Writer: Doug Quimby

Since Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in the late 1990’s, skateboarding video games have been a great way to get skateboarding out into the world. The Tony Hawk Series created by Neversoft and Activision were all amazing games. My favorites were American Wasteland and Underground. At that time they felt like the most real a skateboarding game could ever be. Although you really could almost button mash your way through the entire game.

Then came Skate from Electronic Arts in 2007 and switched up the whole thing. Now instead of pressing a button to do a trick you used the joystick, and it felt more authentic to the actual sport. The way you flicked the joystick was like the way you would flick your board in real life, or at least as close as you could with one joystick. A couple years later came Skate 2 which to me is the best skateboarding game ever made. From the map to the story and being able to get off your board it was an all-around amazing game.

In 2019 the next skateboarding game is coming out and as much as everyone was hoping for Skate 4, this may just be better. Session, developed by Crea-ture is being made right now and I think it has the potential of becoming the best skateboarding game ever made. The controls are going to be different from Skate though, but that’s where I think it’ll shine. Each joystick will be a leg and to do a trick you really need to know how you would do it in real life. Pushing down one stick to make your back leg push the board down to pop, and flicking the other stick to flick your front foot to flip or rotate the board. And they’re also getting rid of the point system which I think will make the game more realistic. You’ll do the tricks that you think are cool and look good instead of what gets you the most points. Also the more you practice a trick the better you’ll your character will get at it just like in real life. This game is created by skaters and will be like actual skateboarding without getting hurt, a thing I never thought would be possible.