The Wildest Gaming Party of the 2000's
My favorite story from the year 2000 is a lesser known tale. I’m talking about the $10,000 Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 Big Score Competition...
Introduction to The Year 2000
Ahhh yes… the year 2000. The mark of the millennium. A much simpler time indeed. One can’t help but be intrigued by seeing the number 2000. It was captivating. It was scary. It was awesome. What the hell was 2000 all about?
Remember Y2K? The highly publicized software bug that was going to end the world as we knew it? No one knew what was going to happen. I honestly pictured scenes out of the Terminator movies. At midnight, the year 2000 began and nothing happened. We all breathed a sigh of relief.
Electronic sign incorrectly displaying the year as 1900 [Image Source: Wikipedia] Yes we had cell phones, but they were basic. The most widely used device being the Nokia 3310. Did they have mobile games? Yes they did. People would brag about their high scores on the classics like “Snake” and “Snake 2”. You could also customize your phone cover.
Did you play “Snake” on the Nokia 3310? [Image Source: Wikipedia] If you said the phrase “social media” out loud, you would probably get laughed at because 2000 didn’t have that. Computer Apps like MSN Messenger and ICQ were the closest things.
Contact list on MSN Messenger [Image Source: Wikipedia] The PlayStation 2 was released! The best-selling console of all time (155 million units sold). The graphics and processing power were jaw-dropping, oh and by the way, it was also a DVD player.
But perhaps my favorite story from the year 2000 was a lesser-known tale. I’m talking about the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 Big Score Competition. You are probably thinking, “What the heck is that?”
This was a competitive gaming event organized by game developer Activision, just before the official release of their iconic game, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.
But before we get to the party, let’s first set the stage up for this cool story…
TONY HAWK - THE LEGEND
Tony Hawk landed the first-ever 900 at X-Games V (June, 27 1999)
The famous 900. Tony Hawk defied gravity and spun around a total of 900 degrees, launching off of the half-pipe, and landed the once thought impossible trick in front of a live audience at the X-Games. Sure, he failed at the first 10 attempts, but much like a session in a game of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Tony wasn’t going to leave until the trick was landed. The event regulators even extended his session time in order to make the impossible feat happen. Then it happened. Tony Hawk the legend was officially born.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is released for the PlayStation (Aug 31, 1999)
This game was absolutely mind-blowing. No one had ever seen anything like it. Even Activision, Neversoft, and Tony Hawk were caught off guard by how well this game sold. In fact, the game sold so well, that Activision attempted to buyout Tony Hawk for the exclusive rights to his name and likeness for all future games going forward. Tony Hawk wisely said “no”, and kept his royalty clause intact. The original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater would go on to sell over 5 million copies between the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast. In a recent interview, Tony Hawk admitted that this game “changed his life”.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 is given the green light (Late 1999 - Early 2000’s)
Without flinching, Activision gives the “thumbs up” to begin the development of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. How could they not make a second one? There were some new gameplay mechanics quietly being worked into the game which would forever revolutionize the series. The “Manual” mechanic shook the gaming world and trick score combos never looked and felt so good.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 – $10,000 BIG Score Competition
“Let’s do a THPS2 gaming competition, prior to the official release, so that we can market the crap out of it!”
-Possibly someone from Activision
All of us gamers dream about being in an official gaming competition, don’t we? I always wanted to be in a massive tournament like something out of the 1989 gaming movie classic, “The Wizard”.
That dream became a reality for Hector “Fly” Rodriguez (@FlyHec) back in August, 2000.
Fly’s life was put onto a new trajectory in the year 2000, after he received the July edition of PlayStation Magazine. The magazine came with the usual playable demo disc.
The demo included in this specific edition of PlayStation Magazine was extra special, because it was essentially a “tryout” for something BIG. As the magazine stated, “Make sure you practice, cause you can play the demo and win $10,000”. The game? Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.
The competition was looking for the top-12 THPS2 players in the world, eight from the US and four international players. The top-12 contestants would be flown into San Francisco to compete for the $10,000 prize; all expenses paid, along with passes to the X-Games!
After reading about the competition, a fire was lit, and Fly got to work.
“I played that demo for four hours per day, every single day. I even came up with a slogan to keep me motivated which was ‘sleep is for the weak and I am not weak!”
-Hector “Fly” Rodriguez
How Were The Contestants’ Scores Validated?
Like the PS Magazine stated, the contestants were asked to enter their scores through the Activision website, along with a ‘passcode’.
The THPS2 demo disc would generate a unique ‘passcode’ upon completion of a two minute session.
This ‘passcode’ would essentially validate if the manually inputted score (through the website) was authentic, however, this didn’t stop some contestants from attempting to input fake scores.
“There were some questionable scores posted on the website” recalled Fly. “The website had a leaderboard with the highest scores and it would be updated frequently”.
