I remember playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater years ago... At that time I was skateboarding everyday and so naturally when a skateboarding game would come out, it would automatically have my interest. I had a lot of fun playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. My friends and I would compete against each other or try to complete the game quickly to unlock different videos for each of the "Pro Skaters" on that game. As far as the game being realistic... Activision did a good job. At that time the tricks looked cool and fairly realistic. But I personally don't know anyone that can ollie 9 feet onto a horizontal handrail and begin going forward or backward and completely grind it for 50 feet. But for a game that doesn't have to be realistic, I thought it was pretty cool. There were many different combos that could be used to max out on points. Some combos if they were good enough could get you over one hundred thousand points or more.
At the time that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater came out, it was the best skateboarding game that I played, And if you can get over the graphics not being as good as they are now, it's still a great game to be played.