BTS - Hawktober 2022 (164-169) (Patreon)

G'day rad lads, holy shit, let's do a deep dive into Hawktober number 6: THPS Clones and Competition of the early 2000's! This is a topic I've been excited to get into for years now and the end result is a body of work that I'm super proud of... like every year! 😅 So let's get into it!

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Original Plans for Hawktober!
So coming off of the very reduced special of Disney skating games in 2021, I really wanted Hawktober to come back with a bit of a bang now that I was in a much better place. I've been wanting to do a large scale documentary episode for ages now about skateboarding in games BEFORE the Pro Skater series came along. I was then going to use this to lead into more individual episodes on some of the bigger titles like Thrasher and whatnot, which would then end with ANOTHER big marathon of a bunch of good and bad alternatives in the PS2 era.

Here you can see my notes from... god... probably April prior to even having a house to even move into. Simply put, this was just far too ambitious which is a problem I often run into with Hawktober. The huge undertaking of a doco before the individual episodes was far too much commitment for my brain coming off of the worst year of my life. But on top of that, compilation episodes as fun as they can be... I was worried some of the bigger games would get lost in the shuffle a bit which I really didn't want. So I opted to go with 6 episodes on the primary alternatives I wanted to focus on, ending with a shitty shovelware game. SIX seems to be the magic number for Hawktober! 

The best years of content in my opinion were 2018 with the fall of THPS, 2020 with Activision O2 and now that it's done. This year is also one of the best!

As a result of reducing a lot of what was planned, I still had dabbled with many of the games I'd purchased for the special such as 2Xtreme and Skate Boardin' on Atari 2600. So that's why I did my best to reference them as much as possible throughout the week just as comparisons for what was available at the time and stuff like that. Makes me sound like I actually know what the hell I'm talking about ahaha! 😀

Thrasher presents: Skate and Destroy!
This one was always going to be the star of the week so it made sense to drop it first! Rockstars entry into the extreme sports world is one I've been curious about for the longest time. I first heard about this from NakeyJakey's video on it a few years back and a lot of people requested it. Since I was still getting used to my new camera and having to auto-focus all of my shots. IKEA's Djungelskog stepped in to help me focus the shot!

Playing through the game was simple enough as I managed it within a single sitting. I was using the PS3 as all the PS1 games I covered this year had compatibility issues with the Framemeister due to resolution changes which mess up the recording. As poorly reviewed as emulation on the PS3 is, I've not really had too much drama with it in the past but I was wary of that while writing the script given the game was difficult to control. Otherwise this like many of the episodes this year were incredibly simple to produce once I stripped back my plans.

It's the Thrasher logo which needed to be perfect given it was going to be the first impression of the week.

I decided to combine two styles of the logo based on the game's cover and then the more famous flame font that you see on a lot of merch. Mostly bootleg merch! So I found a basic flame transition and switched through which then leads into the magazine cover montage which might be one of my favourite intros to a video in a while. It really captures the vibe I was going for.

As for the Hawktober logo for the year, Thrasher's developers Z-Axis had a really late 90's PS1 logo screen which I wanted to replicate. So I commissioned old mate Petronious who helps with a lot of my logo stuff. He's very fluent with Dreams using it to create environments and animation so I tasked him with recreating something similar which I was then able to frock up with some additional effects layers to create a very appropriate title for the special this year!

Here you can see the original, Pete's version in Dreams and the final completed logo animation seen in the reviews!

Grind Session:
This is another one that I've been very keen to get too for the longest time, since 2017 when it featured in a Game Testing episode. But also I'd recently at the time learned about this game from my mate TerryByte's channel where he reviewed the game and given that was the year Hawktober started, it was instantly pinned for a future episode! This one I accidently played first for some reason as I mixed up the release dates, so I started at this point which probably made going back to Thrasher even harder.
Honestly this episode was quite uneventful to work on, very standard but the end result doesn't really reflect that I don't think. I didn't actually fully beat this game because I've learned not to kill myself forcing my way through these games. To see all of the hidden content, I actually whacked the game into an emulator and used a Gameshark code. I believe either there were no cheat codes or if there was, I couldn't get them working on console for some reason. But even then I wasn't able to see all of the unlockable levels which annoyed me but what can you do really?

I will mention that like previous years, I always try to keep the presentation a little unique for each episode so that it doesn't feel like the same thing each day. Using my new coloured lighting really helped me to achieve a variety of moods and themes based on each game's colour palettes. This might be the most colourful Hawktober to date!

MTV Skateboarding ft. Andy Macdonald:
Now THIS episode I knew was going to be another star of the week! I didn't know fuck all about this title prior to getting my hands on it sometime within the last year. I know it was prior to moving. When I got it, I hopped into a Discord call with my partner Donnie and OH MY GOD, we were laughing so hard at how busted it was. Just losing our shit, so I couldn't wait to give it more of a go.
By the time I actually got to it however, I was in NO MOOD to force myself to suffer through such a garbage game. I'd already reduced my workload and I was cutting it fine coming off of the Destruction Derby episode. I also had a deadline as we were hosting friends for the PAX AUS convention early in the month. So it was a tight squeeze to get it all done. So to make the most of this game, I resorted to more of a classic AVGN format just ranting.

I don't fake it for the camera though, I was genuinely that pissed while playing the game first hand. In retrospect, I should have livestreamed the experience because it was AWFUL!!!

