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breadknight-likes-things · 4 years

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Bread’s Skate (?!) Journal 09/06/20: The Other Ones: A Look Back On The Tony Hawk Imitators Of The Early 2000's....And BMX XXX.

Looking back at Tony Hawk as a series that's pretty solidly in the past can cause someone to easily forget how those games were actually thought of at the time: Hyper popular. As a result of that popularity, it was easy to see a bunch of other games and franchises that wanted a piece of that money, some from Activision themselves, some....very much not. Some of these games were good! Some of these games were so bad that they've become something of a legendary laughing stock in the game landscape as a whole.

As I said, Activision was no stranger to trying to apply the Tony Hawk formula to other sports in an attempt to cash in on the extreme success of their franchise. Sometimes these cash in's actually made for decent, if unoriginal games. Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX was more or less a carbon copy of the Tony Hawk formula, but with BMX Bikes instead of Skateboards, and it actually worked pretty well once you got used to the inherent differences of the two different styles. Other attempts were not quite as fortunate as Matt Hoffman though, and both of them sort of had the same "downhill" problem. Shaun Palmers Pro Snowboarder was an attempt to put the Tony Hawk formula into a snowboarding game, and while that should reasonably work, the linear and all downhill nature of the levels really didn't lend themselves to a fun time.

Following from Shaun Palmer was "Wakeboarding Unleashed featuring Shaun Murray" which is quite a title! It was originally revealed with the far more descriptive name as "Shaun Murray's Pro Wakeboarder" but I have to assume that was changed to...distance the game from Tony Hawk? It's a confusing move to say the least. The game was actually quite decent, more so than you'd assume from something like a wakeboarding game, and you can tell there was some talent behind it, the games issue was that, by design, it was pretty much always on rails. You were literally pulled through the levels behind a speed boat, and even though there was plenty to trick off, it lent a feeling that you were just being guided to the cool set pieces rather than actually doing any exploration of your own, it deserved better. Hell, it at least deserves it's own Wikipedia page, the only mention of it at all is on Shaun Murray's very small Wikipedia entry, an ignoble end for a game that least tried something new.

I had to find a screenshot for Shaun Murray, which I swear is real, and this is the only one I could easily find online. I swear this game happened!

Of course Activision wasn't the only studio trying to capitalize on the extreme sports craze and the Tony Hawk trick heavy style. EA found what I would consider the greatest success with franchises like SSX, and one entry wonders like Freakstyle (which is a seminal game for me as a kid, but one I feel very few people even know exist), a sort of blend of SSX and racing through the lens of Motocross. Hell, eventually EA would make Skate, which outlived Tony Hawk itself for a few years, and I already wrote about earlier this week, an excellent franchise that was nonetheless heavily inspired by THPS.

Now, there are far more imitators and hanger on's, some good (Splashdown, while closer to Wave Race, definitely stole some of it's vibes from THPS). Some incredibly bad (Gravity Games: Vert, Street, Dirt, an abysmally bad Tony Hawk ripoff from the early 2000's immediately springs to mind) and some downright strange (Four words: Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure). But only one company tried so hard and failed so miserably, and that's Acclaim, and BMX XXX.

This is genuinely what some of the worst impulses of the video game industry look like.

Acclaim had found success early on by getting Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX out only one year after Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and it certainly wasn't a terrible game. It felt a little clunkier than what came out of Neversoft at the time, but it was definitely playable. Acclaim also went on to put out Aggressive Inline, which, while it might sound insane to say about an inline skating video game, is genuinely one of the best extreme sports games ever made. So Acclaim had real reason to believe they actually could put something out that would rival Tony Hawk! Then they put out BMX XXX.

BMX XXX is one of the most insipidly stupid things that any company has ever produced, certainly one of the worst video games ever made, and was so bad that Dave Mirra forced Acclaim to take his name off of it before release. You really can boil this game down to two things: Dave Mirra's okay BMX game play, and the horn-dog mindset of a 13 year old boy that just found an issue of Hustler in the woods. It's incredibly embarrassing! Full of hookers, pimps, literal strip club videos, dogs fucking and humor that was shitty and mean spirited even by the standards of 2004. It's astounding that anybody thought this game would sell at all, let alone do the impressive numbers they wanted for it. Even the console manufacturers didn't really seem to want this thing on their consoles, Sony out and out censored the nudity even (which yes, the game featured full polygonal breasts, and they are horrifying to look at today), and though the other two allowed the nudity to slide, they made it pretty clear they thought the game was terrible.

BMX XXX is a punchline today, rightfully, but I think it did so much harm to the idea of a competing extreme sports franchise, that any further attempt to really hone in on an Tony Hawk alike just sort of stopped right there. It actually came out pretty early on, in 2002, long before some of the other games I've mentioned on this list even, but the damage it did was impossible to ignore. Activision kept trying, we still got the occasional excellent SSX game, and we got Skate. Hell, we even got Ubisoft making a couple of tries, first with Shaun White doing a snowboarding and Skateboarding game, then with Steep. The concept wasn't killed entirely, a favorite of mine, Amped 3 for Xbox 360, even came out just a few years later, but it felt like the spirit was gone, and it never really came back. Thankfully, these days, we have more independent developers putting out their own vision of what an extreme sports game can be. I hope this new generation of developers can really get us back to the glory days of the extreme sports game, and even if they don't end up making it too far, at least they're going to try.

And things might get a little weird.

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shrooms97-blog · 4 years

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The Cool New Technology of Lightcore Skylanders Giants

The sequel to the highly successful Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, is called Skylanders Giants. One of the great new features of this video game is the introduction of Lightcore figures. The Skylanders franchise has successfully linked real world toys to a video game. When a Skylanders character is placed on to the Portal of Power, the character is instantly transported to the magical world of Skylands. The Portal of Power is sold with the Skylanders video game, and is the interface that connects the figures with the game. Click this site buy magic mushrooms online

Although there are some small differences between the Portal of Power in Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders Giants, they essentially work in the same way. If a person already has an original Portal of Power from the first game, they can use it in the Giants game. The Portal glows when it is being used, and can change color too.

The Lightcore technology introduced in the Giants game is found within the toys themselves. When a figure is placed on or near the Portal of Power, the figure lights up. 'Toy's For Bob', the Acitivison studio that developed Skylanders Giants went to great lengths to get the colors of light chosen for each character just right.

Which Skylanders Characters have the Lightcore Feature?

All Giant Skylanders have Lightcore technology. There are eight actual Giant characters in the video game, one for each of the eight Skylanders Elements (Air, Water, Life, Undead, Magic, Tech, Earth and Fire). Five of these Giants have already been released. Tree Rex, the Life Giant has an energy beam blaster that glows green, and his eyes glow blue. Crusher, the Earth Giant has shoulder spikes glow green and his eyes glow blue. Bouncer, a Tech Giant has a large gear on his chest that glows orange and his eyes glow white. Swarm, an Air Giant, has stingers that glow yellow and eyes that glow white. Hot Head, a Fire Giant has a flame on his head that glows red. The other Giants have not yet been released. These are Ninjini (Magic Giant), Eye-Brawl (Undead Giant) and Thumpback (Water Giant).

In addition, there are also eight regular sized Skylanders that have Lightcore technology. Each of these characters has a normal version, and a Lightcore version. Eruptor, a fire type, has an open mouth that glows red when he is placed on the portal. Prism Break, an Earth type, has large crystal beams that glow green. Drobot has a small orange light on his back. The other five Lightcore figures have not yet been released. These are Hex (Undead type), Pop Fizz (Magic type), Jet-Vac (Air Type), Chill (Water type) and Shroom Boom (Life type).

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