Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is the second part of the series and perhaps the most influential. This is where the “manual” trick came in: the ability to balance on two wheels between obstacles, which is why combos stopped being interrupted and started lasting for minutes. This one change turned the game into a never-ending high score chase. The levels are built as ideal platforms for experiments: a school, a hangar, a warehouse, rooftops, the streets of Marseille and an indoor park with a swimming pool. Each location forces you to connect railings, ramps and springboards in one line, and the timer adjusts: two minutes fly by instantly. Tasks are given as a list and can be completed in any order. In addition to the single-player career, there is a park editor where you can build your own playground and ride on it with friends on the same screen. The list of skaters became longer, and unlockable equipment and boards added a reason to replay levels again. Difficulty settings allow you to both go through levels calmly and try to get maximum points in one attempt. The park editor turned out to be surprisingly flexible: you can assemble a park to your liking and ride on it with friends. It is thanks to such opportunities that the game remains in memory as a standard of the genre at the turn of the millennium. The game's music still evokes nostalgia for an entire generation: the punk and hip-hop of those years sound like a time machine. The THPS2 is a classic of the genre that makes sense to return to even after many years to understand where it all came from.