Tony Hawk's Underground

"Oops, I left the couch."

I've been muttering this phrase a lot. Even if I'm only up long enough to hit the drive-thru, or the can, THUG screams at me to come pick the controller back up. After the last two semi-disappointing games in the THPS series THUG is here to remind the world just how cool skateboarding is when it takes seconds rather than days to learn tricks, and when falling off a 40 story building only leaves you with the pain of having to get back to where you were.

Gameplay - Tony Hawk Theft Auto much? Well, you can't steal every car that drives by, but you can get off the board and explore the city's like never before. This is great when you feel like sessioning that 24 stair double set you just found. You can walk up it, judge your distance for speed, and play until your blue in the face. You can also spend hours climbing around balconies searching for hidden items or cool things to acid drop off of. A bevy of new tricks have been added that some die hard's have been complaining about for years. The FS and BS flips, as well as bigspin's AND bigspin flip's can be added as standard tricks if you so wish. And if your favorite trick isn't in, you can make it yourself and add it... But we'll get into that later. As far as the goals go, there aren't any combo, or SKATE challenges this time around. Don't fret though, they've been pushed aside for over 100 original goals this time around. With difficulty settings designed to challenge anyone, this game will be entertaining both for the guy who locks himself in his room for hours on end proclaiming his ''1337ness,'' and his kid brother who can't tell X from A.

Story - Either create a skater, or pick a pro and go from level to level doing challenges until you can advance right? Wrong at last. This game has a great story to it. You have to create a skater this time around, and you get to work your way from bumbling grom with the ghetto setup to star-skater putting together the crackest team of pro's on the planet. There's 27 actual chapters to this game with plenty of cutscenes filled with inspiration to keep playing. Like when at 3:30am you've decided to put the controller down and that Eric finally pulls the last straw. This is the Xenosaga of skateboarding as far as cinematic's go.

Sound - 70+ tracks with the same playlist feature as always. Except for the fact that they've thrown categories into the mix, so if you don't like Punk, Hip-Hop, or Rock/Other you can simply turn that entire genre off. However, with that many songs you hear them repeated so seldomly you'll forget about a song you didn't like way before it comes back around. All of the board related sounds have been upped too. The board snapping sounds right, and the metal grinding noise actually sounds like a skateboard on a handrail. It doesn't get better than this without you making your own 70+ track soundtrack.

Re-play value - Higher than Ike last time he slapped Tina Turner around. There are so many different lines and gaps in each level it'l take days and days on end to get everything on this game unlocked. The new trick features can also change a line up, so there seem to be limitless ways to do anything you like here.

Online - I wish I was that cool. I don't have the networking stuff in my house to run internet to PS2, but I know there are even more play modes available and if people like this as much as THPS4's online it's already a hit

Customization - Wow... Wowey wow wow. You can start by uploading your own face if you wish, or start on a CAS with more and more options. Don't like the size of a logo or where it is on the shirt? Rotate it, move it, resize it, be happy. Wearing a shirt under a shirt and don't want it to be white? You can change that. Always wanted your own pro model? Once you become ''pro'' you can create decks all day long. Been dying to do a real BS Heelflip? Using create-a-trick you can make anything from the simplest trick to the gnarliest most physically impossible feat, and, use it as a standard trick. You really get to make this game your own. Even the stats have their own requirements to unlock separate to the events of story mode so you can boost them at your own will as well now.

Final thoughts - Why are you still reading this? If you don't have the game beg/borrow/steal it or the cash for it, and if you do have it you know what kind of a slice of heaven you have and probably want to go play it now. I personally haven't liked THPS 3 or 4 much better than 2 and this finally tops it... And I can still play my favorite THPS2 levels, only now with all the new features. Go play it!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/03