Series Nostalgia: Tony Hawk Games by Allison James

There are quite a few game series out there that have been with me for a long time and provided a slew of happy memories. I'd like to start with the Tony Hawk series - as I type this, I have a music playlist of all of the tracks from the series, and I find them firing off these little bits and pieces of nostalgia.

My first taste of the series, albeit a small one, was with the series premiere - Tony Hawk's Skateboarding (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater outside of UK). I never actually owned a copy of the original, but I did have the demo. I remember not knowing how to do anything in it - I worked out how to Ollie and how to turn, so for the score challenge in the demo, I would just be rolling around the Warehouse level continuously performing 180s.

In 2000, both me and my best friend of the time got the full copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. I played that game so much that I, to this day, know pretty much every nook and cranny of every level (even the weird outer-space one).

It was playing this that I, for the first time ever, stayed up past midnight, too - aged 9 and at her house playing it with her while our parents and their friends had a bit of a party. In the same session, I remember us discovering the art of in-game swearing - in the New York level, you could anger taxi drivers, who would then proclaim "you are pissing me off!". This, to a 9 year old, is comedic nirvana.

It took a while for me to get Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 - never got it for PlayStation 1, and only got my PS2 in 2002. But again, that one was played to absolute death. I remember that I would always play as Elissa Steamer, while my friend of the time (a different friend - I've just realised how I can use the series to chart when I was friends with people as a kid!) would create a bizarre sister character to her called Stephanie Steamer. I remember that he had to remake Stephanie every time we played the game thanks to me not owning a hideously-expensive PS2 memory card for about a year (they were dearer than new games, and I preferred having the games). I'm convinced I could remake Stephanie near-perfectly despite her non-existence for 14 years - spiky pink mohican, night-vision goggles, white tank top, camo trousers - sorted.

We wouldn't even necessarily skate - we'd use it as a tool to pretend we were our respective characters and make up stories. But when I was alone, I would then most certainly play the game as a skating game. Like with THPS2, I know the vast majority of every single level inside out.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, I didn't play as much. Thanks to its freeform career mode (I really, honestly didn't like the "two-minutes, ten goals" thing from the first three games), I got into that quite a lot, but casually, it didn't see much action from me. I guess at that point, the whole Pro Skater thing was a wee bit done. (I've returned to THPS4 recently, and think it's actually really nice. Love the Alcatraz level!)

The announcement that the sequel, Tony Hawk’s Underground, was a massive overhaul of the formula, however, was very exciting. I remember looking through each issue of Official PlayStation 2 Magazine with delight - the revelation that the new Tony Hawk game would contain walking, would have an actual story, you created your character and they actually had character... everything looked superb.

Christmas Eve, 2003, a day I can recall so clearly. Me and one of my friends of the time (another different one!) were swinging on the swings at a small hidden park in Redgrave coated with a thin layer of snow, excitedly discussing the game with the knowledge that, the day after, I'd own it, and the day after that, he could come over and we could play it all day.

Christmas Day, and yes, Tony Hawk's Underground was mine. This game is still my favourite entry in the series - although it had plenty of goofy gimmicks (car driving was fairly hideous, the "parkour" could have been implemented a little bit more thoroughly since it's so prevalent in the game's missions, and dear Jesus, that stealth mission that caps off the first level can suck one), there was just so much to do, so much to see.

The levels in THUG were well designed and varied, taking you around the world. I loved the sense of scale the game gave, too - far from the Pro Skater levels, which (excluding THPS4) mostly felt like you were in a segmented-off area, actually made it feel like you were in an inhabited world. It wasn't to the game's detriment, either - you could still, with ease, do massive lines of tricks, and were always close to the nearest skatable object.

Another part of THUG that captured my imagination was the improved level creator. Although still fairly limited by size and object limits, the ability to place things like buildings meant that you could create surprisingly convincing little districts. Me and my friend would often play a game where we would make a level and then hide the SKATE letters as well as possible, seeing who could find the other person's placements the fastest.

Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 should have been doomed to lose my interest, but didn't. A week or two before the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a game I was awash with excitement for, I found myself with ANOTHER DIFFERENT friend in Woolworths (RIP) of Diss, with ~£40 in my pocket. In there, I was greeted by a rack of copies of Tony Hawk's Underground 2, a game I had not paid any heed to up to that point thanks to my aforementioned obsession with GTA:SA. But due to my impatience and lack of anything better to do, I bought THUG2.

Well, up to the release date of GTA:SA (also the first game I ever preordered), I played the absolute heck out of Underground 2. What an excellent game - even if you're not a fan of the Jackass brand of humour, it's an absolute stonker of a game. Tons of stuff to do, a MASSIVE library of levels (including a bunch of neat revisits of old levels)... great game. I've played through the entire game again recently and it's still an absolute blast. If I remember correctly, I went back to THUG2 after about a month of playing San Andreas non-stop burnt me out and I needed a little palate cleanser before I could return to SA and obsess over it again.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland was another instalment I didn't really get too fussed over. However, I bought it a few months after it was released at about the £15-20 mark - and was promptly reminded why I loved the series. The ability to traverse between levels without loading times (sort of) was a welcome if relatively inconsequential addition. Bikes were surprisingly fun, kind of making THAW the third Mat Hoffman game as well. Had a lot of fun with THAW.

I didn't get Tony Hawk’s Project 8 until May 2007 as a 16th birthday present (along with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), since I went with PlayStation 3 as my Gen 7 console of choice. I remember going to Diss with the same friend as from the THUG2 excursion the day of my birthday, and spending the entire time wanting to come home so I could game my face off. I enjoyed Project 8 a fair bit - I remember that (still not having broadband internet until July that year) I spent a ton of time between May and July simply skating around the world in free roam while listening to my music.

The magic had dissipated a little from the series with Project 8, though, a process completed with Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. I got Proving Ground towards the end of 2007 with EMA money, and... good lord, that game was boring. I still finished the story, but it was a really dull game. Even Project 8 had managed to make its (now entirely freeform) world interesting, with the funfair, the steelworks, the school etc - Proving Ground was brown. It was entirely brown.

So I wasn't entirely heartbroken when, having moved onto and subsequently fallen in love with EA's "skate." game, Tony Hawk's gaming legacy was snapped in two like a bailed skateboard with the absolutely dreadful Ride and Shred games. Skate 2 and Skate 3 followed the original and brought more improvements to the table, but then both series disappeared.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 in 2015... well, yeah. I finished THPS5 after finding a copy for £8 in late '15, if only for a deprivation of skating games (Skate 3 was five years old when THPS5 came out, and the genre was pretty much untouched in that time bar the vomit-inducing THPSHD).

I won't lie, THPS5 would occasionally show off shades of what made the original series such a blast to play. But those scraps of past brilliance were diluted by a poisonous ocean of dodgy new physics, overall glitchiness, and the entire game seemingly having next to zero thought or care put into it. Nothing about THPS5 was really fun.

And so stands the Tony Hawk game series. I miss it. I miss good extreme sports games in general - SSX, Aggressive Inline, Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX, Rolling, Jet Set Radio and a ton of other Tony Hawk spinoffs occured (Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX, Shaun White's Snowboarding, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfboarding off the top of my head - all good games too). I hope next month's Steep can sate my growing appetite.Not mentioned were all the spinoffs of the series, most of which I missed and returned to later. The GameBoy/GameBoy Advance ports tended to be fairly bad, Downhill Jam was the best of the bunch but still nothing to write home about, and there was a DS instalment that clamped a plastic piece of crap to your DS and took tilt controls - if you wanted to see the series be worse than Ride and Shred, I'd strongly recommend that one.

RIP, Tony Hawk's series. I will always hold out hope that you, or a series strongly based off of you, rises from the ashes like a beautiful skateboarding phoenix. And I hope Robomodo is nowhere near it.

Top 5 Favourite Pokémon Soundtrack Tunes by Allison James

Because why not. Here are my five favourite tunes features in main Pokémon games up to XY.

Honourable Mention: Santalune Forest (X, Y)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSGZqdfZj4g

Lovely theme, but not as memorable as 1-5!

