A bitesize title all about the creation, development and rise of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game. I was full of nostalgic melancholy as I read this, absolutely adored hearing about the context. Once again, ECW press published a book that seems niche, but has such a wider cultural impact. brill!

In Right, Down + Circle, author Cole Nowicki unearths the circumstances and happenstance that ultimately led to the creation of what Electronic Playground dubbed "..maybe the perfect video game" in 1999 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

Born and raised in Athabasca, Alberta, Cole found his way into skateboarding at a young age through both his older brother's fascination with it as well as an obsession with the 1999 video game, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. How exactly did THPS succeed when so many skateboarding games failed miserably? Is there a direct correlation with the success of THPS and the adoption of skateboarding as an olympic sport at the 2020 Tokyo games? Did THPS pave the way for Goldfingers song "Superman" to become a seminal anthem for a generation? I guess in so many words, did THPS save skateboarding?

Just a few years before THPS launched, the skateboarding "industry" itself was on the ropes. With ESPN launching The Extreme Games (now dubbed The X Games), skateboarding finally had somewhat of a national platform yet still could not find its way into the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s after the dizzying highs it enjoyed in the 70s and 80s. So how did Activision (game publisher) do it exactly? Well, it took the notoriety of Tony Hawk and combined it with a fun, arcade-style game complete with licensed music. While it was difficult to truly master, it was easy and accessible enough for anyone to just pick up a controller and play.

While many games that followed would grab their own audience (Olli Olli, EA's Skate franchise, Thrasher: Skate and Destroy to name a few), no one could quite match the cultural impact of THPS. There is certainly something to be said for someone who does it first and does it right because even though there were games that preceded THPS, none did it quite so flawlessly; even if the sequels that followed eventually produced diminishing results.

While it's a short read at about one hundred and twenty pages or so, it's just about the perfect length for the story Nowicki wishes to tell. Nowicki blends his own story of those formative years spent practicing heel flips in his parents' driveway alongside skateboarding's cultural reemergence all thanks to Neversoft and Activision's "perfect video game".

Finding a book on the history of skateboarding can be a challenge. Writing a book that not only incorporates the history and culture of the sport, but also to write about the video game series that helped push skateboarding to the mainstream sounds like an even bigger challenge, but author Cole Nowicki does a good job of blending the two items together in this quick but fun read.

Nowicki developed his love for skateboarding through playing the video game in the title and he talked not only about this game’s series (there were five editions) but also other video games in which a player would control a skateboarding character. While one does not have be a video game player to understand the text, it certainly helps.

The same goes for Nowicki’s description of the subculture of skateboarding. I didn’t know the difference between a 720 and a 900 before reading this book, and frankly I still will admit to not being fully understanding of the sport. But that doesn’t take away the very good storytelling Nowicki puts on display. He also does a fine job of chronicling the progress made to make the sport more diverse and inclusive from its beginnings as a largely white male activity. That is still the case but there are now more women, people of color and non-binary skateboard enthusiasts, per the book.

At about 100 page, depending on which version one reads, this is a quick read and not one that goes into a lot of detail - but for a quick look at the world of skateboarding and the video games it inspired (or is it the other way around), this is a worthwhile endeavor.

I wish to thank ECW Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Right, Down + Circle is a bitesized look at the Pro Skater series of games and of the impact of Tony Hawk upon public perception of skateboarding. Nowicki explores the skateboarding games that came before, the release and impact of Pro Skater 1, and the sequels to the original, before exploring the present day position of Tony Hawk as a kind of father figure of skateboarding. All of this comes together into a love letter to the game series and to the impact it had on Nowicki and many other people in engaging people with skateboarding both in a video game and real life context.

Even as someone who has barely played Pro Skater or any of its sequels, I enjoyed how the book is infused with enthusiasm and an awareness of wider context like representation in skateboarding games (and reality). The memorable nature of the soundtrack of these games is also really interesting, and just generally how the subculture was made more mainstream (something I remember as a child when the first Pro Skater game came out, growing into a teenage who wished they could skateboard). The book builds towards skateboarding being included in the Tokyo Olympics and how Tony Hawk has become very popular online, especially for his stories of people thinking he looks like Tony Hawk, and it does feel like its argument of the importance of the Pro Skater games is successful, making you want to go and have a play.