We’re talking about the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater line of games, of course. There aren’t a bunch of actual Tony Hawks running around out there. Unless…?
Aggressive Inline
You might think that in order to be a Tony Hawk clone, you’d need to exclusively be a game about Skateboarding, but even Activision would dispute that claim quite vehemently. Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfing were attempts by Activision themselves at applying the Pro Skater formula to other extreme sports disciplines, with mixed results. Still, it didn’t stop other companies from having a go, with Acclaim and developers Z-Axis being the biggest competitors for a while there.
Most known for Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX, the competitor to Mat Hoffman’s series, Z-Axis decided to branch out into a sport that Activision hadn’t touched at all in 2002: inline skating or rollerblading if you’re nasty. While inline skating was more of a younger sport compared to skateboarding, which could be traced back to the 40s and 50s, inline skating had rapidly become an extreme professional sport throughout the 90s. A game dedicated to it was inevitable, and Z-Axis capitalised on it with Aggressive Inline. The formula was functionally the same as THPS 4 despite launching a few months earlier, with multiple open levels that players could free skate around and complete missions or find hidden collectibles, and a lot of the trick types like grinding, manuals and grabs were present.
What separated Aggressive Inline from skateboarding games was how you could use the environment to vault off rails or spin around poles, considering the wheels are attached to your feet and not a painted plank of wood. Reviews for Aggressive Inline were very positive, praising the large levels and open-ended mission structure, instead of just copying the “two minute sessions” formula. It’s unknown how many copies Aggressive Inline sold, but that’s not the reason we never got a sequel, as Z-Axis were bought by Activision mere days before Aggressive Inline was released in the US.
Activision then immediately put Z-Axis to work on a X-Men 3: The Last Stand tie-in game, followed by Guitar Hero: Van Halen, before shutting the studio entirely. Clearly, they just bought the competition so Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater could have the dominant market share. That sucks, but then again, it did also stop Z-Axis from making BMX XXX 2.
Evolution Skateboarding
If you thought a video about Tony Hawk’s clones would make you safe from some yapping about Metal Gear Solid, you either don’t know this channel or Tony Hawk clones. The name Evolution Skateboarding might not ring bells for people who were too busy skating around School 2 listening to Guerrilla Radio, or Alcatraz with Shimmy by System of a Down, but you might know the engine. Specifically, if people played the PS2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, they’d find a skateboarding minigame where Raiden and Snake shred around Big Shell for a few minutes, hitting tricks and blowing up Cypher drones.
That might sound like the coolest thing in existence, until you play it and realise that the gameplay is clunky, the physics are wrong and it’s just a bit crap. The whole experience was designed to be a demo for Konami’s own Evolution Skateboarding, but aside from the novelty of seeing Raiden and Snake hitting nosegrinds, the demo didn’t leave a good impression, leaving Evolution Skateboarding to completely flounder. The negative reviews of the game certainly didn’t help, with pretty much everyone decrying it to be a blatant Tony Hawk rip-off with none of the charm, but that doesn’t mean Evolution Skateboarding is devoid of interesting ideas and concepts.
Like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, you’re dropped into a level with a limited amount of time and given missions to complete, with the standard fare of “do this trick here”, “score this many points” or “destroy X props” all featuring. The bit that makes Evolution Skateboarding so weird and kind of wonderful is the boss fights. Yeah. For some god forsaken reason, Konami thought it’d be great to add boss fights to a skateboarding game, with these battles including a tank, an out of control 18-wheeler, a giant enemy crab/spider hybrid with more teeth than the Osmand family and Castlevania’s own Dracula. There’s a Castlevania level and everything, you can unlock one of the Belmonts as a playable character; Evolution Skateboarding had all the extra bullshit to be an amazing THPS clone, but lacks the most important aspect, the skating.
Skate Attack/Skate City Heroes
Fans of classic SEGA game Jet Set Radio have been waiting patiently enough for over 20 years for some kind of new instalment in that franchise, though their waiting was satiated by the release of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Far from just being a re-do of SEGA’s game, Bomb Rush added a lot of its own charm to create some new that both newcomers and veterans can enjoy, giving it the reputation of the first successful Jet Set clone. Now, let’s talk about an unsuccessful one that hoped to blend Tony Hawk’s and Jet Set Radio to create an extreme sports super combo: Skate Attack.