“When the dust settled and the fake scores were removed, my score was 8th in the USA! I made the cut!”
-Hector “Fly” Rodriguez
Funny enough, Fly mentioned that he hadn’t played the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, other than “watching some friends play it from time to time” and he thought the game had some “great tunes” which makes his high score run even more impressive in my opinion.
At The Hotel - BEFORE THE EVENT
After making the cut, Fly and his wife were flown into San Francisco for the competition. While on the flight, Fly had a lot going through his head. He was rehearsing some strategies in his mind and asking questions like “Will they give us enough time to practice?”. Once their plane landed, the whole thing started to get REAL.
Fly eventually arrived at the hotel and got a chance to meet the other contestants; these were the individuals whose names he saw on the top-12 leaderboard on the Activision website. These were the top-eight players from USA, and the top-four international players. The international group consisted of individuals from the UK, Australia, Germany, and France.
Fly recalled the intense moment that occurred. “We all knew that Sean and Ben were the top dogs. Everybody was friendly with each other but we all felt the tension in the room. I was hoping to be the dark horse and quietly take the top spot”.
At the hotel, the players participated in photo ops and participated in interviews with journalists. They were asked to wait in the cigar lounge inside the hotel before the venue was ready for the event. This is where the players got a chance to chat amongst themselves and shoot some pool.
The hospitality for the contestants was top notch. They even offered limo service for the guys in order to chauffeur them to the club where the event was being held.
Despite the club being “around the block”, Fly accepted the offer. “I wanted to take my wife in the limo” said Fly, and so “a few of us jumped in the limo. We took the two-minute scenic route” while the rest of the contestants walked.
Arriving At The Event
Once Fly arrived at the club, The Ruby Sky, his eyes lit up. It was like a scene out of a movie. There were hundreds of people in attendance. They had an open-bar and a buffet table that would make any foodie jealous. “They told us there was going to be FULL entertainment” recalled Fly, “and full entertainment it was!” It was like a scene out of the movie Animal House.
The whole thing felt like a whirlwind. “They had live bands, Brazilian dancers, and people walking around on stilts”. There were “ice sculptures” with one of the sculptures being a “skateboard that was designed to have shots poured onto it so that you could catch the drink at the bottom”.
They even had “Fancy Twinkies served on silver platters!” As Fly described it, it was a “200% party atmosphere”.
The event had celebrities there as well. The late great, Macho Man Randy Savage was in attendance. Perry Farrell, front man of Jane’s Addiction and Lollapalooza creator, acted as the DJ for most of the night! Of course, Tony Hawk, Steve Cabellero, and other pro skaters were in attendance and the celebs even mingled with the contestants throughout the event.
“They were all really down to earth” said Fly. “I was a bit star struck, especially when I met Perry Farrell, since I’m a huge fan of his work”.
The Competition Begins
Dead smack in the middle of what some would dub “the party of the decade”, were six game stations, all of which were running the yet to be released, fully playable version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.
Fly and the other contestants quickly noticed something different about the unreleased version of THPS2 in comparison to the demo version they received in the July edition of PlayStation Magazine. The stats were different. As any THPS fan would know, each skater has a set of 10 different stats for categories such as Air, Hang Time, and Ollie.
“The demo had some decent stats when it came to speed, air, and manual” recalled Fly. “Those increased stats really helped us all get the scores we needed to qualify for the event. When we all tried the game for the first time at the BIG Score competition, we noticed that the stats were not boosted. It was sluggish”.
Unbeknownst to the contestants, the official version of THPS2 would not start you off with boosted stats, but rather, it would make you play in order to unlock them.
This was a game changer since all the players had preplanned their runs on the demo version. “We couldn’t reach rails and spots we learned to hit on the demo without those boosted stats. It was devastating and we all had to relearn the game on the spot”.
Once the competition officially began, all the contestants were now rejigging their previous strategies in real-time, in order to compensate.
“The top 2 players did just that” said Fly, “so I tried to emulate what Sean and Ben were doing after watching their runs. Not an easy task, but we had no choice. I did what I could do in the little time I had.”
Fly ended up finishing in 8th place and won $500!
Fly said that if he could go into a time machine and back to the event, he would have told himself to “learn to trigger DAO with lamp stomps” as a replacement for his previous strategy. The DAO glitch allows a player to rotate a trick after touching the ground or grinding.
Sean ended up being the winner, with a total score of 3,463,009 points and was the recipient of the $10,000 grand prize.
Not all was lost. This experience turned Fly (@FlyHec) into a bona fide gaming competitor. He now holds over 500 world records in games such as Track & Field, Uni Racers, and Excite Bike just to name a few.
Although Fly didn’t get the result he was hoping for at the Big Score Competition, he managed to be a part of something unforgettable, and was lucky enough to experience something that most of us gamers could only dream of.
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really cool article! That party looked and sounded sweet