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In November of 1999 – less than seven weeks after the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater – Rockstar Games released a different type of skateboarding video game. Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy was developed by Z-Axis, a company known primarily at the time for sports titles. The game’s release was largely overshadowed by the success of Pro Skater, but its gameplay was quite unique and garnered plenty of praise.
Thrasher is a skate magazine and cultural force that got its start in the early 1980s. In this game, the objective is to make your way through twelve levels set in cities across the globe in an attempt to drum up gear and sponsorship. The ultimate goal: make it onto the cover of Thrasher magazine. Various multiplayer modes are also offered in which players take turns competing in challenges.
Unlike the arcade feel of a Tony Hawk games, Thrasher does not offer the same pick-up-and-play simplicity. Its controls are linked more closely to the actions associated with actual skateboarding, a concept that would be expanded upon with the Skate series eight years later. With more realism comes more complexity, a facet that players will either find rewarding or frustrating. And since the game relies so heavily on physics, the characters’ falls are both amusing and painful to watch. The developers didn’t bother programming characters break their falls, so limbs will flail in a ragdoll fashion as they crash into the ground…hard! All of this is happening to a soundtrack chock-full of classic hip hop tracks that complement the game’s urban environments.
The title landed fairly well with game critics but was not universally loved. Some praised its realistic controls while others found it to be a chore. Ultimately, its time of release pushed the game under shadow of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, making it difficult to even write about it without direct comparisons. Still, if you’re interested in trying a different type of skateboarding game, you might check out Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy.
