Trivia / Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

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• Ashcan Copy: THPS5 is this, due to the the Obvious Beta state the game was released in and that Tony Hawk's deal with Activision was set to expire at the end of 2015.
• Author's Saving Throw: The Classic Mode from THUG 2 onward, which was added to appease players who were dissatisfied with the mission-based structure introduced in THPS 4.
• B-Team Sequel: Tony Hawk Ride was the first game created by Robomodo after Activision reassigned Neversoft to Guitar Hero duty. To say that the results were not as well-received would be an understatement.
• The Cameo: Shin Okada is only playable in the Japanese version of THPS3, but his character model (with a different shirt) is in all versions as it's used for the panel of judges in the Rio, Skater Island and Tokyo stages. This makes sense in the latter case, as the level design has the judges visible at the start of the level, not so much for the others.
• Christmas Rushed: 5, released on the very last day Activision had the license. In fact, it was so rushed that they printed the disc version without most of the content and got Robomodo to finish as much of it as possible to put in a Day 1 patch.
• Colbert Bump: The Tony Hawk games were credited for creating a new wave of interest in the sport due to its popularity; more networks began showing pro competitions beyond ESPN's annual X Games and some of the lesser-known skaters who were playable characters got a career bump from the visibility. Similarly, many of the music acts in the first few games received this as gamers were introduced to punk, ska, and hip-hop. The most prominent example is the punk/ska band Goldfinger, whose "Superman" is so intertwined with memories of the first game that when the 1+2 remake was announced, views on the band's Youtube channel jumped 800 percent over their average daily mark, and the title of an official THPS documentary was named after the song.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The engine the game used was based on that of "Apocalypse", a game which Neversoft previously worked on (and assets were reused from in Downtown Minneapolis). Due to Bruce Willis being involved, this game is often erroneously reported as being based on a film. It wasn't - it was only ever a game.
• Creator Backlash: The Birdman himself has indicated that he isn't super happy with how Pro Skater 5 turned out. Keep in mind that he had defended RIDE earlier.
• Creator Killer: Pro Skater 5 would be Robomodo’s last game, as they went out of business a year after the game’s release.
• Development Hell: This was the case with spinoff Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX which features some aspects of the first Tony Hawk that were not present in 2, but released afterwards. An example is the fact the levels only have five goals each of which only two are score-based. The levels retain the score multiplier icons from THPS1 that were cut thereafter. In addition, the ability to rotate a backflip was included but had been cut from THPS2 after appearing in its beta. It does however include manuals, unlike THPS1. The tied development history even extends to level designs — New York City Park shares assets with THPS2's New York City level as well as Skate Heaven.
• Distanced from Current Events: Originally, the Airport level in the third game was planned to have objectives where you had to stop a group of terrorists. Then 9/11 happened about a month before release, and terrorists in an airport was too touchy a subject, so they were replaced with pickpockets.
• Divorced Installment: Skate Jam, which was formerly released with the Tony Hawk license prior to the rights reverting back to Activision.
• Dueling Games: With the Rockstar Games-published Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy, which was released a few months after the Pro Skater. Ironically enough, Skate and Destroy developer Z-Axis would wind up being acquired by Activision in 2002. Later competition came in the form of EA Black Box's Skate.
• Dummied Out:
  • The first game's beta featured levels called Downhill, Freeway, Classic Concrete and Suburbia which were changed or removed in the final release. Downhill was removed because of its length, in addition to resembling a level from Sega's arcade Top Skater. The last section, a large warehouse with a pool in it, was implemented into the Chicago level in the final game. Freeway was removed because it wasn't finished. Classic Concrete was a physics test with various types of terrain in it. Suburbia was an early version of the San Francisco level that was heavily changed in the final version. Freeway can be accessed via hacking in the PC version of Tony Hawk's 2 (which also features the levels from Tony Hawk's 1). In the beta of the first game, Freeway has a bus appear out of nowhere and fly off into the air. The version hidden in the PC version of Tony Hawk's 2 has the differently colored bus from that game's Philadelphia level instead. Levels called Suburbia and Downhill appear in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, but they don't bear any resemblance to the originals (although Downhill does have a skate park at the bottom of the hill, like the original).
  • In the New York level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, the hidden Brooklyn Banks area was originally meant to have a street and some more buildings at the bottom of it, with a path through the buildings that would lead up onto the elevated road and loop back into the main area of the map. This was presumably cut for performance and in the final game the bottom of Brooklyn Banks just stops abruptly at the waterfront.
  • The PC port of 2 also has every other level from 1 stored in the game files, not just the three normally playable. You can play these simply by swapping the names of some of the files in the executable but trying to play San Fran will crash the game.
  • Tony Hawk's 3 has the Paris level, also known as Rooftops. It was never finished, and was seen in prototype shots featured in magazines before the game came out. It can be found with many of the graphics missing via hacking in the final game. The GBA version of the game features the Paris level, however. The level Skater's Island was originally named Rhode Island before the game came out as well.
