The X Games are in full swing this weekend in Los Angeles, and we’re tuning in as we’ve been doing for many a past summer. Though I’m not quite the action sports enthusiast that my husband is, I still enjoy watching the amazing output of the resilient athletes. The same notion definitely applies to his long-standing interest in skateboard video games and how much I enjoy watching him play those too. They’ve been THE staple summer games in our house since the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in 1999. Aside from building a few parks here and there, I’ve never actually played one of the games. Even so, this series has probably had more influence over my life than any games that I’ve played.
First off, let’s talk music. This week on my blog, I wrote a post about “End of the World,” a great song by The Living End. I first heard this song on the soundtrack of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2. In preparing for the post, I reacquainted myself with the Tony Hawk soundtracks — a process that reminded just how absolutely killer they are. More than half of the enjoyment of watching THPS games was listening to all the fantastic music that accompanied each game. They had soundtracks made up of everything from well-known and unknown punk and rock songs to hip hop and jazz songs. And though I’m not much of a video game soundtrack aficionado, these particular soundtracks still resonate very strongly with me today. They definitely got me into some crazy good sounds from Suicidal Tendencies to Atmosphere to the Scissor Sisters. The blend of music from soundtrack to soundtrack both mimicked and enhanced what was happening in the action sports culture at the time of each game’s release.
Geek Force Network 