Pretending I'm a Superman: The Tony Hawk Video Game Story

This is truly a magical 73 minutes and worthy of the long wait, and anticipation I've had for it. I wasn't sure what to expect, structurally, going in, I just knew my love for the game and the role it played in my growing up. So it's important to understand the focus of the documentary.

This doc is about the influence and impact of skateboarding (and it's culture) on the game's creation, and the subsequent impact of the game on the future of skateboarding and culture. This is not just a documentary about the history of the franchise that charts the rise and fall, details of development programming, the Robomodo games etc... This is all glossed over, but this is much more about how skateboarding, and Tony Hawk influenced a game, and how that game changed several landscapes for skateboarding, culture, and games to come.

It fully captured some magic here that truly speaks to my personal feelings when I think about THPS and it's impact in my gaming life, and life outside of the game. Watching it gave me goosebumps in a way I can't explain fully... They have put into video form some of the most nostalgic feelings of my late teens, and made me feel an era of my life in a way I haven't felt before... Kind of like when you smell the air on a certain day and you remember a time or place from your past.

This doc is a personal masterpiece for me.

There is a try hard skater in the movie who whenever says something makes an annoying try hard comment, this for me nearly ruined the documentary, thankfully half way through I remembered I can fast forward past his try hard remarks towards literally everything.

There's not much to learn for someone who is already familiar with Tony Hawk Pro Skater but would be great for a young person who wants to know what his or her dad used to play.

Besides the hater/poser comments from the try hard I did actually enjoy this documentary and will look for a physical copy to gift to my nephew when he's old enough.

I had heard about the Tony hawk video games though I did not know much about them.

I liked the interviews with pro skateboards and people involved with the video games.

I found it interesting to learn about some of the skateboarding video games that came out before the Tony Hawk video games. I suppose I thought that Tony Hawks games were the first skateboarding video games.

This certainly cranks up the nostalgia. If you grew up playing the Tony Hawk games, or skateboarding, then you will probably enjoy this.

As great as the subject matter is, it's a rather bland documentary. Just a lot of talking heads, a lot of patting eachother on the back, and a quick overview of the series itself.

The documentary is best when talking about the first two iconic games; in particular their development. The impact the games had on not just the skating world, but the bands who featured on the soundtracks was interesting too.

This makes me want to listen to the music featured on the Tony Hawk games even more than it does play the games themselves. You're probably not going to learn anything new here. The sheer volume of quick interviews is enough to make you more dizzy than the gameplay angles.

But for all its documentary shortfalls, it's still a nice enough trip down memory lane.

It's decent for what it is but the documentary lacked the deep dive into the actual games. It had a much greater focus on the influence of the game on the pro skaters that were involved in it, rather than the actual game/development.

It really does just focus on the succes. Not much else and it doesn't linger on any of the massive failures that came later and how it influenced the company/future. Like you don't hear about Neversoft becoming defunct and Robomodo taking over and how that process went.

The documentary also has a 20 minute section on the history of skating which I thought was a bit much. Especially this being a niche documentary about a very specific skateboarding game. I would expect the audience not to need a history lesson and it felt like wasted time.

So it lacks depth in the game development department which I was looking forward too. Therefore the lower rating.

If you want to hear some legendary skaters talk about how THPS elevated their lives then its great, otherwise not so much.