Skateboarding video games first made their way into the gaming charts in the middle of the eighties. Naturally, the ’80s were also a great time for skateboarding games and many titles with skateboard action were readily available for the home consoles. Since then, they have been witnessing many changes in their designs, gameplay, graphics, sound and a lot of other things. Today’s skateboarding games transform you into a professional skateboarder, providing complete freedom to create sick trick combinations and unique runs. Some of the skating games and their consoles are mentioned below.

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is available on X Box, Playstation and Gamecube, with an updated version for X Box 360 coming out and the versions for Gameboy and PSP on the way too. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland’s gameplay is exactly the same as every other Tony Hawk video game. There are new tricks and control options. So the controls are slightly more difficult than on Underground II. But if you’ve played any of the other games, you will know what to do with this version. The controls for when you are off of your skateboard are also far better. You can jump, flip and climb to secret places. The game also features a BMX bike that you can jump on and ride. The bike controls are similar to the skateboard controls. So learning how to ride is not that hard. In classic mode, you get to play through six levels, doing all the things that you enjoyed doing back in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

Following the success of ESPN Winter X Games Snowboarding, the second installment known as ESPN X Games Skateboarding, dares gamers to get huge air and soar over the crowd in the half pipe in their quest for X Games glory. It features eight of the finest professional riders in the world including Bob Burnquist, Chris Senn, Kerry Getz, Carlos DeAndrade, Chad Fernandez, Rick McCrank, Colin McKay and Lincoln Ueda as well as the famous industry sponsors and equipment. Featuring over 12 high-intensity tunes from artists such as Linkin Park, New Found Glory and Voodoo Glow Skulls, ESPN X Games Skateboarding would be available on the PlayStation 2.

Backyard Skateboarding is the first skateboarding game in the Backyard Sports lineup. Its main focus is on entertaining kids. With this game, Backyard Sports has entered into a new field of extreme sports. You will be able to skate around a number of bright and sunny 3D environments to make breath-taking skateboarding tricks like kickflips, backslides, ollies and benihanas. There will be several kid-oriented features like Molasses Time which slows everything down, Tornado and Hot Chocolate. You can select your own skater among the 10 Backyard Kids or create your own as per your preference. In keeping with the series’ tradition of including recognizable stars, you can also play as a junior version of pro skater Andy Macdonald. There will be three game modes, including a tour mode, in which you can assemble sponsors and endorsements from companies like as Melonhead Helmets.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Dipping his wheels into every pavement has been the hallmark of Tony Hawk’s career. He has brought a pioneering spirit to the world of skateboarding, inventing just about half of the tricks in the book, and making a science out of judging skate parks.

A humanitarian, devoted to pushing the limits of human movement, the Birdman has been entertaining crowds with his moves and his team since the original Bones Brigade took the world by storm and set a whole new definition-and spelling-for the word “x-treme.”

The Birdman has been hosting Demolition Radio since its first airing on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Faction channel in July of 2004. Tony Hawk’s Demolition Skateboard Radio airs every Tuesday night, the centerpiece of a line-up geared specifically to the growing numbers of extreme sporting fanatics.

The Faction channel features shows by other top names in skate radio, like Jonny Mosely, Bam Margera and hard-rock queen Joan Jett. Featuring the latest in gritty punk, hip-hop and raw hard rock, the channel is an unabashedly aggressive audio mosh pit.

Skateboarding is usually associated with video, but sound is just as much an integral part of the experience, the friction of wheels scraping the curb, the lullaby of a half-pipe run back and forth, and of course the occasional wincing of a fallen soldier unable to suppress a scream. The rhythm of vert skating is perfectly suited to a variety of musical scores, but heavy beats seem to predominate, and the skating community almost universally prefer the punk, grunge rock, and hip-hop that goes so well with the defiant sport.

This skate radio show has become yet another first for the famous ground-breaker since being assimilated into Hawk’s top-selling American Wasteland skate emulator. Players can listen to show highlights while cruising the peril-ridden obstacle courses of Los Angeles.

The Birdman delivers his show from the field, in a small studio situated directly at the foot of the Boom Boom Huck Jam’s practice ramp in his California pleasure palace, and a natural magnet for extreme athletes of all breeds. Being in his element gives Tony Hawk a natural, settled feel, as he kibitzes about tricks, personalities and events with his trademark laid-back, surfer attitude and of course some of the most entertaining guests in the action sports world.

Unlike mainstream sports radio coverage, which tends to involve third parties debating the merits of various corporate units, skate radio is an independent affair, generated in large part by the athletes themselves, who wear multiple hats, backward and forward, often acting in various capacities as filmmaker, musician, event promoter and spokesperson for a lifestyle which was created by the need for people to get off the sidelines and live life grinding the edge.

The Demolition Skateboard Radio Show is yet another reason why the Birdman is skating’s most visible pro, setting the tone for an independent athletic core that covers it’s own sport and leaves the corporate media eating dirt trying to beat the story coming directly from the Hawk’s mouth.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Some skateboard pros are paragons of dignity. And then there’s Bam Margera. The original Jackass has brought laughs, a disturbingly punk attitude, prankster antics, and down-and-dirty skateboard tricks to cable-enabled screens since MTV unveiled stupid tricks for the masses in 2000.

