Tony Hawk's Underground

"Will this series ever cease to amaze me?"

To an extent I’ll begin this review that same way that I began my review for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, by saying that I’ve been following the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series ever since game number one. These past few years, to me, seemed to pass by quickly as the guys at Activision and Neversoft have amazingly managed to bless the gaming community with a new Tony Hawk game every year. And I can honestly say, after playing all of the Tony Hawk games to date, that the series has improved drastically with each new installment. After playing THPS3 I thought to myself how tough it would be for game number four to top it. A year later I experienced THPS4 and thought again, “What could possibly be better than this!”. Another year went by and Tony Hawk’s Underground (THUG) hit the shelves. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this un-numbered title. Would the series finally max out on its innovation? Or would Activision, Neversoft, and the rest rise to the challenge and create another mind-blowing game? The latter couldn’t be more true. Tony Hawk’s Underground incorporates the best features of THPS4 into another revamped career/gameplay formula and proves to be the best game in the series.

Characters:

Although you won’t actually be skating as one of the pros in story mode (explained in the next section), you can still tear it up in free skate and self-created goals with your old favorites including Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Bam Margera, Bob Burnquist, and even Mike Valley. That’s just to name a few.

Story/Career Mode:

Within the career mode lies the major innovation of THUG. In all of the previous games in the series, the career mode had no story to it. You basically skated around all the different levels completing all the goals without an ultimate purpose. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but THUG has kicked up career mode by making it into an actual story. At the very beginning, you create the character that you will be using throughout the entire story. You start off as a poor skater punk living in a New Jersey slum, and you gradually work your way up to becoming a pro skater, first by simply getting sponsored by your local skate shop, and later joining the pro team of your choice after winning your first competition. However, turning pro won’t be so easy, because there are all kinds of obstacles and plot twists which you must overcome. The incorporation of this story into the career mode keeps the game interesting and makes you want to tough out all the goals to see what happens at the end.

Also, right from the start, you can choose the difficulty of the story mode and its goals. The difficulty levels range from Very Easy to Sick (very difficult). This was not only a very innovative feature to the series , but also a very intriguing one. This allows players of all skill levels to fully enjoy the story mode, and lets the finely toned Tony Hawk vets challenge themselves with Sick mode.

Once your career starts to get going, you’ll travel from city to city completing goals, most of which pertain directly or indirectly to the actual story. Like in THPS4, instead of doing two minute runs, you freely roam the levels with no time limit (like in free skate) and talk to the people hanging around who pose you with goals. Routine goals from the previous games, such as Collect SKATE and COMBO will not appear in career mode. Some of the goals from previous games, however, do appear. These include getting high scores and pulling tricks that people call out to you. After completing the required number of goals, the story will progress (usually with a special goal directly related to the story that you must complete). The goals will get progressively harder as you move through the story. Especially evident in Sick mode, there are some goals which will test the skills of even the most hardcore players. Although it can sometimes be frustrating to redo a goal dozens of times before you finally nail it, I found the career mode to be a refreshing challenge… much like it was in THPS4.

Tricks/Gameplay

The trick system in THUG is extremely similar to the trick system in game number four. All the controls are the same, so all you Tony Hawk vets will be able to jump right in and start tearing it up without having to get used to new controls. Like in THPS4, you can tweak your flips and grabs by double tapping (and in some cases triple tapping) the Square and O buttons respectively. During a manual, grind, or lip trick you can switch up and do all sorts of different stunts by hitting two-button combinations using Square, O, and Triangle. Also, like in the previous two games, you can use revert to connect your air and street tricks into massive combos. Special tricks are also pretty much the same, except you gain new special trick slots by completing specific goals within story mode.

