When it comes to extreme sports video games, there are a couple of franchises that seem to have a monopoly, but the genre has slowed to stagnancy over the past decade. Still, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and SSX revolutionized video-games in the early 2000s, as every developer was seemingly trying to replicate the arcade style gaming of huge air time and ridiculous trick combos that those games popularized.

RELATED: 10 Video Game Adaptations Of Movies That Were Released Decades Later

Though many of the games that came in their wake were inferior clones, there are many that are actually more than worth playing. There seems to be a Tony Hawk Renaissance right now, but, hard though it may be, it's time to look past those timeless classics and remember some awesome extreme sports games that weren't attached to a popular skateboarding icon.

MX vs. ATV: Unleashed (2005) - 80

Five dirt bikes race on a track inside an arena

The MX vs. ATV series has had quite a fall from grace in the years since, but in 2005 the crown jewel of the franchise was released, and it stands as somewhat of a forgotten gem today. The game mixes off-road bikes with ATVs, and there are loads of other fun vehicles such as dune buggies, golf carts, and monster trucks. As Unleashed has a bunch of unrealistic achievements, it perfectly blends arcadey levels with realistic, strategic, and challenging stages such as hill climbs and tight gap jumps.

Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX (2001) - 81

Mat Hoffman rides a BMX inside a bowl

Just as Tony Hawk did with Pro Skater, Mat Hoffman earned a ton of exposure thanks to Pro BMX, which was quickly thrust into production after the positive reception to his feature in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Besides taking part in some Jackass Stunts, Hoffman is best known for this game, and, though it's not as fully-featured as Pro Skater, Pro BMX is almost exactly the same in gameplay and level structure, but the learning curve in using a BMX was enough to keep the game fresh, and the new level designs were incredible.

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 (2001) - 81

Dave Mirra cycles down a ramp in Freestyle BMX 2

Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX wasn’t the only BMX game on the market, as it had some tough competition in the form of the Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX series. The second game in the series was a perfect follow-up, as it expanded on everything that made the original great.

RELATED: The 10 First-Ever Video Game Movies, Ranked (According To IMDb)

The gameplay is almost identical to Pro Skater and Pro BMX, as Freestyle 2 gives the player three minutes to complete as many challenges as possible. The mission objectives are the same two, whether it’s pertaining to grinding on a specific rail or getting a high score on a specific ramp, but critics just couldn’t get enough of this type of gaming in the early 2000s.

Mirror’s Edge (2009) - 81

Promotional art for EA's Mirror's Edge video game.

Mirror’s Edge is an outlier in the extreme sports genre, as it’s first-person, has a storyline, and features loads of hand-to-hand combat, but the core gameplay is parkour.

Coming at the height of the trend’s popularity, Mirror’s Edge surprisingly didn’t sell well despite earning positive reviews. The game was praised for the fluidity of the parkour, the slick art direction, and the fast-paced gameplay. As the game has somewhat of a cult following, there was a ton of excitement for the sequel that arrived seven years later, but it didn’t have the same effect as its predecessor.

Freekstyle (2001) - 81

Screen shot of Freekstyle

Being a dirt bike game that combined races with high-score competitions, Freekstyle was one of the flashier extreme sports games to be released in the early 2000s. Freekstyle took the term ‘extreme’ to its limit, as flames were attached to everything from letter fonts to starting lines, and the levels themselves looked like they took place in the depths of hell thanks to all of the pyrotechnics. Plus, as all the characters had tribal tattoos and every dirt bike had fiery decals, it's hopelessly dated and a bit childish, though that really only adds to its unique charm.

Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer (2003) - 82

A surfer rides a wave in an indoor wave pool

Tony Hawk inspired a whole wave of extreme sports games, and, if gamers saw any new game with ‘pro’ in the title, they could bet their bottom dollar it was a Pro Skater clone.

RELATED: Mortal Kombat (1995) & 9 Other Video Game Movies So Bad They're Good

Whether it’s Pro BMX or Pro Snowboarding, extreme sports titles were released without a second thought, and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer is no different. Surprisingly enough, the game was actually really well designed and loads of fun. The handling of the board was slick, riding giant wave faces was a rush, and riding through a wave tube was massively satisfying.

Skate 2 (2009) - 84

A skater performs a flip trick on a giant ramp

Though Skate 3 doesn’t quite reach the same heights as its predecessors due to how broken it is, the first two Skate games are incredible, and the second game in the franchise featured a ton of new exciting content.

With a full city to explore, players had a huge skateboarding sandbox unlike any other, and the sense of speed when skating downhill was phenomenal. As Skate 2 is a sequel that defined the franchise, for the first time ever, the Tony Hawk series was playing catch-up and wasn’t the most innovative skateboarding series in the genre.

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (2000) - 85

A player approaches a ramp in a skate park

Again taking cues from the original Tony Hawk formula, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX was the first to take the arcadey extreme sports formula and apply it to BMX. Though the sequel had better handling, physics, and level design, the original is rated higher due to innovative it was. Despite having tough competition with Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX, Freestyle BMX not only held its own. The game was also notable for its ahead-of-the-curve ragdoll physics.

Skate (2007) - 85

A skater grinds on a rail

With the Tony Hawk series being the gold standard of skateboarding games at the time as every other game in the genre, even including a Toy Story game, was a pale imitation of the franchise, there was no stopping the extreme sports juggernaut. At least, that was until 2007, when Black Box developed Skate.

Critics loved Skate for being a breath of fresh air, introducing a sense of realism to a genre that was completely arcadey, which had become rather stale and archaic. Where Tony Hawk games were combining minute-long combos that racked up hundreds of thousands of points, Skate made players feel satisfied when they successfully landed something as simple as a kickflip.

Jet Set Radio Future (2002) - 88

Jet Set Radio Jet Grind Radio Sega Dreamcast

Being one of the very few video games that focuses on inline skating, Jet Set Radio Future takes it to the neon-drenched futuristic city of Tokyo. The whole game is about using the area to the player’s advantage, whether it’s grinding down a 200-foot long dragon or skating over Shibuya’s handrails, and the sense of speed combined with all the blurring colors make it feel almost like a hallucinogenic experience.

Jet Set Radio Future isn’t just the best extreme sports game that isn’t SSX or Tony Hawk, but it even holds its own against those two otherwise unrivaled titles, and it’s a discontinued series that needs to return.

NEXT: FPS: 15 Best First-Person Shooters With No Multiplayer Mode