  • Tony Hawk's Underground originally had Slam City Jam as a free roaming part you could skate in and out of from the Vancouver level, but technology was not quite up to this, so they mostly closed off the exits, with the graphics for the areas visible through the doors. However, it is possible to get into a placeholder version of the level via skating in the stands of a certain entrance and glitching through the floor. The ramp visible here is textured and thus skateable, although the cars are 2 dimensional. You can skate back in as well, though not back out.
    • Tony Hawk's Underground has Dummied Out remakes of School 1 and Downhill Jam from THPS, and Philadelphia from THPS2, that were near-complete and accessible via GameShark. They were saved for THUG2 instead.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Riley Hawk debuted as a pro in THPSHD and also appeared in THPS5 and 1+2, but a then-nine-year-old Riley previously appeared years prior in THPS3 as one of many pre-created skaters you can unlock, as well as showing off some impressive street skating in Tony's unlockable skate video.
• Exiled from Continuity: Due to not having his likeness in the game, as he didn't debut until Tony 3, Bam Margera was removed from the Underground 2 cover art as seen in the Hangar level of 1+2.
• Follow the Leader: While it is was one of the first 3D skateboarding games, it wasn't the first. Sega's Top Skater (Arcade, 1997) and EA's Street Sk8er (PS One, 1998) came before. Still, it was successful enough to become a Genre Popularizer.
• Franchise Killer: The hot pile of garbage that was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 killed the franchise to many, coming off the heels of years of poorly-regarded sequels and gimmick peripherals. ^note granted, the licensing deal Activision and Tony Hawk had signed expired the day the game was released meant that even if the game had been good, the franchise was still done for. A few years later, Activision, Tony Hawk, and Vicarious Visions joined forces for the revival Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 and was met with critical and commercial success, reminding people why the series was so beloved.
• Genre Popularizer: Credited for kickstarting the supergenre of "extreme sports" games in the early 2000s.
• Invisible Advertising: Outside previews on mainstream gaming publications, the most notable promotion Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 received was tweets on Tony Hawk's Twitter account.
• Irony As He Is Cast: By the time he was introduced in Project 8, Christian Hosoi, the inventor of the "Christ Air" aerial trick, has been an ordained pastor following his incarceration and subsequent conversion to evangelical Christianity in 2004.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Infamously, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 was in such an unfinished state that it came with a 8GB day one patch that contained the most of the game. Without it, the base game only had the tutorial and park creator. In 2017, the servers for the game shut down, making it impossible to download the patch and rendering it unplayable for anyone who hasn't already downloaded it. Additionally, many modes and levels in the game required an "always online" internet connection, so even if you had the game and patch downloaded before the servers went down, most of the game became inaccessible.
  • The earlier games from the series are also out of circulation due to licensing issues, from skaters to sponsors and especially the music. The PC entries of the franchise are now considered abandonware as a result. However, a THPS modding forum (thps-mods.com) compiled download links to every PC entry of the series in a neat little thread, which is where you are recommended to download Underground 2 for use with THUG Pro.
  • Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD was pulled from Steam in 2017, meaning that no more PC players can try it - not that they would want to, as three years later 1+2 went the same remake way again with better results.
  • Shortly after 1+2 was announced, 5 was pulled off digital storefronts, reducing the game’s only continued existence via used discs.
• Life Imitates Art: Satire publication The Hard Times ran an article "Goldfinger Patiently Awaits Reboot of Tony Hawk Franchise" in May 2019; a year later, THPS 1 + 2 was announced.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: The concept of Tony Hawk RIDE and its skateboard peripheral was pitched by Tony Hawk himself after seeing the success of motion control games. The game flopped at release, mostly due to the fact that the $150 board peripheral was poorly designed and barely worked. Tony Hawk still defended the game, accusing "snarky critics" throwing the game under the bus without playing it themselves.
  • While often THPS2 or THPS3 tended to be cited by fans as the best entry, numerous Neversoft employees have indicated in a development history article that they feel the series peaked with THUG1.
• Manual Misprint: A very minor one, but the manual for the Dreamcast version of the original game at one point mistakenly instructs the player to use the "L1 and R1 buttons," even though the Dreamcast controller doesn't have any secondary shoulder buttons.
• No Export for You: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X, the special edition of Tony Hawk 2, was only released on Xbox and only in North america. Featuring all the levels from the first two games, as well as five levels that don't appear in other games, this understandably annoyed the many European and Australian PS2 owners.
  • Also, the PS2 Collectors Edition of American Wasteland features levels that don't appear anywhere else. This too, was only released in the US and only on PS2. However, two levels that are included are Las Vegas (renamed Casino) and Atlanta, both of which appear in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix, released worldwide for PSP.
