/or personal computers.

You can not talk about this genre without paying homage to the Tony Hawk series. Sixteen titles have been released in this series since the first one, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, smashed onto the scene in 1999. The latest TH title, Shred, with its arcade look and gameplay style, is rumored to be the final title of the series. Activision announced in February 2011 that there will be no 2011 installment of the series.

Tony Hawk: Shred has been developed for younger gamers. Older gamers may still be enticed by some of the game’s features, though.

It comes with the cool skateboard-deck motion-controller (first seen alongside the last TH title: Ride), has social gaming features and a ‘Go Big’ trick system.

Like all TH games, the tricks in Shred are huge and crazy and cool. If you feel like carving through powder or shredding down a treacherous alpine mountainside, have your skater strap on a snowboard. TH: Shred hit retailers in October 2010. TH titles are all developed at Neversoft, published by Activision and, of course, endorsed by professional skater Tony Hawk.

The next big series is the Skate franchise from Electronic Arts, and comprises of Skate, Skate 2, Skate 3 (PS3 and Xbox 360) and Skate It (Wii). EA’s Skate series has impressed both hardcore and casual gamers and has garnered critical acclaim with its fresh ‘Flick-It’ control scheme, great features and beautiful urban environments. Flick-it departs from the button-combos (and occasional button-mashes) of traditional control systems by using patterns of flicks, pushes and pulls on the analog sticks to pull off tricks. This trick-system gives the player a sense of immediacy, tactility and precision. The Flick-it control scheme gets better with each sequel.

Skate 3, released May 2010 for the Xbox and PlayStation 3, is set in an all-new fictional city called Port Caverton. In contrast to Skate 2′s San Vanelona, which featured stark and gritty visuals and learnt an ‘underground’ feel to the game’s skaters and skating, Port Caverton is openly skater-friendly and its cityscapes are much more colourful.

There are new easy and hardcore difficulty levels, and a Skate School which will keep your basic Flick-It skills in nick. Online game modes have been nicely expanded to include three new online team play modes: 1-Up, Domination and Own The Lot. This adds a particularly fun dimension to an already cool game.

EA Black Box’s Skate franchise may be comparatively new (the first Skate debuted in September 2007), but it is immensely popular. The first Skate arrived at about the same time as Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, yet has amassed nearly double the amount of sales. Shred had a bit of a dismal opening week in comparison to Skate 3′s too. Gaming fans have many predictions – the continuing dominance of Skate, the return to glory for TH in 2012 – but only time will tell which (if either) of these skateboarding games franchises will come out tops.

As you keep watching these Tony Hawk skateboarding games the graphics just keep getting better and better!

There are some Tony Hawk skateboard games missing from this video like Tony Hawk Down Hill Jam, Tony Hawks Underground 2 Remix (but it is essentially the same as the PS2 version), Tony Hawks Ride.

Also, just because the graphics get better doesn’t automatically mean the game is better than the previous one.

Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk has mentioned that he is working on a new game which will probably come out sometime in 2012.

However, the last Tony Hawk game, Shred was a total flop and only sold 3000 copies when it launched.

Game publisher, Activision will no doubt be hoping to relplicate the success of the original Pro Skater games which sold by the bucketload.

Let’s hope that the next installment in the Tony Hawk series is more popular and sells like the Pro Skater series did.

Of all the skateboard games we have covered thus far, tony hawks is by far the most popular and well known. And possibly the most well designed. This is the first game in the series, released in 1999 before the new millenium. It rapidly got released on the Nintendo 64, NGaga, and Dreamcast systems. Becoming the most recognized sports video game of all time.

In Tony Hawks pro skater, you mostly ride around perform tricks, grinds, and aerial stunts. The better your moves, the more points you score. And If you get enough points, you can not only perform new skateboarding moves and tricks, you also unlock new features of the game.

I enjoy playing in career movde, where you have 2 minutes to skate the park and collect the donuts. You must also collect points, so you need to pull off skateboard tricks while racing against the clock. The multiplayer modes include skate battles and graffiti wars.

Many different versions of Tony Hawk have been released for different consoles, and they are still under development today. Its been said tony has made over $50 million dollars being the sponsor of this skateboarding game, what a lucky guy!