The innovative skate radio show jumped uncharted territory, combining obnoxious stunts and public harassment for the eager amusement of millions. The show become a hit, due mainly to the opportunity it presented viewers to witness self-inflicted violent mishaps occurring to the most foolhardy daredevils.

Margera got an early start in the art of self-destruction. His grandfather, seeing his potential, tagged him with his nickname because the toddler wouldn’t stop banging his skull into doors and walls.

The pattern would carry on to define Bam’s personality, both his strange success as a human crash test dummy and his personal problems, which have been varied and colorful. He’s been on both sides of the 911 call, facing weapons charges in connection with a set of brass knuckles. His story includes a sundered relationship with his long time girlfriend, which dissolved amidst accusations against her of burglary and vandalism, and an undignified addiction to the prescription stimulant Adderall.

Bam Margera is better known as street and stunt skater than a vert skater, although he’s garnered coveted sponsorships from some of the top brands in skateboarding, including Destructo Trucks, Electric Visual, Adio Footwear, and Element Skateboard. And he was the first street skater to land the legendary Loop in Phoenix.

Jackass evolved out of Bam’s personal production CKY (Camp Kill Yourself), a series of groundbreaking skate videos out of West Chester, Pennsylvania, which was also the name of his brother’s band. This video series set the stage for East Coast punk skaters to steal the scene from clean-cut sport skaters, proving that amazing tricks and stupid ones can be equally mesmerizing.

Having starred in MTV’s three Jackass movies and long-time cast member of the series, as well as directing, co-writing and starring in his own MTV shows Bam’s Unholy Union and Viva La Bam which he also produced. Bam Margera Productions, which was founded with the revenue from the first Jackass Movie in 2000, also produced Haggard: The Movie. With feet in both audio and video multimedia, his empire includes his own music production company, Filthy Note Records.

Skate Radio took a dangerous dive when Bam Margera got access to a daily microphone. Skating the edge of good taste, Bam fills the airwaves with hysterical tales of his bizarre exploits and humiliating bets among his elite crowd of slackers. The audience can’t get enough, of course, and a devoted core of loyal listeners keep their ears peeled to skateboarding’s Lenny Bruce comment on the world of the sport, stunts, and insanity in general.

RADIOBAM expresses an inebriated sense of humor and outlaw sensibility, and was almost cancelled when amidst controversy related to on-air solicitation of prostitution. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the hours with Bam Margera remain extremely popular among both the skateboarding crowd and those who merely like pithy, no-holds-barred radio madness.

Popularity: 8% [?]

                        What you put on your feet is as important as what you put under them. One of the oldest names in skateboard accessories, Vans has been putting style to the toe with world-class footwear for skaters since the very beginning of the sport.

 Van Doren Rubber Company founded by Paul Van Doren in 1966 has evolved into Vans Skateboard Shoes. Based in southern California, Vans began by filling custom-made sport shoe orders and make them right there in the local store. Originally, you actually could watch your shoe being made for you, as business picked up, the gap between order and delivery widened to a few days.

 Vans created the waffle shoe, with vertical, zig-zag lines on the sole of the shoe for grip when they noticed that skateboarders would crack the diamond patterned sole very quickly.

 The brand is embraced by die-hards not only in skateboarding, but among related extreme spots like surfing and snowboarding. Having sponsored events relating to punk and ska music has helped earn the loyalty of those who mix their music and locomotion. The company has sponsored several punk and ska tours, as well as being the subject of love serenades such as “The Vans Song,” by the Suicide Machines and “Vans” from the rap group, “The Pack”.

 The simple four-letter logo is an urban icon of the sports-rock lifestyle that infuses the West Coast, and the brand sponsors an impressive team of pros in not only skateboarding, but BMX biking and surfing as well. The “Warped Tour” has been a must-attend on the agenda for extreme sports enthusiasts and music fans since it was launched in 1995.

 Vans skateboard shoes are synonymous with Southern California, where every other young foot is clad in them. Hollywood star and surfing aficionado Sean Penn added to the brand’s fame, sporting the shoes prominently in his classic role as “Jeff Spicoli” in the comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

 Vans was also prominently featured in the ground-breaking documentary “Dog town and the Z-boys,” which received about $800,000 in financial aid from Vans. The line-up of both pro and amateur skaters has featured a relationship with some of the biggest names in skating, like Stacey Peralta, while today’s team lists such move-masters as Bucky Lasek, Geoff Rowley and Tony Trujillo.

 Vans Skateboard shoes now come in the widest variety of styles, from slip-on and low-cut to boot. The company has been through many changes, alienating many loyalists when they ventured into the arenas of football and baseball shoes. Facing bankruptcy in the eighties brought Van Doren to the edge of solvency, and the company was purchased by McConval-Deluit, a corporate investor who took the Vans public in 1991.  The company is now owned by VF Corporations, a multi-national specializing in lines which appeal to youth culture.

 With a high-top design and skate-optimized sole, Vans are the shoe of choice for serious skaters, who naturally enough wear them all day long. After all, you never know when you might have a minute to hit that stairwell or find a phatty downhill.

Popularity: 9% [?]