SKATING SENSATION

Like a lot of people now in their 30s, Melbournian Shane O’Neill grew up playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. Unlike most people in their thirties, though, he took the things he learned in the game and went on to become one of Australia’s best skateboarders. Now, he’s going to be a playable character in the remaster of the games he loved as a kid.

The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series is so legendary, that his first reaction to getting the call he was going to be in the game was less about his involvement, and more about the remaster itself.

“I was really just excited to hear they were remastering 1+2! Then, yeah, the fact that I was going to be in it was a very big honour to me because of which games they were specifically,” he says from his home in LA. “I think it really hasn’t completely sunk in yet.”

Although he used the games as a kid to learn some of the craft of skating and get the terminology right, O’Neill’s goal for the new game is to make his character do as many improbable things as possible.

“I just like to do, like, the most unrealistic crazy things,” he says.

Life is now very different to how it was when the original game was first released in 1999, and there are many more online platforms for skaters, but O’Neill still hopes this remaster will have a similar effect when it comes to inspiring the next generation.

“Much like it was back in the day, it’s another platform for skaters to skate when they’re unable to physically go and do it and another way to enjoy skating and learn about it, see things that are impossible, and possible. It’s just a whole other version of skating.”

There aren’t going to be any new realworld areas added to the game. But if O’Neill could pick one place from his hometown to put in a skating game, he says the choice is obvious.

“I mean that’s so easy: It would just be Flinders Street Station and Federation Square,” he says. “The entire place has anti-skate stuff over everything, but it’s the most insane architecture for skating … it is basically like one of the in-game levels.”

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 will be available for PS4, Xbox One and PC on Friday.