Tony Hawk video games might be a thing of the past, but for many they live on in our childhood memories, accompanied by the many great soundtracks each title featured. From Tony Hawk‘s Pro Skater, to Underground, to American Wasteland, over the years many have argued which game had the best soundtrack.
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And while those debates have no definitive answer, the closest thing to one has finally been provided, courtesy of Tony Hawk himself.
During an interview with Noisy, Hawk ranked each of the 13 Tony Hawk games by their soundtracks. The results were the following:
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4
Tony Hawk’s Underground
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3
Tony Hawk’s Project 8
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam
Tony Hawk: Ride
Tony Hawk: Shred
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5
As you can see, Hawk put the first game that kicked off it all — Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater — as number one. According to the skateboarding legend, at the time he was surprised by what Activision allowed the soundtrack to feature.
“Whatever was connected to skating and my history of skating was my first go-to,” said Hawk talking about making the Pro Skater soundtrack. “Like, Dead Kennedys and Primus, those were top of the heap. It’s funny, because I threw out Dead Kennedys thinking there’s no way we could ever use a Dead Kennedys song because of the lyrics. And when they came back and said, “Oh, yeah, we can use ‘Police Truck.’” I was like, “Did you guys listen to ‘Police Truck?’ Do you know what they’re singing about?”
As you can probably also see, the latest Tony Hawk game — Pro Skater 5, which was infamously terrible and may have just put the series on ice forever — comes in at last. According to Hawk, this was a result of budget restrictions negatively impacting what could be done with the soundtrack.
“Because of the lack of resources we had to do it, by the time that game was finished, they had completely gone through their budget, for the most part, for the development,” said Hawk. “There was very little left for the soundtrack. We had to just go with bands that would give us songs for very cheap. It doesn’t mean that the quality was different, it just wasn’t as big of a soundtrack. I guess, ironically, a lot of the songs were chosen by me personally because they were favors from friends.”
As mentioned above, until the end of time mankind will be debating loudly about what the best Tony Hawk game soundtrack is. This may be the most definitive ranking we ever get, even if it’s wrong. American Wasteland is the best.
Thanks, DualShockers.
