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September saw the long awaited remastered release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
and that means now makes a great time to take a look back at the original games and at how
they fared when they got ported to the Nintendo 64.
The N64 era was when Nintendo of America started to relax a little on the strict content policy
they imposed on publishers for its systems, with these rules being dubbed their ‘family
friendly policy’.
The family friendly policy plagued gamers for years during the NES and SNES eras and
would sometimes result in a wide range of changes having to be made for Nintendo releases
of games.
However, despite getting some very mature titles such as Conker’s Bad Fur Day, the
N64 era still saw a fair share of games released for it with content more toned down compared
to other platforms and made more child friendly.
The first three Tony Hawk’s games were released on the N64 and all of these came with an E
For Everyone rating from the ESRB.
Conversely, on other platforms, the games would usually come with Teen ratings and thus
various changes had to be made to get the rating down.
Furthermore, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 also saw a release for Nintendo’s next gen GameCube
system and came with Teen rating, meaning that no more changes had to be made to tone
the content down, unlike the N64 version.
Censorship wasn’t the only changes that had to be made for the N64 ports however.
Due to the console making use of the cartridge-based format, rather than disc, alterations had
to be made to get around the limited storage space.
These alterations included removing video clips, removing songs and shortening songs
in length.
Originally released for the PlayStation on September 29th 1999, the Nintendo 64 release
of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 would follow on March 15th the next year.
As detailed in this 2000 article from IGN, the N64 release was backed by a multi-million
dollar advertising campaign, which targeted males aged 8-14 via TV commercials on channels
such as WB network, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and MTV.
A commercial would show the real life Tony Hawk skating in the street, with text appearing
onscreen listing various accolades from the press, before Tony is then chased by cops
humorously also on skateboards.
Also, a fun fact about this commercial, there actually exists another version but for the
PlayStation instead and with the sign at the start of the commercial not blanked out.
In this version, the sign is shown to read “No Skateboarding”, hence why the cops
start chasing Tony later on.
Perhaps there was some concern over encouraging kids to break the rules or something?
But, to move things back to the game itself and how it got changed to get an E For Everyone
rating, one of the first differences that you’ll be able to spot in the N64 version
is that there is no blood.
The skaters would originally let out blood when they fall off their boards and crash
to the ground, but, as shown, this got completely removed for the N64 release.
Alongside this, a few gap and grind names also got changed due to being seen as inappropriate.
These include: “Handi-Gap” which got changed to “Spanky Gap”, “Long-Ass” which
was changed to “Big Daddy” and “Holy Sh—“which became “Holy Cow”.
And then last but not least, the N64 version also made some changes to Private Carrera,
the titillating secret skater that you can unlock.
Whilst in the other versions the skater’s bio states that her age is “barely legal”,
on the Nintendo platform this was changed to a whopping 41 years old, despite no changes
to her appearance.
Aside from the age change, her skateboards are also different on N64 and, as well as
different graphics, some of them have less naughty names.
Erector Set became Yes Mamm, Viagra Falls became Thanks Bob, Manhandler was changed
to Hot Stuff, Feelin Blue to Miss Devastation, New Member to Crazy Stats, Solid Wood to Foxy
Lady, She Got Pop was the only one that wasn’t renamed and then Skate Hard became Skate Mean.
Following the first game’s release, developers Activision would quickly begin working on
the sequel.
This meant that they decided to hand the responsibility of porting the game to the N64 to another
company, this company being Edge Of Reality.
Edge Of Reality was a company founded in 1998 that originally made a name for themselves
through their work porting different titles to the N64.
Prior to Tony Hawk’s, they had ported Monster Truck Madness 64 and would then go on to port
Tony Hawk’s 2 and 3, as well as Activision’s Spiderman to the N64.
It would only take a year for Tony Hawk’s 2 to be developed and released on the PlayStation
and, with the N64 port of the first game only coming out a little while before this, N64
players had to wait almost a whole extra year longer than PlayStation players for the port
of the sequel.
Tony Hawk’s 2 would be released September 2000 and the eventual N64 port August 2001.
Perhaps to make up for the later release, the N64 version features a whole extra level
not found in other versions that’s based off a level from Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX.
Aside from this neat extra however, the other differences were similar to the original game,
with video clips being removed, music drastically shortened and various instances of censorship
to keep the E For Everyone rating.
Blood was again completely removed, although this time, the new blood-like washing off
effect that gets applied to the text on screen would be removed as well.
Private Carrera was again removed also, although interestingly, she is still partially contained
in the N64 files.
As reported by the website The Cutting Room Floor, her special tricks got left in the
game and, whilst not accessible via normal means, can be activated for any character
through hex editing.
Alongside this, there were a few edits to the N64 version to remove instances of the
world “hell”.
In the level Skate Heaven, the death message “Hell in a Handbasket" will sometimes appear
when falling off the stage, but this got changed for the N64 release to “T'heck in a Handbasket".
And then, more noticeably is the censorship that was made to the song Guerilla Radio by
Rage Against The Machine.
A big part of the song features the line “All hell can't stop us now” being repeated.
However, on the N64, this line got heavily distorted to remove the use of the word “hell”.
A little more than a year later and Tony Hawk’s 3 would also be released for next generation
systems, with it first releasing for the PS1 and PS2 in October 2001.
For the third game, Neversoft put the bulk of their focus on the PS2 version, and left
Shaba Games, who were the company who worked on Grind Session, in charge of the PS1 release.
The PS1 port would be what the N64 version was based on.
And, perhaps due to this, the PS1 version was now also toned down as well and came with
an E rating.
The next generation Gamecube release however, like mentioned earlier, was rated T For Teen
and was virtually identical to the PS2 release.
This time around both the PS1 and N64 releases contained an extra level not found in the
other releases, this time being the level Downhill.
Only two out of the eight secret characters are available in these versions though, these
being Officer Dick and Wolverine.
This also means that once again there’s no Private Carrera in these versions too.
The PS1 version did still have some improvements over the N64 port though, with it still featuring
movies and more songs, with these songs also being the full versions and not reduced in
length.
But like the other games, blood was completely removed from both of these versions to keep
the E rating.
The blood in the third game also had the notable distinction of staining the ground for a period
of time and it being possible to have numerous puddles left along the stage.
And then, aside from the blood and Carrera, another change that got made was again censorship
to some of the song lyrics.
This affected both the PS1 and N64 releases, but again, keep in mind that the PS1 version
had full length songs unlike on N64 and so, whilst the edits to provocative parts are
the same, the songs between versions aren’t completely identical.
One notable edited song is If You Must by Del The Funky Homosapien.
This song is all about the importance of personal hygiene, hence certain lyrics, like…
“I’ll go so deep in your ass, You’ll be submerged, Like you need to do in water,
‘Cause you smell like a turd”.
That footage was from the Gamecube release though, on the PS1 and N64, the words “ass”
and “turd” were censored with a distortion effect.
And then during the song’s chorus, the line “You gotta wash your ass” repeats multiple
times.
On PS1 and N64 though, the word “ass” is simply removed, leaving what the rapper
is talking about washing a mystery.
Tony Hawk’s 3 would mark the last time for the series to be released on N64 and future
games would be released without these sorts of censorship-related platform differences.
But, what is your take on the N64 ports of the games?
As always, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and, once again, a big
thanks to our faithful sponsors at NordVPN.
There will be a link in the description if you want to go check their big discount out
and, until next time, thank you for watching.