#5: Dark Cave (Gold, Silver, Crystal)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyPamrElGOM

The only time I've ever been happy to trawl through the colourless hell of a cave in a Pokémon game.

#4: Pokémon Contest Reception Hall (Ruby, Sapphire & Emerald)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ29daov4o8

I spent a lot of time berry blending and contest entering in Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, so I heard this a lot. Thankfully, it's exceptional. The Hoenn trumpets are in full force. Sadly didn't like the ORAS version as much.

#3: Versus Legendary Pokémon (Black, White, Black 2, White 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCkmgssjhvo

Legendary hunting for me has never been a tenser, more stressful experience than in Black and White thanks to its excellent theme tune. I'm in love with the bit when the tempo warps.

#2: Route 4 (Red, Blue, Yellow)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLcJois9yTs

My first Pokémon game was Yellow. Being inexperienced, it meant I spent hours and hours of my young life stuck levelling my Pikachu and nothing else until its normal-type moves could defeat Brock. When I finally did, I was greeted with this theme - and that's a feeling that's embedded deep within me. The Route 4 theme is like nostalgia dropped its trousers and did its business in my ear.

#1: Team Plasma Grunt Theme (Black, White, NOT the BW2 remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB87TndHlFg

GODDAMN, THAT INTRO. It nearly single-handedly made Plasma look like a credible threat instead of the gaggle of spanners that evil teams in Pokémon always are.

Forbidden Moonfruit by Allison James

As of this month, Moonfruit have stopped free accounts from being a thing. Which means that the final glimmer of pre-2009 NAL (short of delving into The Internet Archive at least) is now done and dusted - my website from between 2006 and 2008 was with Moonfruit, was free, and had been dormant and available since 2008.

I still have access to the website for now, it's just not live unless I pay them. I'm not paying them.But here are some joyful, memorable quotes of a version of me perhaps less mature or perhaps just immature on a different plane.

"Some stuff about me...
I like PS3.
I don't mind Wii.
I don't like Xbox 360."

Aah, a more innocent time when I couldn't just buy all three of the bastards and laugh maniacally like the responsible, financially sensible adult I am now. Also a time before Yahtzee Croshaw, be it accidentally or purposefully, infected the world with "PC Master Race", a group of people that somehow managed to out-sad excessive console fanboys.

I only disliked Xbox 360 at the time because my friend spent the year and a half between his getting his 360 and me getting my PS3 not shutting the fuck up about it. It's a fine console now I have one, although it's probably still my least favourite thanks to how badly it ages - mine is an original unit, and having the 20GB hard drive, the antiquated component cables for HD and the addon to enable Wi-Fi is irritating. Wii gets away with its stupid foibles because most of its content was unique to it. And MadWorld rocked.

"I hate using text speak.
I hate seeing wronged punctuation."

#teenagegrammarnazi

"I think Bill Gates is a moron.
I think the same of Richard Branson.
I think Kate Moss is hideous."

#teenageedgelord

"My favourite actor is Jack Black.
My least favourite is Andie MacDowell."

Fair play on Jack Black, might not put him in first any more but I do still enjoy me a silly comedy film. No idea on the latter choice, I've never seen a film with her in. I think she might have been overexposed in adverts at the time, so that might have been it. Not sure who I'd pick now. Probably Jim Carrey for favourite and Adam Sandler for least.

"I am 50% English and 50% Scottish.
I created the alias of NAL when I was six.
I like amusing facts."

Fair play, unlikely to change.

"I hate console fangirlism."

A smidge hypocritical given the statement at the top. Dumbass self.

"I like cutesy platforming games.
I'm not a fan of violent games (excluding Grand Theft Auto and Elder Scrolls games)."

The former's still very much true (and 2008 me would have been disappointed by the landscape of that genre for like six solid years), but because of that bracketed disappointment, the latter changed. MadWorld, Mad Max, Fallout 4, Mortal Kombat X and many more have been games since 2008 I've fallen in love with, all of which are pretty damn violent. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

"I'm a flange fan."