  • The PC port of the first Tony Hawk's Underground game only came out in Australia and New Zealand of all places.
  • There was also a Korea-exclusive PC release of Pro Skater 2 with members of the K-Pop group Fin.K.L (핑클) added to the roster along with songs from said group.
• Old Shame: Given the way THPS5 was hastily removed from the Xbox and PlayStation digital storefronts when 1 + 2 was announced, it appeared Activision was distancing themselves from the game in the event someone stumbled on it while looking to buy the remake.
• Out of Order: The PS1/N64 version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 switches the positions of Canada (level 2) and Los Angeles (level 7) compared to all other versions. This is likely due to the fact that Canada was substantially redesigned and has harder goals, whereas Los Angeles is roughly the same.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Prominent community member AndyTHPS was a pro THPS player prior to being employed by Neversoft to work on several games in the series.
  • Swedish former YouTuber and film director Ludvig Gür gained a following for uploading documentary videos about the series under the screen name Icebears4ever before he was noticed by Neversoft's Ralph D'Amato, which led to the creation of the documentary Pretending I'm A Superman.
• Prop Recycling: Several of the vehicles models used in Pro Skater 1+2 are ported from both Modern Warfare 2 Remastered and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019).
• Real Song Theme Tune: The intro movies to the games feature a song from the game's playlist, such as "Police Truck" by the Dead Kennedys in 1, "Guerrilla Radio" by Rage Against the Machine in 2, "Ace Of Spades" by Motörhead in 3, "TNT" by AC/DC in 4, "A Day at the Races" by Jurassic 5 in Underground, "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" by The Doors in Underground 2, and "Club Foot" by Kasabian in Project 8.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: As typical for most licensed games, all the prior games never saw a re-release due to the sheer amount of licenses that Activision have to re-pay in order to get a official re-release.
  • 1 + 2 secured most of the original North American soundtrack, but six of the 25 songs from the original two games didn't survive the process of getting re-licensed, along with any European-exclusive music.
• Screwed by the Network: Despite 1 + 2 becoming the fastest-selling game in the entire franchise, Activision canceled the planned 3 + 4 remake after they merged its developer Vicarious Visions into Blizzard (under the new name of Blizzard Albany) to provide long-term support to Diablo (including the then in-progress Resurrected remaster of Diablo II) and other Blizzard franchises.
• Technology Marches On: The Secret Tapes have been replaced with DVDs since Project 8.
  • While the tapes return in 1+2, the New York City level has replaced the Subway Tokens objective with Subway Cards, reflecting the change in 2003 (three years after the release of 2) when New York abandoned the token system and went strictly to MetroCards on the subways, though because of this change the necessity of collecting five of them no longer makes sense.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first game's original design was a downhill racing game where you collected tapes, with a finish line at the end which would end the run. This is largely preserved in the beta level "Downhill". In the final game, you only collect one tape per level (explicitly named the 'secret tape'), there are only two downhill levels (The Mall and Downhill Jam), and of these levels, only Downhill Jam has an explicit finish line at the end (although The Mall has an end point). In addition, Downtown Minneapolis was originally an asset test in a small section of the earlier game Apocalypse - after the downhill aspect was scrapped, it was fleshed out into a full level.
  • Also from the first game, San Francisco had police cars and a camper van on the road in its beta, who were originally intended to knock down the player (much like the taxis in Downtown Minneapolis). An image of Tony Hawk getting chased by a police car can be seen on the back cover of the final game. The size of the level was preventing textures loading properly with these in place, so in the final game the police cars are always parked and the camper van is missing. However, there is now a tram that follows a set path and can knock the player down though is much easier to avoid. The character Officer Dick was initially intended to represent one of these policemen who chased after and hated skaters, though as his association with the level was lost he was The Artifact on his first appearance.
  • Rockstar Games was to secure a licence with Hawk to use his name and likeness for their own skateboarding game; they were ultimately unable to do so, and thus they went with Thrasher Magazine instead.
  • Originally, the Airport level in the third game had an objective involving stopping terrorists. However, 9/11 happened shortly before the game's release, so the terrorists were replaced with pickpockets in order to distance itself from the tragic terrorist attack that involved hijacked airplanes. This change was so late in development that when the "pickpockets" see the player approaching they still play an animation of raising their hand as if about to detonate a bomb vest, which causes nearby pedestrians to flee.
  • After the remakes, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, was released; there was plans to remake the third and fourth games as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4. However, right around the same time 1 + 2 was released, Activision announced that the developers, Vicarious Visions, were being merged into Blizzard. It's unknown how far into development the games were but Tony Hawk had said the developers always had planned to remake 3 + 4 while working on 1 + 2. Activision tried to continue the 3 + 4 remake after the merger but was unable to find another studio that they could trust with the franchise in the same way as Vicarious.

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