Released for the PS2 in 2007, Skate Attack borrowed heavily from the Jet Set formula in terms of world and aesthetic. While Skate Attack is more cyberpunk than anything, complete with a rogue AI running amok as the crux of the game’s story, there’s a light cel-shading to the game’s graphics that makes the inspiration hard to ignore. As for the gameplay, it’s where the Tony Hawk’s clone comparisons begin to surface, as all the usual tricks and abilities you’d expect from a Tony Hawk skateboarding clone are present. The controls take a lot of getting used to, especially if you’re a Pro Skater lifer, but the core gameplay is rock solid. It’s the extra stuff that makes Skate Attack a bit more of a flop.
Instead of just exploring a world, skating around and performing tricks, the developers Zero Scale thought it’d be great to add a whole combat system on top, meaning you’re fending off attacks from various enemies while you’re trying to score points. There’s also a laser grappling hook, which is a cool ability that allows you to reach new locations, but adds another layer when there really didn’t need to be one. Interestingly though, Skate Attack was brought to the Nintendo Wii as Skate City Heroes, which even offered support for the Wii Balance Board.
Cool in theory, but trying to keep track of everything on screen while maintaining balance is too much for our caveman brains. This is why we play skateboarding games, instead of bailing tricks in real life.
Grind Session
Z-Axis isn’t the only developer to be purchased by Activision, only to be shuttered after a few years for no real reason, though at the very least, Shaba Games weren’t quite as misused during their time under Activision. Founded in 1997 by an offshoot of Crystal Dynamics developers, Shaba Games set their stall out from the beginning as a studio all about extreme sports. We could talk about Razor Freestyle Scooter, but let’s focus on Grind Session instead, which pretty much everyone at the time considered to be an unashamed Tony Hawk’s clone.
Was it a worthwhile comparison? Pretty much, as the gameplay formula of timed sessions and specific goals were present. As for tricks and abilities, you’ve got grinds, flips and a mix of street and vert environments. In all honesty, Grind Session was the skateboarding game your mum tells you that you have at home; perfectly fine and fun in its own right, but you kind of wish you were playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 instead. There was even a moment where Grind Session and THPS even shared the same level, being Portland’s real life skatepark Burnside. Given that THPS came out months before Grind Session, it didn’t help people feel like Grind Session was just a pale imitator.
What’s perhaps more interesting than Grind Session is actually the story of Shaba Games. After Grind Session and Razor Freestyle Scooter in 2000, Shaba would partner with Activision in 2001 to develop Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX. They also served as a support studio for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, developing the PS1 version while Neversoft worked on the proper PS2, Xbox and Gamecube versions. Activision would acquire Shaba Games in 2002, where they’d work on another Tony Hawk port, specifically Underground 2 Remix for the PSP and Project 8 for the PS2 and original Xbox. Some of their most notable non-extreme releases include Shrek SuperSlam and Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows, though Shaba would shut down the same year as Z-Axis.
Turbo Super Stunt Squad
Look, we might need you to really dig deep into the recesses of your brain to remember the hit cinematic masterpiece that is Turbo, about the absurd concept of a snail that can go fast. They’ll greenlight that but my screenplay of a semi-autobiographical odyssey about a rabbit who’s a bit lazy keeps getting shot down by publishers. Just feels like favouritism to me, honestly, but we digress.
While we’re not here to talk about whether or not Turbo is a good film, we would like to bring your attention to Turbo: Super Stunt Squad for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U. Given the film’s flagrant references to the Fast & Furious series, you’d think that a racing game would make the most sense, but the game’s developers Monkey Bar Games decided to do things completely differently. Apparently snails and Tony Hawk’s clones go hand in hand, with Turbo: Super Stunt Squad giving players the choice of characters and shells, each with their own stats and abilities, and lets you loose across various levels. You’ve collected all the letters of S-K-A-T-E or C-O-M-B-O before, now get ready to collect T-U-R-B-O. Do you get it? Because the license is called Turbo.
As far as Tony Hawk’s clones go, it might be the weakest of the bunch. Despite being the most modern game featured in this video, Turbo: Super Stunt Squad just feels rotten to play. The levels themselves lack the sauce that classic Tony Hawk’s levels possess, and the actual tricks, abilities and tools you have to play with feel lacklustre by comparison to other clones in this video. Even the physics feel off, though a snail with supernatural speed isn’t really something that has a basis in real physics. Turbo: Super Stunt Squad might not be the best Tony Hawk’s clone ever made then, but the sheer audacity and brass balls to turn a license game into an unashamed Tony Hawk’s rip-off is legendary. Hat’s off to you, Monkey Bar Games.
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