''Top Skater'' is an

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...

skateboarding

sports video game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...

released by Sega in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

, and built on the

Sega Model 2 Sega is a video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arcade game industry began as a Japan-based distributor of c ...

hardware. It was one of the first arcade games to feature a

skateboard A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. They are usually made of a specially designed 7-8 ply maple plywood deck and polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboarder ...

controller Controller may refer to: Occupations * Controller or financial controller, or in government accounting comptroller, a senior accounting position * Controller, someone who performs agent handling in espionage * Air traffic controller, a person ...

interface. The game was directed by Kenji Kanno. In ''Top Skater'', players stand on a skateboard-like platform which swung side-to-side or tilted, manipulating the actions of the

avatars Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

in the game. The game has ramps, rails and other skating objects from which the player can do tricks to gain points. The player has a limited amount of time in which to perform tricks, but can extend this time by collecting time bonus rings or by performing certain tricks. Kenji Kanno went on to create the ''

Crazy Taxi ''Crazy Taxi'' is a series of racing video games that was developed by Hitmaker and published by Sega. The first game appeared in arcades in 1999 and was very successful, prompting Sega to port the arcade version to their Dreamcast console ...

'' series, which has similar character art design and music. ''Top Skater'' also served as a basic foundation for later skateboarding games including

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

's '' Tony Hawk's'' series. ''Top Skater'' had a sequel called ''Air Trix'', released by Sega for arcades in 2001.

Development

The game was directed by Kenji Kanno and produced by AM3 general manager Hisao Oguchi. The AM3 team wanted to make ''Top Skater'' a game which would allow players to explore unrealistically large skateboarding courses and perform the fantasy tricks associated with skateboarding's image, rather than a realistic simulation. Because of this, recreating some of the tricks for motion capture would require an unusually large studio with equipment to propel the motion capture actor through the air, so all the animation was done by hand. The primary

target audience A target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to said intended audience. In marketing and advertising, it is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined ...

for the game was young Americans. None of the development team members skateboarded; instead, they watched professional skateboarders both live and on video for research. An AM3 member explained the game's trick-based approach: "It wouldn't make any sense to make a skateboard racing game. You don't need to skateboard as fast as you can. I just wanted to make the game cool and fashionable. If the game were a racing game you wouldn't want to do any tricks as you'd be absorbed in trying to race as fast as possible." The team collaborated with Sega AM4 in designing the skateboard interface and cabinet. They installed an MPEG board for the sound, since using MPEG boards had recently become more financially feasible.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the game consisted entirely of these songs by the punk rock band Pennywise: * "Society" (from the then newly released '' Full Circle'') * "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (from '' Pennywise'') * "Homesick" (from ''

Unknown Road ''Unknown Road'' is the second studio album by American punk rock band Pennywise, released on August 17, 1993, through Epitaph Records. After frontman Jim Lindberg briefly left the band during touring in support of its previous album, '' Pennywi ...

'') * "It's What You Do With It" (from '' About Time'') * "Dying To Know" (from ''

'') * "Searching" (from '' About Time'') * "The Secret" (from '' Pennywise'') * "Try To Conform" (from ''

'') * "Peaceful Day" (from '' About Time'') * "Perfect People" (from '' About Time'') The developers selected Pennywise because they felt punk rock was both the most appropriate genre for the skateboarding theme and the best choice to excite players, and some members of the team were fans of the group.

Release

The game debuted at a Sega arcade show, held at the Otaku Entertainment Plaza in Kamata, Tokyo, on March 15, 1996. It was one of four Sega games introduced at the show. The game was presented by Kenji Kanno and Hisao Oguchi, who both demonstrated some of the game's tricks. The game made its North American debut the same month at Sega's

GameWorks GameWorks is a gaming-based entertainment center with a single location as of 2022, a chain of such businesses. It was owned by then-owner ExWorks Capital, each venue featured a wide array of video game arcades, in addition to full-service bars a ...

venue in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. The main sponsor of the game was

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...

Reception

Upon its debut at the Otaku Entertainment Plaza, it was the most popular game at the show and drew long queues. In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Top Skater'' on their June 15, 1997 issue as being the third most-successful dedicated arcade game of the month. The game received a positive critical response from '' Computer and Video Games'' magazine.

Legacy

Kenji Kanno went on to create the ''

'' series. ''

'' (1999) has a similar style to ''Top Skater'', notably the character art design and type of music. A sequel called ''Air Trix'' was released for the

Sega Hikaru Sega is a video game video game development, developer, video game publisher, publisher, and Arcade cabinet, hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arca ...

arcade system in 2001. ''

Ollie King is an arcade skateboard racing game developed by Amusement Vision and published by Sega for Sega Chihiro hardware in March 2004 following limited location tests in late 2003. The game was revealed at Tokyo's JAMMA Arcade Show in 2003. A spirit ...

'', published in 2004 and developed by the creators of the ''

Jet Set Radio (originally released in North America as ''Jet Grind Radio'') is a 2000 action game developed by Smilebit and published by Sega for the Dreamcast. The player controls a member of a youth gang, the GGs, as they use inline skates to traverse Tok ...

'' series, contains much of the same gameplay as ''Top Skater'' and used a nearly identical arcade cabinet.

's '' Tony Hawk's'' series was inspired by ''Top Skater''. While developing the original ''

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'', released as ''Tony Hawk's Skateboarding'' in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, is a skateboarding video game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It was released for the PlayStation o ...

'' (1999), the

Neversoft Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Woodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired by Activision in October 1999. Initially, the st ...

development team spent lunch breaks at a bowling alley near the studio, where they would play and study from ''Top Skater'' in the arcade. Members of the team were fans of ''Top Skater'', the design of which served as a strong basic influence.

References