There was a part in the episode I had planned to go to a skatepark and film myself skating "better in real life than in the game" but due to being a new state and not really being as comfortable to go out and make a tit of myself in public. Cause ya know, it wasn't as issue previously as the park was generally quite empty but I've noticed here in Melbourne. The skate scene is much more alive so there is ALWAYS people around my local parks. Would've been nice but again to keep things simple, I filmed a quick bit in my driveway and speed up the footage. That added the additional layer to the joke where clearly... no... I actually can't skate better than in the game ahaha! 😅 I was very glad to see this episode perform quite well because it's a special one too me.

X-Games Skateboarding:
The weakest episode of the week, I kinda knew that going in once I'd played the game for the first time. It was incredibly basic without a whole lot to really get into but was a necessary episode leading into Evolution Skateboarding the following day. This was the only other logo that required more than a nice font so here is a GIF of that process!

I utilized Photoshops 3d tools to help get it looking more authentic to the original logo. With more time (and if the game was worth putting the effort into) I may have done a basic animation with this logo but it didn't feel needed. The best thing to come out of the video was the GBA version with the skateboarding into heaven and meeting a Dragon for powerups so this one just happened to happen.

Evolution Skateboarding:
Now aside from Thrasher, THIS was the game I was most excited to play! Knowing about the Konami made skating game with Metal Gear in it for so many years, damn right I was interested. I actually purchased the game back in 2020 just to make sure I had it for future use when I found a cheap copy. Given it was no doubt going to be one of the more outlandish and unpredictable games, I opted to not lookup ANYTHING until I played it for myself. And so genuinely learning that it ALSO included Castlevania content, more so than Metal Gear was honestly the best surprise for me. I fucking love the remixed theme songs and skating around castles fighting monsters. I kinda wish the entire game was just that as the Metal Gear stuff was quite a let down in comparison. Man those levels SUCKED!

The line about Belmont's mini skirt, the original line was "He looks so fuckable" cause I'm a bisexual man and it makes me laugh to throw in gay jokes (even before I knew I was bi) but while reading out my voiceover during recording. Donnie actually come into the room and said "Jak you're saying FUCK too much, change it to breedable" and I was just not ready for it. I worry about making things too gay just because I dunno... internalized homophobia I guess. But I read the line and laughed so I kept it in. A lot of people were caught off guard by it too so another score for Donnie being right! 😂

It's crazy that based on my original plans for the special that this game was supposed to be mushed into a compilation with a bunch of other stuff. There is SO MUCH to say, it really deserves a spotlight all of it's own. Reminds me of in 2019 doing the handheld THPS games, Tony Hawk's Motion was initially planned to be crammed in with all the other DS games in a single video. Breaking it out to be it's own episode was the right call as it's one of the best videos on the channel. So I've really learned from Hawktober over the years that it's important to let the more outrageous titles stand on their own!

This video has THE BEST preview on YouTube I've ever seen!

Skateboard Madness: Xtreme Edition!
Alright let's quickly talk about the shit sundae to end off the week, because you've always gotta end on something memorable! I had a few shovelware skating games lined up including Skate Attack/Skate City Heroes, Whirl Tour which is a scooter game that plays like THPS which featured in a testing episode forever ago. The other one was Rolling which was a rollerblading game someone sent me forever ago. I maybe could have done just a shovelware skating games episode but when I put my hands on the Phoenix title, I just had to give it the spotlight. I first learned about the game from Caddicarus' skating episode from a few years back (which by the way, I was a bit salty about how he just smashed through years worth of content for me in a single video without going in-depth. but whatever, not important). 

MY GOD is it bad, even though on it's own the video was short. I like that sometimes. Just a quick race through some funny trash and it would be a nice reward to myself having worked so hard to end off on something simple. That said Hawktober come together INCREDIBLY smoothly this year. Most of the games were fully played within the span of about 3 weeks taking a few breaks to write the episodes in between. Filming was done over 2 days back to back which is how I usually do it. But editing just flowed so smoothly like nothing ever before. I wish I could edit this efficiently on a normal basis but I think the production line of multiple videos helps me to focus and just put my head down.

6 videos, edited in 8 days!

That's fucking MENTAL!!!

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That's a WRAP!
Well guys that's the behind the scenes of Hawktober number 6. To be completely honest... I don't know how much longer I want to keep doing these. The original idea was just to do 3 years and get through the THPS franchise but I wanted to keep going and I mean as long as people are still interested, then of course it's a topic I'll never let go. But the amount of mental work it is to prep so much content all at once every year, as soon as June hits I'm just stressing until it's done and given my mental health the last few years, I don't know how I can keep that up. I do have plans for a full special in 2023 so don't worry, I WILL HAVE HAWKTOBER NEXT YEAR! After that though, definitely going to start scaling back to free up some time and energy to explore other stuff!

Not end on a sad note but that's just where I'm at. I'll still have some kind of extreme sports content to celebrate each year but it would also open up skating games to pop up for review all throughout the year instead of one dedicated week.

But yeah coming off of the weakest Hawktober last year, I was really glad to see this one perform better out of the gate and bring some life back into the channel after so long. Without going too specific on numbers, the special made the month of October 2022 my THIRD HIGHEST earning month on YouTube in the channel's history hitting 4 figures. I'm fucking so proud of that after having a cunt of a time the last few years! Not since 2020 with THPS 1+2 AND Crash 4 have I been even CLOSE to earning that much. I truly warmed my heart and has shown me despite everything, there is still a lot of life in this channel and it's incredible audience which has me feeling very positive to end the year off for a change.

So thankyou all so much for your ongoing support! 💜

I hope you all enjoyed that read, if you have any further questions don't be shy and REMEMBER to link your Discord to your Patreon account to gain access to our new Discord with Patreon privileges! Until next time, I hope you all have a great fucking day. Cheers you absolute legends! 🤘🛹