Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1999

Is it still worth playing?

Neversoft's 1999 skateboarding game for the PlayStation, the first Tony Hawk's game, with ten real pro skaters and two unlockable characters. You skate under a fixed camera, and ollies, grabs, flips and grinds each map to buttons. Scoring rewards air time, rotation and variety, since repeating a trick lowers its value. On top of that, a special meter enables a high value special trick, and bailing loses the combo and empties it. Career mode turns all this into goals, five per level, such as two score targets, the letters of SKATE, five objects to destroy and a hidden VHS tape. Each is chased in two minute runs, and the goals can be spread across several attempts. It is credited with bringing skateboarding to a mainstream audience around the world. Short runs with several goals each, and scores you keep trying to beat, still make one more run easy to say yes to today.