Games are recommended on a four-point scale like those "strongly agree/disagree" questions you get on surveys. This scale goes "Strongly", "If you like this kinda game", "Watch it online", and "Avoid at all costs" from best to worst. It's one part how likely I am to replay the game and one part how likely I am to recommend it to fans of that game's genre. I'm not in the business of objectivity, just what's fun to me. No reason to play a game if you're not having fun, yeah?

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (Activision, 1999)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a fucking powerhouse. Everyone loves this game, and going back to the first game leaves no doubt as to why. You play a skater given two minutes to accomplish a set of tasks in a building or part of a city, stuff like scoring a certain amount of points, smashing scenery, or grabbing items or letters. Points are awarded for ridiculous flippy grabby grindy trick combos. Land the combo, get the points. Fall on your ass, you get nothing. It's dead simple.

You'll be taken from a dingy, leaky warehouse to schools, malls, dams, and top-secret government labs on your quest to skate everything. The flavor of the game is excellent, from the absurd trick names to the videos of each skater you unlock, and if Dead Kennedys, Primus, Suicidal Tendencies, and Unsane float your boat, great songs from each play during your runs. Some people defer to the Dreamcast version for its smoothness and draw distance, but the PS1 holds its own very nicely graphically.

Pro Skater can be a little wonky to return to after playing the later ones in the series. Combos and lines are less extravagant, spins feel stiffer, no manuals, no reverts, and it's harder to perform nollies or tell when you're skating switch. The core of the game was always here though, and that's what counts. The series would return to these locales several times in its run, which I think speaks to its icon status. Seriously, even my girlfriend loves these games.