My favorite Games of All-Time #13: Top Skater - Originally published on 1UP - May 26, 2006

When I think of Top Skater little beads of sweat build on my brow. So much went into that game that I honestly have no idea how Sega managed to pull it all together. In short I am humbled by the design.

I tip my hat, I bow my head... any analogy you can think of as a sign of respect. Top Skater is one of my most beloved games and also one of the most overlooked influential titles of all-time. Top Skater begat the Sega action sports legacy, just look to my desktop picture to see what's I'm talking about. My desktop picture is important to me for many reasons. Not the least of which was because it allowed some common ground to talk with Jim of Pennywise.

Before I start talking about Cookie, Ken-ta or Jill. Before the big-name sponsors that lent their names to the game. Even before I talk about the revolutionary control set-up I have to mention one thing. Atari's 1986 arcade smash hit 720 (degrees) was the original arcade skateboarding game. It pushed the genre through its dynamic control and punk-themed music by "Faceplant". 720 is partially responsible for almost every skateboarding game to date.

10 years after 720 Sega's Top Skater rewrote the book on skate games. True to the legacy of other titles in the Sega arcade amusement (AM) groups. AM1 (later renamed WOW Entertainment) created the only other Sega arcade game on my list, the Ocean Hunter. AM2, the most famous unit under the direction of Yu Suzuki was responsible for Outrun, Virtua Fighter, Daytona and scores of other instant classics. AM3 was renamed Hitmaker in 2000 and was responsible for Top Skater and Ollie King. AM 11 renamed AV created Ollie King. Sega's platform developers Smilebit created the Jet Set Radio series... now you are all caught up.

Hitmaker was on pace for something special when the control scheme was revealed. Top Skater used a skateboard for the arcade interface rather than a joystick. Players had to stand upright on the cabinet and not only turn the skateboard from side to side to change direction, but also tilt the board to carve a turn and even slap down the tail to "ollie" or the nose to "nollie" and catch air.

A skater gained points and speed by successfully performing ramp jumps and collecting time tokens. Okay, so the experience was not a 100% accurate representation of skateboarding but then again what is? Top Skater was a downhill racer that did feature a lot of tricks based from real life.

A skater could grind on ledges and rails. They could even ollie and perform wallrides on billboards. The physics for gaining speed were semi-realistic. A player had to find the fastest line down the level while at the same time looking for ramps and shortcuts that would reward them with speed. Players that carved hard angles onto ramps and ollied at the lip were rewarded with bigger and higher airs. Those that managed to carve a fullpipe with enough speed could actually go a complete 360 degrees upside down. Special moves, mind bending animations and massive points were the icing on the cake.

If I could pin down the one thing that made Top Skater memorable it would have to be catching air out of halfpipes. Gamers that knew how to carve the gigantic snake runs could keep going perpetually higher and faster on the halfipe. These airs became longer, trickier and more dynamic. Special animations accompanied these airs. Some of the tricks based on actual skateboarding and a few based on snowboarding. The question you may be asking is "so what?" We've seen tons of these moves in other skateboarding, inline and snowboarding games. Why would Top Skater hold a place in my top game list above them?

For the simple reason that Top Skater broke taboo. They animated the air out of a halfpipe by crossing the horizon line. As an aside; some people get motion sickness while playing FPS games. This is because their eyes tell their brain that they are moving, while their inner-ear tells the brain that they are not. This mix of information causes them to feel queasy. One of the things that most video editors, animators and game designers do not do is cross the horizon line. If the horizon line is tilted it can make mild motion sickness worse. Like watching the ocean pitch from side to side while on a boat causes you to get sea sick.

With the exception of air combat sims, most games never break, let alone slightly tilt the horizon line. Watch the video for Warhawk and then the one for Snoopy vs. the Red Baron. Do you notice that the Snoopy game allows the camera to pitch and roll with the plane? The camera crosses the horizon plane and gives the player a sense of vertigo. This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the Snoopy game more than Warhawk. Well, that and about a $560 price difference.

Back to the game on my list!

Top Skater doesn't just cross the horizon line, it wraps it up into a little ball and throws it right out the window. The skater will fly out of the ramp and contort themselves in various positions when performing "A" and "S" class tricks like the Alley McTwist. When the skater does this the camera will pan back and rotate with the animation. Often times leaving the player not knowing which end is up until they reenter the ramp. For those few moments we are with the skater, we get to see the world through their eyes.

No game before or since has ever done it as well. Not SSX, not 1080 and none of the Tony Hawk games. In fact Dave Stohl with Activision and Scott Pease with Neversoft Entertainment said that Top Skater was one of the biggest influences in the creation of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The downhill levels in THPS could attest to that. After eight years the Hawk franchise returns to its roots with Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. The game will be released almost 10 years after Top Skater and a full 20 years after 720.

But this isn't where my praise of Top Skater ends. I just said that the camera was the biggest highlight for me. It isn't the only reason Top Skater was a memorable game and earns a place on this list. Top Skater also features some unique characters, each with their own personality and trick library.

These characters not only represented the archetypical skaters, they also had names like Keith, Jake and Ash. The skaters were even sponsored by shoe companies like Vans, eS and etnies. The soundtrack was provided entirely by Pennywise, the Orange County punk band with tremendous street credit. These little details helped round out the world that the game was set in. The character models were detailed for their time and did resemble skaters from the mid to late 90's. Hitmaker made great use of the then new Model-2 Arcade board when designing the levels as well.

Both the normal and expert skate parks had their own look and feel. The levels resembled a big-time race in an exotic local that could have taken place, if 100 foot ramp jumps were normal for skaters. True to the design in other Sega games like Daytona 2, the levels in Top Skater made you wish that places like this really existed. Stadium length tracks where skaters could grind and wallride with reckless abandon while moving in and out of snake runs and jumping distances that would make Danny Way jealous.

As if the game wasn't already a fun experience Hitmaker hid a number of things in Top Skater. One of these things were hidden characters, Alex the surfer and P-Nut the bodyboarder. Wait, bodyboarder and surfer? That's right! These characters floated above the air, could paddle to gain speed and even featured their own special tricks.

Top Skater also had a level hidden within the Expert course. This level was filled with ramps and bowls and known better as the Freestyle course.

The characters could skate regular (lead with the left foot) or goofy (lead with the right) based on their statistics, players could put in a code to change their stance and thus performance in the game.

Top Skater even had a code that allowed skaters to appear "super-deformed," that is have large heads, hands and feet and look like giant kids. This style of character later appeared in another Sega game called Virtua Fighter Kids. The "Kid Code" even worked on Alex and P-Nut.

Every detail that went into Top Skater forever changed the face of action sports games. The game was just about as balanced and innovative as any game on my list. The control, animation, sound, music, level and character design were way ahead of their time. Many of the hidden features went on to be copied in future games not only by Sega, but by the rest of the industry.

Three years before Tony Hawk's Pro Skater featured a couple of downhill levels with rails to grind, giant halfpipes to air out of and ramps to jump, four years before kid mode appeared in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and five years before Kelly Slater the surfer appeared in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 there was Top Skater.

Top Skater began a legacy that not only carried over to every other Sega action sports game but also the rest of the industry. For every flying skateboard that you see from now on, for every Tony Hawk clone that has come out we can pay homage to the creator. Top Skater has earned its place on my list. It will remain as one of my favorite games of all-time.

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!