Cole Henry and Skateboarding While the World Burns | Winter Spectacular 2020
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot came out in September 2020, or as I refer to it eight years ago.
It is hard to think of 2020 before March happened. January and February seemed normal enough, especially in regards to games. Some big titles came out, others got delayed, there was a Dragon Ball in there somewhere and lots of smaller games graced our consoles and PCs. And then March happened. When I sat down to write this essay, I told myself I would try my best to write about the year without mentioning COVID-19, but that is impossible. It changed everything. I graduated from college virtually, didn’t fit the bill for my country’s one stimulus check (that is America for you), and I barely made ends meet until I was lucky and privileged enough to land a steady job in July. Games were always there, though they too were affected by the global pandemic (and the many ways the governmental powers declined to help people in any meaningful way). Developers started working from home, games were delayed some more, but somehow new consoles came out. As life slowly unravelled, I focused less and less on games until July. For whatever reason, July is when 2020 decided to be the best year for skateboarding games since the year Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 came out — that was in 2001, or a lifetime ago.
Before I get to how and why 2020 was the year of skateboarding games, I need to outline my relationship to skateboarding and in 2020 in particular, specifically. I’ve been skateboarding since I was five-years-old. My dad skated when he was younger and introduced me to the world and culture of skateboarding at a very young age. It took me a while to get good, and then life happened and I stopped skating for parts of middle school and high school. College gave me the space to be more persistent with my skating, but even then, I never did it as much as I’d have liked to. But once you step on that board and really feel something, well, then you know you are a skater and you always will be, no matter what. March of 2020 happened. Lockdowns happened. Parking lots and business centres and more were left with no one in them and no one to watch over them. For a long time, urban areas were a skater’s paradise once again. Fewer cops were around to hassle you and many places were abandoned. It felt like I had free reign over the city. I started skating again — every day after work I would skate until well past sunset. As everything seemingly crumbled around me, skateboarding was once again my anchor. For just how bad 2020 has actively been, I am truly grateful for one thing and that is how this year has really helped me re-ground my love for skateboarding. The fire has been relit, and now I skate almost every single day, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And if I am not working or skateboarding, then there is a good chance I am playing one of the two great skateboarding video games that came out this year.
Editor’s note: Yes, I picked this screenshot because the white t-shirt and long hair made me think this for Cole for a second.
Skater XL released on July 28th, 2020, and from there my year in gaming shifted to virtual skateboarding. Taking from the toolkit of EA’s Skate games, Skater XL is a physics-based skate sim that relies on the analogue sticks (each accounting for one foot) for trick input. It is as barebones as a game like this can get. No missions, no challenges, no fluff. Only a few large (and small) levels that players can skate around. These often urban landscapes are devoid of life except for the skater. In that sense, Skater XL genuinely resembles what skateboarding has been like for a large part of this year. The simplicity of Skater XL works in its favour. It understands the simple art of skateboarding and how even a small parking block can offer someone and their skateboard hours upon hours of fun. But the skateboarding of Skater XL is only part of what makes it special, it also has a robust video clip generator which lets the player engage in the roles of both the skater and the filmer. So, yes, it is safe to say that I have spent nearly 100 hours in this game since launch and I do not plan on stopping any time soon. It is my go-to podcast game, my daily stress reliever after work or before work, and it is there for me on the days when it is rainy out and I can’t skate or go run. Virtual skateboarding doesn’t hold a candle to the real deal but Skater XL might be as close as it gets.
I for one wish we could do a 900 on 2020. *sigh* Is that anything?
2020 introduced (or reintroduced) to us one more fantastic skateboarding game in early September. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is a remake crossed with a reimagining of the original two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games and it is assuredly my game of the year. It channels the nostalgia of a bygone era of skateboarding while also being more welcoming than the early 2000s classics ever were while also being a kinder game. The game’s character creator is not gendered, offensively named tricks have been changed, and all of this change is for the better. Skateboarding is a fluid art-form that is always evolving. It feels good to finally have a new Tony Hawk game that is not only good but truly incredible. Playing this game this year has been a means of transporting myself to a less stressed headspace — even though it is in HD, it still evokes the feeling of a late Saturday night with all of my friends crowded around a CRT television while we try and break each other’s high scores run after run. If Skater XL is one of the best facsimiles of skateboarding ever made, then Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is the perfect recreation of what a great day out skateboarding can make us feel like inside. Pure, resplendent bliss.
This year is a banner year for skateboarding in video games due, not only to the games that came out but when they came out. 2020, as stated already, has been an abysmal year. It has made even playing games feel like a monumental task, but for some reason, I keep finding myself pulled back to these two skateboarding games. Yes, I was presupposed to like them in a way due to how much skateboarding means to me — hell, it is me in many ways. I see a reflection of myself in these games, and not in the “these games define my personality” sens. Instead, I can sense that they are just unabashed love letters to skateboarding made by people who love the sport, the culture around it, and the young-but-deep history tied to these wooden boards with their urethane wheels.
Sun’s getting low but that won’t stop us!
Of course skateboarding games would make a triumphant return in 2020 because skateboarding is all about persistence and overcoming obstacles. 2020 itself is an obstacle. We have all been getting through it and coping in our own ways, with many of us left to our own devices as the government and public structures that be decided to continue on as if life was normal. Life will never be normal again. So, we have to (safely) redefine what our lives will look like, in both big and small ways. In a weird way, skateboarding prepared me for this, somewhat. If I can throw myself down 8 concrete stairs, then I can overcome anything, right? Wrong — capitalism, especially here in America, is actively antagonistic and insurmountable, but the sheer act of pushing back against it, of fighting back is a victory unto itself. And skateboarding embodies that fight, it asks us to push against our mental barriers, against gravity, and against concrete itself. But they push back and we often lose. Yet, I will never stop pushing back. A better tomorrow is possible, someday and somehow, just like how me doing a front lipslide down a kinked rail is possible. It will take time, but all-important endeavours do. We’ll get through this. We’ll land that trick.