#teenagerandom

"The shortest time taken to make a game is 24 minutes, with Floccinaucinihilipilification.
The longest is Gamanstake: started in February 2006, ended in July 2006. (it wasn't constant working though...)"

Both beaten since - 10*2 took me 20 minutes, and Innoquous 5 was on and off for three years.

"The game getting the best public reception is r!!!dicule.
The game getting the worst is The Boy in the Plastic Bubble."

I'm struggling to imagine this world. The Boy in the Plastic Bubble was shit, but it was better than r!!!dicule. And in 2008, r!!!dicule was easily surpassed by games I made after it - Elemence AuX and Rockit for two. Maybe I wrote this the day after r!!!dicule came out and never updated it - then I can pretend all this embarrassing crap was 9 years ago, not just 8!

"The only games ever to have had real inspiration for their creation are Up Shint Creek and Blokkeid (which later became Elemence)."

Yep nope! Ne Touchez Pas was inspired by Flywrench by Messhof, Innoquous by every GM game before it that had done gravity flipping gimmicks but all in really gammy, nasty ways, ExecutioNAL and TimeStop were PARODIES... the list continues!

"I have also won the following things:- a brick game, £50, a yoyo, £1,000, £500, a £10 gift voucher. Furthermore, in a game of hoopla at a féte once, I won every prize on display in ONE GO."

Sudden recall of that last one! Can still remember the pissed off look on the vendor's face when I essentially shut their stall down in one go. Hoopla champion!

"Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny is an absolutely fab film, and you must watch it."

My opinion on the above hasn't even remotely changed. LONG-ASS FUCKIN' TIME AGO IN A TOWN CALLED KICKAPOO, THERE LIVED A HUMBLE FAMILY RELIGIOUS THR... whelp now I have to watch it again

"The worst three films I have EVER seen are:
3rd worst: Kung Pow
2nd worst: Dude! Where's My Car?
WORST!!!: Picking Up The Pieces"

Sadly no longer true. I've now seen Movie 43 and inAPPropriate Comedy.

But now we're into the top 10s!

"THE TOP 10 SONGS OF MINE OF CURRENT
1.
Dario G - Sunchyme
2.
Toto - Africa
3.
Royksopp - Remind Me
4.
Groove Armada - At The River
5.
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
6.
Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
7.
Moby - Porcelain
8.
Fischerspooner - Never Win
9.
Lo Fidelity Allstars - LoFi's In Ibiza
10.
Frankie Fame - See Through You"

Not a vast amount of changes, and an adequate amount of appreciation for the stunning Grand Theft Auto III original soundtrack too. I now cite my absolute favourite tune as Röyksopp - Eple (if that means nothing to you, listen to it - you'll probably recognise it) because it's the rare track I find it physically impossible to get sick of. So I'd definitely swap Remind Me for Eple on that list. Fischerspooner remains a firm favourite, but I'd pick Emerge now. And I'd swap a few of the tracks for other ones - Black Velvet, Lo-Fi's In Ibiza, Africa, See Through You and Flagpole Sitta would be out and some stuff like His Majesty King Raam, Me And You, Unfinished Sympathy, Atlas and Eve of the War would be in.

"My Top Ten Current Favourite Films
1. Sin City
2. The Warriors
3. Pleasantville
4. Phonebooth
5. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
6. The Green Mile
7. Road Trip
8. The Truman Show
9. Robots
10. Hot Fuzz"

Not many changes here either! Pleasantville's jumped to #1, Phonebooth wouldn't be on the top 10 and Robots DEFINITELY wouldn't be on the top 10 (what I ever saw in that film, I don't know - it's watchable, but nothing compared to a half-decent Pixar flick). I'd also probably demote The Green Mile, and shuffle Road Trip down - it would still be in my top 10 but probably only just. I'd then let Fight Club, 21 Jump Street, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, WALL-E, Inside Out, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, Pulp Fiction, Scott Pilgrim vs The World and The World's End duke it out for the remaining spaces (The World's End perhaps knocking Hot Fuzz off the list).

