Ranking Every Level in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

In 1999, video games changed, and in turn, skateboarding arguably changed. The original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was released. It was a great game, but it also got a lot of people into skating in real life. Sure, you couldn’t pull any of the moves that Hawk, Bob Burnqvist, and the rest of the playable skaters could do, but it gave you the itch to grab a board and see what you could do.
There were limitations in the first game, sure, but in a way, there is an appeal to that. For example, there were only a handful of levels, and they weren’t that large, but that’s fine. Who needs a super-sized level that you’ll never really tackle all of? There are nine levels in the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (aside from the Game Boy Color version, which was more limited). Here is our ranking of those levels.

 

9. Downhill Jam

 

 

There are two downhill racing levels in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and that’s not what we’re looking for when we’re just tooling around. The dam-based level also lacks any of the fun of tackling day-to-day obstacles on your board.

 

8. Skate Park

 

 

The Skate Park level is in Chicago, but to what end? It’s a totally generic skate park. Not bad, but not remarkable. Definitely not a level we like to hit up time and time again.

7. Roswell

 

 

Rosewell is the secret level you have to unlock, and then it’s…fine. It’s fun to play, like, once. You see the alien, the novelty wears off, and that’s that.

6. Warehouse

 

 

The warehouse is the smallest level. There isn’t a ton to it. However, there is beauty in its simplicity. Also, we’ll be honest. It’s the first level, so there is some baked-in affinity for that. When we think of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, we think of tooling around the warehouse with “Superman” by Goldfinger playing.

5. Mall

 

 

This is the other downhill racing level. The reason it’s higher on the list is that the mall is, well, a mall. You get to grind escalators and such. You can envision yourself actually skating in a mall, which has a lot of value to it.

4. Streets

 

 

The streets are the streets of San Francisco, an iconic skateboarding city. Now, this is no real representation of San Fran. They just throw a bunch of stuff together, including Lombard Street. That being said, it has the San Francisco feel, and that’s cool.

3. Burnside

 

 

Burnside is an iconic skate park in Portland, Oregon. A lot of kids probably learned of Burnside from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, further building its legacy. Now, the video game version is a bit different from reality, but that’s alright. This is just a skate park, but at least it is a specific skate park, and also a real skate park. We play Burnside over Skate Park every day of the week.

2. Downtown

 

Why is the downtown level in Minneapolis? That, we couldn’t tell you. It doesn’t matter. Call it downtown Toledo, Ohio for all we care. There are great obstacles and you can grind on cars. You can dodge moving cars, and sometimes you get hit by them. In real life, that’s a nightmare. In a video game, that’s a ton of fun.

 

1. School

 

In this case, school is very cool. The school level is the best. It’s ostensibly in Miami, and it kind of feels like it. Again, you can imagine skating at a school. However, this is set up as the perfect school for skating. It’s a ton of fun and the perfect size for a level. There are no bad levels in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but if we were only going to pick one to play, ring the bell. We’re heading to school. 

All images used are courtesy of © Activision