The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake Is Making Me Think Bad Thoughts About Buying A Skateboard

If your household is anything like mine, you probably receive a fair amount of Amazon packages and hardly think anything of it when they arrive. However, every once in a while, you get a special one, and that's what happened to me this weekend.

I ran to the front door and grabbed the package as soon as I could, not even giving any would-be porch pirates a chance to steal it, and went back inside to my fiancée, holding the package above my head like it was the Stanley Cup.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Only a major part of my childhood," I said.

"You ordered an eye patch to help fix your lazy eye?"

"No, not that part of my childhood…"

I opened that package to reveal a fresh copy of the newly-released Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 video game for PS5 and retreated upstairs into the den to shred virtual gnar like it was 2001.

I spent hours playing the original Pro Skater 3 when I was a kid. It was one of my favorite games with one of the best soundtracks ever. Motörhead, the Ramones, Del the Funkee Homosapien, and more; it was my introduction to some of these artists, and it shaped my taste in music.

If you're wondering, the game is a lot of fun. It feels like the original with updated graphics and an expanded soundtrack that maintains some of the original tunes and adds splashes of new ones (I was very excited about the addition of Iron Maiden's "Two Minutes To Midnight," King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's "Gila Monster," and Mastodon's "Precious Stones").

But I'm not here to give a game review, I have to talk about something disturbing that happened while I played.

I sat on the daybed in the den, nailing 900s like it was my job, then — exactly one week shy of my 30th birthday — I thought to myself, "I should buy a skateboard."

"I call this one, ‘the hip-breaker.’" (Getty Images)

Is 30 Years Old Too Late To Start Shreddin', Bruh?

Like many people who grew up in the late '90s and early aughts, I had a skateboard phase.

Not a good one. I mainly just rolled up and down my driveway on a $10.99 Mickey Mouse skateboard that I got at Target. 

Still, the aforementioned Pro Skater 3 was always in my PlayStation and even made the jump into my PlayStation 2 rotation. I watched a lot of the cartoon Rocket Power, and waited anxiously for the X Games to roll around every summer.

But I never fully embraced skaterdom, which seems like a misfire on my part.

I don't have a kid I can force into skateboarding, so it would have to be up to me to capture the glory of learning how to ollie.

But again, I may have missed the boat on this. I don't know if I'd be able to explain to my fiancée a sudden influx of packages full of skateboard trucks, wheels, and kneepads. There's quite a stigma around elder skatesmen. I feel like I'd have to practice in secret, sneaking away for hours on end to hone my shredding acumen. 

"Is he having an affair?" she'd wonder.

No, worse: he's trying to learn how to kickflip in the garage like some kind of living Steve Buscemi "How do you do, fellow kids?" meme.

But once I got good enough, I'd bring her in on the deal.

"Babe, I have a confession: I haven't been sneaking off to numerous fantasy baseball drafts, I've been skateboarding in the garage. I'm sorry I wasn't more transparent… Anyway, could you do me a favor and measure how much air I get when I do an ollie? My record is two-and-a-half inches."

My biggest concern, though, if I go down the skaters' path at my age, is injury. 

Not necessarily the injury itself; I can handle a broken wrist. I'm just not sure I could bring myself to explain to someone who went to school to become a doctor that I broke my wrist trying to do a grind on the curb outside my rented townhouse.

"You know, when I was your age, I was opening my own practice," the doc would say.

"Yeah, but can you kind of do a manual if you're on a flat surface and holding on to something?" I'd fire back.

Bet he can't.

Still, while I've been spending a lot of time flipping through skateboard websites picking out which skateboard deck would make me look the "raddest' (that's skater-speak for "cool"), I think I'm going to have to take a raincheck on getting into skating at 30.

Not because I don't think I could, I just worry that I'd get so good so fast I'd end up on the road a lot at various Mountain Dew and energy drink-sponsored contests, and wouldn't be able to see my family much.

It's a tough decision, but it's the adult one.

So, I guess I'll just go back to shredding in the video game world for the time being.

At least until I hit 40 and a midlife crisis makes me consider skating once again.