Now let’s talk about some innovations. Probably the one of most prominent new features within the gameplay is that you can now jump off of your skateboard and run around normally by pressing R1 and L1 simultaneously. You can use this feature to run in and out of tricks and to get past certain obstacles that you wouldn’t normally be able to get past on your board. Plus it looks pretty cool. Also, there’s a new trick you can do called a Wall-plant, which lets you jump straight at a wall and push off of it to send you flying in the opposite direction. However, probably the coolest and best innovation within THUG when it comes to tricks is the Create-A-Trick. Yes, that’s right! In this game you can employ a very simple-to-use editor to create your own special tricks. You can make up some great combinations of rotations, flips, grabs, and even special tricks to compose some awesome looking stunts. And you can even name your created tricks whatever you want. Now that’s just cool!

The way your stats increase has also been revamped in an extremely interesting way. Instead of picking up loose stat points within levels or earning them by completing goals in career mode, your stats will increase by pulling off certain stunts pertaining to the stat. For example, in order to increase your manual or grind balance, you must manual/grind for a certain number of seconds. As your status as a skater in career mode increases, you’ll have newer and harder opportunities to raise your stats. Maxing out your stats will become a great challenge in itself.

Music/Sounds:

There is an enormous number of music tracks to skate to in this game, however, a lot of the tunes are kind of average to me. Some great bands, such as Bad Religion and NOFX, are on here, and there are three Kiss songs here as well, including the classic “Rock’ N Roll All Night”. Only a few select songs (by the artists mentioned) really jumped out at me. The sound effects were awesome, as usual. The bail noises are probably the best example of this, with new and amusing expressions of anger and pain. Also, with all the cut scenes in the game, you’re going to be exposed to a ton of voice acting, which was very well done.

Graphics:

The graphics in this game are as good as ever. All the different levels are extremely detailed, and generally everything looks nice. Although great overall, the character design had its flaws. Especially during cut scenes where a lot of talking is involved, people’s faces can look kind of messed up. Nothing major, unless you really like to nit-pick on graphics. Also, there’s no more blood than there was in the previous game (in fact, to me it seemed like it was toned down a bit).

Create-A-Skater/Park/Deck:

Seeing as how you’re forced to use Create-A-Skater, one major new feature has been added. You can actually download a picture of your face and make that the face of your character. Although I have yet to try this feature out myself, I thought it was pretty neat. All the other features of Create-A-Skater found in THPS4 have also shown up here. Overall, it lets you go into some good detail.

The Create-A-Park is better than ever. You can now custom size your park, and there is a better selection of themes to choose from than in previous games. You can even set the time of day! Also, there are a LOT more parts, like highway pieces, big buildings, and underground tunnels. But the coolest new thing you can do is create your own goals to go in your park! This calls for hours of park-building fun!

A new feature in THUG is Create-A-Deck. After getting through a certain point in story mode, you’ll have the opportunity to design your own deck. There’s a lot of stuff you can do with this, including setting a background and placing letters, numbers, and symbols in your deck.

Multi-player:

Like in the previous two games, you can play multi-player games online with up to eight people. Although I’ve never been able to experience online play, I know you can still indulge in your favorite old games like Slap, Trick Attack, and King of the Hill, just to name a few. But there’s also some new games, like Goal Attack and Firefight, where you apparently shoot fireballs at each other. Sounds interesting to me…

Overall:

Activision, Neversoft, and the rest of the gang have really done it again! They’ve taken all the unbelievable gameplay features from the previous game and put them into an interesting story mode, which appeals to all players, regardless of skill level. Also, the fun and challenging aspect of the gameplay makes this game’s difficulty level on par with that of THPS4. The new Create-A-Trick feature and some other innovations in the trick department make the game even better. The music and graphics are up to standard, as usual, and the Create-A-Skater/Park and Multi-player modes have been expanded upon once again. Despite any minor flaws that can be scrutinized, this game has earned a perfect score from me. I’d highly recommend this game to all skateboarding fans. If you’re new to the Tony Hawk games, try renting it first. But if you’re longtime fan of the series like me, then put up the money and buy this game, now!

In closing, although this may sound redundant after reading my introduction, Tony Hawk’s Underground is going to be one tough act to follow when/if game number six comes along.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/04/03