"The Blackadder Order Of Brilliancy (best to worst)
1. Series 3
2. Series 4
3. Blackadder's Christmas Carol
4. Series 2
5. Back & Forth
6. The Cavalier Years
7. Series 1"

Even something I wouldn't expect to have an opinion on, I still have! Series 2 should be above Christmas Carol, and Series 1 should be above The Cavalier Years and Back & Forth.

"My Top 10 Ever Albums
1. Moby: Play
2. Keane: Hopes And Fears
3. Scissor Sisters: Scissor Sisters
4. Groove Armada: Vertigo
5. Moby: 18
6. Kaiser Chiefs: Yours Truly, Angry Mob
7. Fatboy Slim: Palookaville
8. MIKA: Life In Cartoon Motion
9. Dido: Life For Rent
10. Fischerspooner: Odyssey"

Yeah, this is all wrong now. A vague mockup of my list now would be:
1. Röyksopp: Melody AM
2. Massive Attack: Mezzanine
3. Röyksopp: The Inevitable End
4. Lemon Jelly: lemonjelly.ky
5. Fischerspooner: #1
6. Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds
7. The Fratellis: Costello Music
8. Battles: Mirrored
9. Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells
10. Nero: Welcome Reality

Anyway, it's about high time I allow that era of my past to disappear now. Bless it, it was so silly, but it was fun to reminisce....BUT YEA THERE WAS A BLACK SHEEP, AND HE KNEW JUST WHAT TO DOHIS NAME WAS YOUNG JB AND HE REFUSED TO STEP IN LINEA VISION HE DID SEE OF FUCKING ROCKING ALL THE TIMEHE WROTE A TASTY JAM AND ALL THE PLANETS DID ALIGN...dah dah dahhhhhh

NAL's Double Cross Sequence by Allison James

I Googled it. Nobody else has made this sequence up before. So it's mine. I'm naming it after me. You heard it here first.

I call it NAL's Double Cross Sequence, and it goes like follows:

5, 21, 45, 105, 405, 525, 945, 945, 2205... (as far as I've calculated).

And the description I've given this sequence is as follows:

For each term t[n], t[n] is the lowest number of squares that can be arranged into n different cross shapes with rotational symmetry of order 4.

Or in mathematical terms:

For each term t[n], t[n] is the lowest solution to n=w²+4(w*h), where w and h are positive integers, which can be expressed with n different pairs of w and h values.

Or in image terms:

21crosses.png

21crosses.png

That's a graphic representation of t[2], or 21. You can arrange 21 squares into two different cross (or plus) patterns which have branches of equal thickness and length. For the formula w²+4(w*h), the thin, large cross has a width of 1 and a height of 5 (counting only squares used beyond the central "square"), and for the stubby chubby one, a width of 3 and a length of 1.1²+4(1*5) = 1+4(5) = 1+20 = 213²+4(3*1) = 9+4(3) = 9+12 = 21

I've taken to calling 21 the first Double Cross number for that reason. 33 is the second one (1,8 and 3,2). The lowest even Double Cross number is 60 (2,7 and 6,1).

The first Triple Cross number is 45 (1,5; 3,3; 5,1) and the first Quadruple Cross number is 105 (1,26; 3,10; 5,6; 7,2). The first Cross number outright is 5, which is simply a width of 1 and a length of 1.

The one choice I made in defining the actual sequence was that the chosen number could contain MORE than n sets of widths and lengths. This is why 945 is both term 7 and 8 in the sequence - it can be written in 8 different ways, but there are no smaller numbers that can be written in exactly 7 different ways - 2025 is the smallest case.

What purpose does this serve? None that I can tell. Hooray for casual mathematics! But it's neat how the sequence works - that the differences between terms can fluctuate, even being 0 in some cases. And how it's (I would assume) totally possible for a term to be even, but they tend to be odd every time. Even the divisibility by 5, and even 105 - I'm not mathsy enough to explain it, but I like it.

If you want to play around with it further, here is a copy of the Excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the first nine terms of NAL's Double Cross Sequence. Sheet1 contains the raw values for pairs w,l, and Sheet2 contains the quantities of appearances of given numbers. You'll need to expand Sheet1 in both directions to get accurate readings in an expanded Sheet2, but it's all formulaed up!