Tony Hawk

Anthony Frank "Tony" Hawk (born May 12, 1968), nicknamed "The Birdman", is an American former professional skateboarder and actor. Hawk is well known for completing the first documented 900 and for his licensed video game titles, published by Activision. He is widely considered to be one of the most successful and influential pioneers of modern vertical skateboarding.

In 2002, he created the "Boom Boom HuckJam", an extreme sports exhibition and tour that was launched in Las Vegas. Throughout his career, Hawk has made numerous appearances in films, other media, and his own series of video games. He has also been involved in various philanthropic activities, including his own Tony Hawk Foundation that helps to build skateparks in underprivileged areas. In 2014, Hawk was labeled as one of the "Most influential skateboarders of all-time" by FoxWeekly.

Early life

Tony Hawk was born on May 12, 1968 in Carlsbad, California, to Nancy and Frank Peter Rupert Hawk, and was raised in San Diego, California. When Hawk was young, he was described as being "hyperactive," and his mother says that he was "so hard on himself and expected himself to do so many things." One time, Hawk struck out in baseball and was so distraught that he hid in a ravine and had to be "physically coaxed out" by his father. His frustration with himself was so harsh that his parents had him psychologically evaluated at school. The results were that Tony was "gifted," he tested with an I.Q. of 144, and school advisers recommended placing him in advanced classes. Hawk attended Jean Farb Middle School from 1980 to 1981, and eventually returned for the show, Homecoming with Rick Reilly, where he set up a ramp and did a demonstration.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is a skateboarding video game, the second in the Tony Hawk's series of sports games. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision in 2000. It was first released for the PlayStation, with subsequent ports to the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, and iOS. It also was released for the Xbox on November 15, 2001 as part of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x collection featuring the first two Pro Skater games. The game received widespread critical acclaim and remains one of the highest rated video games of all time.

Gameplay

The player, playing as a professional skateboarder (either real-life or created) completes a number of tasks which result in cash rewards. With money gained, the player can then purchase skill improvements and better tricks and skateboards. Pro Skater 2 was also the first game in the series to introduce the manual, a skateboarding trick where the performer balances on two wheels. This improved players' ability to string together high-scoring trick combos. Many new tricks were introduced for the first time, as was the option to edit the combinations for tricks. It was also the first of the Pro Skater games to feature Create-a-Skater and Park Editor features, now staples in the series. Three new professional skaters were introduced to the series on this game: Steve Caballero, Rodney Mullen, and Eric Koston.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is a skateboarding video game in the Tony Hawk's series. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision in 2001 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation, GameCube and Game Boy Color. In 2002, it was published for the Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64 and Mac OS. It was the first game released for the PlayStation 2 supporting online play, and the last game released on the Nintendo 64 in North America. According to Metacritic, Pro Skater 3 and Grand Theft Auto III hold an average critic score of 97/100, making them the highest-rated PlayStation 2 games of all time.

Gameplay

This game saw the introduction of the revert, a trick that enabled vert combos to be tied together with a manual, by tapping a button when landing in a quarterpipe. This allowed for much longer combos than in the previous two games, where landing in a quarterpipe would finish a combo. The game also added hidden combos. These were variations on standard tricks that could be performed as grab, flip, lip, or grind tricks. For example, double-tapping the kickflip button would, naturally, make the character perform a double kickflip. This system would later be refined in Pro Skater 4.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is a video game that was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube on October 18, 2005 in North America and October 28, 2005 in Europe. An Xbox 360 version was released a month later on November 22, 2005 in North America and December 2, 2005 in Europe and a Microsoft Windows port was issued on February 6, 2006 in North America and April 7, 2006 in Europe.

The seventh entry of the Tony Hawk's series, the game was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision.

The PC version of the game was ported and published by Aspyr. American Wasteland is the first Tony Hawk game to support Xbox Live; online play was previously limited to the PlayStation 2 and PC. The Nintendo DS/Game Boy Advance version of this game, American Sk8land, features Wi-Fi capabilities. It was the first third-party DS game to have online support.

Features

American Wasteland is the first game in the Tony Hawk franchise that advertised and allowed the possibility for players to play in one vast level via story mode, which actually seamlessly connects a number of levels without loading times in between, along with also being the first game in the series that allows you to freely commandeer stray bicycles and perform freestyle BMX techniques with it similar to how you can with the skateboard. In the September 2005 edition of Game Informer, a map was shown displaying THAW's Los Angeles with an insert of an overhead view of the Boston stage from Underground 2 for comparison. The Boston level appeared to be about three quarters the size of one THAW area, with the exception of the "Vans Skatepark" and "Casino" areas.

Tony Hawk's (series)

Tony Hawk's is an extreme sports–adventure video game series endorsed by professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and published by Activision. The series was primarily developed for home consoles by Neversoft (1999–2007), and for handhelds by Vicarious Visions (2001–2007). The series has since been developed by Robomodo since 2008.

The first five Tony Hawk's received critical acclaim for their unique gameplay, varied soundtracks, and expansion over their predecessors. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and Pro Skater 3 are critically ranked among the best games ever released for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, respectively.

Gameplay

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is a skateboarding video game in the Tony Hawk's series developed by Robomodo and Disruptive Games, and published by Activision. The game is the tenth game in the series, being the first main entry in the series since 2007's Proving Ground. The game was released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 29, 2015. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released on December 15, 2015 in North America and Europe, after they were delayed to improve the original versions.

Upon release, the game received negative reviews (especially in comparison to its predecessors), with many critics panning the game for its numerous technical issues, simplistic missions, bland environments, environmental clipping, and physics issues. The game's environments were criticized for their poor aesthetics, unmemorable theming, small size, dull challenge tasks, and for not containing as many hidden secrets as those in previous Tony Hawk games. The nature of the game's online modes were criticized for providing little incentive to players and exacerbating the game's performance issues. Patches have since been released to fix the game and add new content.