Skateboarding games have been popular types of video games for many years since the mid to late 90s when games consoles and computer gaming started to take off and the sport of skateboarding was regaining popularity. There were a series of small skateboarding games made for old consoles like the Playstation and Nintendo 64, but the genre did not really take off until the entrepreneurial skateboarder Tony Hawk released his own branded series of skateboarding video games. Since then, largely thanks to him and his games, the video game industry has slowly rumbled along producing a good skateboarding game every couple of years or so.
By far the best known skateboarding games are Tony Hawk's series which started in the late 90s and early 2000's with 'Pro Skater', the success of which prompted two sequels, each providing slightly more in the way of game-play with more tricks and greater freedom to perform various types of tricks. As hardware continued to improve and graphics quality increased, the environments in which the player could skate became bigger and better, as exemplified in 'Tony Hawk's Underground' series. Most recently, Hawk's brand has been updated for HD consoles with 'Pro Skater HD' being released in 2012 for consoles and PC.
With the popularity of Tony Hawk's skateboarding games, the video games industry soon started to take notice and decided that there was money to be made from good quality skateboarding games. In the late 2000's EA (Electronic Arts) launched their own skateboarding game for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3consoles and PC called 'skate'. This proved very successful, largely due to its innovative control system; instead of pressing buttons for certain parts of various tricks, all tricks were performed by closely monitoring flicks of the analog sticks giving players far more freedom, and a touch more realism, when trying to perform tricks. This trend continued in the two sequels, with a third in the pipeline, both proving equally popular.
With the current trend for mini online browser games, players can now find many fun skateboarding games on the internet for free. Although smaller, lower quality games, such online games are perfect for convenient play and give a taste of what bigger and better skateboarding games have to offer. As has been proven over the years, you do not have to be a skateboarder to admire skateboarding, just as you don't have to be able to skateboard to enjoy a skateboarding game.
Action game
Bigpoint provides many an exciting action game which will test your gaming skills and reactions. Experience the various challenges for free online and see if you can conquer gaming.