Celebrity Byte

Are there still things you try out in real life that you incorporate into the games?

Absolutely. It doesn't translate so clearly. It's more like a technique or a style of grind. It's not like I can just rattle off the name of a trick and that's a new trick in the game. It's more like trying to make the skater look real but also have him bounce from one trick to another and not make him look jerky or fake. We've shot me doing a bunch of tricks from all different angles in an effort to figure out how they would work in the game and how'd you be able to go from one to the next.

Tony Hawk lending a friendly smile. Photo by Eric Charbonneau.

Are there other video games that got you hooked in this hobby?

I'd say the game that really got me into playing video games was Missile Command at the arcade. That was the game that I'd save up all my money for and then dump all my quarters into it at the arcade.

What are your thoughts about how far video games have come from Missile Command to Tony Hawk's Proving Ground?

It's crazy. It's like instead of playing a game, we're controlling characters on a high definition television. It's more like you're immersed in the game instead of just controlling this little blocky character. It's unbelievable. Every time I get a new version of our game, I can't believe it. I sit there and I take each character and rotate the camera around him. It really is that guy.

So when you're not playing Tony Hawk games, what do you play?

I play a lot of games with my kids. I always feel like, unless they're asleep, I'm cheating time with them if I'm playing games without them. It's not like they're in their room playing LEGO Star Wars and I'm in my room playing Grand Theft Auto or something.

I wouldn't feel right about doing video games or these types of endorsements if I wasn't skating myself. If I wasn't walking the walk, I'd feel like I was just faking it.

We've seen boards used both at home and at the arcades for skate games. What's the next step for the future of skateboarding video games? Would it be using some type of board peripheral?

That's kind of a debate. I think it would be fun, but at the same time, I don't want to make a skating video game that is as hard as skating. With an apparatus like that, if you really want to make it interactive and true to real skating, it would make it almost as hard as doing the real thing. There's something to be said for standing on a board and maybe turning or jumping, but that's pretty limiting. If you want to get into the trick set, then you need to know how to kick your feet and you might as well go skate for real.

Tony poses with his wife, Lhotse Merriam, at the 2006 American Music Awards. Photo by John McCoy.

Do you think the Wii Remote has helped with skating games?

I think that gives you a sense of it, but it's not like you're going to figure out these intricacies with your feet. I guess the one good thing about skating on an apparatus is that you're not going to knock your teeth out. But I can't be sure with the Wii these days. I was playing Wii Tennis with my kids the other day and I knocked a full cup of coffee off my kid's dresser and it did a full flip all across the room. Now he has coffee stains all across his carpet.