Tony Hawk's

After that, developer Robomodo took the franchise in a different direction with the peripheral-supported spin-offs Ride and Shred, released in 2009 and 2010 to critical reviews and poor sales.

Bails (falling off the skateboard due to poor landing) cause no points to be awarded for the attempted trick and reset the special bar to empty.

While the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater featured a fairly limited set of moves, later entries allowed the player to switch between moves during the same grind or manual sequence, perform transfers, hold on to and drive various vehicles, walk on foot and scale walls, slowing time, or performing more advanced tricks by pressing buttons repeatedly, for example a double or triple kickflip instead of a normal one.

[24] In Underground 2, the only direct sequel in the series, on the other hand, the player embarks on a destruction tour around the world, orchestrated by Tony Hawk and Bam Margera.

[25] In American Wasteland, which was the first entry to feature one consecutive open world instead of separate levels, the player character intends to rebuild an old skatepark in Los Angeles.

Aiming to provide a realistic skateboarding experience, turning, leaning, hopping, and other actions on the peripheral device were directly translated into the movements of the in-game character via infrared sensors.

Unlockable characters in various versions of the game who are not professional skateboarders include Jack Black, Doomguy, Eddie the Head, Jango Fett, Iron Man, Nick Kang from True Crime: Streets of LA, Darth Maul, Judy Nails from Guitar Hero, Shrek, Gene Simmons, Kelly Slater, Spider-Man, Wolverine, a skeleton, a human-sized severed hand and a humanoid with an eyeball for a head based on the Neversoft logo.

[32] Mitch Lasky, at that time the senior vice president of Activision, stated in an interview with GameSpot that the game as well as the character were meant "to reflect Tony's signature style – an intense mix of acrobatics and hard-core technical skating".

[35] To make the gameplay seem as real as possible, company founder Joel Jewett had a halfpipe built in his backyard and started skateboarding with his coworkers.

[37] This was reflected in the manpower Activision and Neversoft invested in the franchise, as the employees working on the game had grown from 12 for the first entry to 150[36] and there were significantly more skaters featured, all of which received considerable royalties.

[40] Previous games in the series had included character-creation features as well, but Neversoft heavily expanded customization in Underground by implementing face-scanning for the PlayStation 2 version.

[41] Most of the levels were modeled closely after real-world locations; the designers traveled to locales representative of each city in the game and took photographs and videos as reference.

While it still featured a story mode, it took a stark departure from Underground and focused on a "World Destruction Tour" orchestrated by Tony Hawk and Bam Margera.

[46] This was reflected by the Jackass stars Jason "Wee-Man" Acuña, Stephen "Steve-O" Glover, Margera and his father Phil featuring heavily in the game.

Due to some fans being displeased with the absence of the goal-oriented approach of the Pro Skater era, a "Classic Mode" showcasing the old gameplay was included from this entry onwards.

The next game in the main series, 2007's Proving Ground featured a largely similar concept to Project 8, with an open world and the player able to choose three career paths as a skater.

[59] Because all games in the series released since American Wasteland failed to achieve commercial success, Activision decided to put the franchise on hold.

[60][61] In 2014, the endless runner Shred Session soft launched for mobile devices in a handful of territories but was later pulled from the market, postponed indefinitely and later shelved.

[63] Because the licensing deal between Activision and Tony Hawk was set to expire by the end of 2015, the game was hastily developed within a few months and released unfinished with little promotion.

Even though Activision marketed this as a conscious stylistic decision unrelated to the feedback and solely owing to allow a consistent frame rate,[66][67] the end results did not save the game from being panned by critics upon release in September 2015.

[9] Meanwhile, fans of Neversoft's original series continued to preserve its levels through THUG Pro, an online multiplayer fangame made using Underground 2's engine.

[16][77] Hawk claimed that remasters of Pro Skater 3 and 4 were planned for development following the release of 1 + 2, but these were cancelled due to Vicarious Visions being merged with Blizzard.

IGN gave the N64 version of the game a 9.1 out of 10 praising the gameplay for "genius control, combo system and design" despite little criticism with sound stating "the punk tracks are dumbed down and looped".

[212] It also gave the PlayStation version an outstanding rating (9.4 out of 10) again praising the gameplay and the graphics stating it is "simple but amazing in terms of animations, physics, and size of levels".

[223] As for Pro Skater 4, IGN gave the Xbox version a 9/10, stating that "Tony Hawk 4 is by far the best skateboarding title around and head and shoulders above its 'me-too' competition".

[224] The PlayStation 2 version received the highest score from IGN, with a 9.3/10, commenting that though the graphics haven't changed from its predecessor, the maps are much larger than in Pro Skater 3, along with praising the increased difficulty.

Knutson lauded the game's high degree of customization; he summarized that "everything is expounded a hundred fold: from create-a-skater to create-a-park mode, it is simply amazing".

[231][228] Reviewers for Famitsu magazine praised the story mode, whose open world format they compared to the Grand Theft Auto series.

IGN's Nic Vargas gave the game a score of 8/10, praising its purist gameplay whilst lamenting the lack of certain modes such as park creator and split screen multiplayer.

[252] In the United States, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2's computer version sold 320,000 copies and earned $8.0 million by August 2006, after its release in October 2000.