Best Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Games of All Time

The Skatepark Soundtrack

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater arrived on PlayStation in 1999 and immediately defined a genre. By Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 in 2000, that genre had reached a form so refined that the sequel is frequently cited among the greatest video games ever made — a game where everything works, nothing is superfluous, and the core loop is as satisfying after hundreds of hours as after the first session.

Two PS1 games. Both excellent. One that approached perfection.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2: The Standard

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (PlayStation, 2000) is the benchmark for its genre. The addition of manual tricks connected ground combos to aerial sequences, allowing players to chain tricks across entire levels without resetting the combo counter. This fundamental mechanical addition turned each skatepark into a puzzle of optimal lines — routes through the environment that maximized combo potential.

The level design understood this opportunity. The School II’s hallways, the Hangar’s curved surfaces, the Venice Beach’s urban environment — each stage contained multiple viable routes for players of different skill levels, with the most skilled players discovering long combo lines that averaged players would never identify. This meant THPS2 played differently for beginners and experts, with genuinely more content accessible to those who developed skill.

The soundtrack — Rage Against the Machine, Dead Kennedys, Naughty by Nature, Powerman 5000 — became inseparable from the game’s cultural identity. Players who played THPS2 at the time cannot hear “Guerrilla Radio” without thinking of the Hangar level.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater: The Genre Creation

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (PlayStation, 1999) created the genre template. Eight levels, a two-minute run timer, five goals per stage, and a trick vocabulary that players could immediately use casually but could study for significant depth. The decision to use real professional skaters — Tony Hawk, Kareem Campbell, Bob Burnquist, Bam Margera — with their actual trick signatures gave the game authenticity that a fictional skateboarding game couldn’t have achieved.

The game launched at a moment when skateboarding culture had mainstream visibility, and the combination of real skaters, authentic music, and accessible-but-deep gameplay created a product that transcended its sport game category. Players who had never skateboarded and would never skateboard played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater as entertainment in its own right.

The original is slightly rougher than its sequel — the manual connection that THPS2 added was a fundamental improvement the original game didn’t have — but as a standalone experience it remains excellent. The difficulty curve, the level variety, and the basic satisfaction of landed trick chains all hold.

A Cultural Moment

The two-game PS1 Hawk run represented a particular cultural convergence that made the games more than their mechanical quality. Skating culture, alternative music, and 1999–2000 youth culture intersected in a way that made Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater not just a good game but a generational artifact. The music compilations were mixtapes. The level designs were imaginary skate destinations. The skaters were actual people with actual styles.

Both games hold up as excellent action games regardless of that cultural context, but the context explains why they meant so much to the players who encountered them at release.