Tony Hawk's Underground 2

"More fun than being smacked over the head with a skateboard!"

Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is a blast, and a great buy for a newcomer, recent fan (THPS4 and up), and finally the old-school fan who had given up after THPS3. It's a multi-faceted game with both a Story mode akin to THUG, and a classic mode harking back to the glory days of the 2:00 timer. And all-around, it's loaded with such a jaw-dropping number of things to do that you won't be able to put it down for quite along time.

GAMEPLAY
Probably the most important part of any game, THUG2 has varying gameplay, as it's actually a number of games in one huge package. I'll sort it out as several different sections.

Story Mode and Plot
Arguably the "meat" of the game, Story Mode picks off roughly where THUG left off, but quickly fires off in a direction very different from early versions of the series. The entire theme is different from THUG's more serious storyline, and instead chooses to go completely off-the-wall which works well sometimes, but flops in others. The story begins with you (Like THUG, you begin with a Custom Skater) skating the halfpipe in New Jersey, when suddenly a van comes careening out of no-where, ramming you to the ground. As you stumble to pick yourself up, two hooded guys with chainsaws and hockey masks leap out of the back of the van, pull you up, and toss you inside. You wake up to find yourself seated alongside a bunch of other skaters as the two chainsaw-wielding maniacs reveal themselves to be Bam Margera and Tony Hawk. They tell you that you've been chosen to participate in the World Destruction Tour, a round-the-world contest to destroy and humiliate as much as possible, both on the skateboard and off. The plot unfolds with lots of Jackass-y stunts, fart jokes, and South Park-ish gags that sometimes fail, but sometimes are genuinly funny.

The actual gameplay works differently from THUG and THPS4, which both involved skating around the area and talking to people to get one mission at a time. Instead, you are presented with a bunch of missions from the start, and are simply given the go-ahead to complete them as you please, and unlock bonus skaters (1 pro, 1 guest, and 1 secret skater per stage) who each have their own goal. Sadly, many of these goals are untimed, so a lot of the game works like a free-skate with missions. Which means that a lot of goals are just time-consuming or easy, since for many you have no limit. Most of the actual skating missions involving stuff like High Scores and Grinding a bunch of rails have time limits of course, but very disappointingly there are too many time-limitless missions like Knock Over 5 Trashcans or Japan Over the Statue, and far too many missions involving no skateboard whatsoever. The secret "skaters" don't ride skateboards at all, and control sloppily on things like scooters and mechanical bulls, which makes their missions boring and stupid. Of course there are a lot of actually fun missions in Story Mode, so it's a good break from Class Mode which has the bigger thrills.

Classic Mode
Having not played a Classic Mode in years, this one came as a surprising thrill and brings back some great old memories. For newbies, Classic Mode works like this: You're told 10 things you have to do in each stage, and then given 2 minutes to complete as many as you can. That's it. You can retry as many times as you want, until you beat enough goals to unlock the stage (This Classic Mode now has slightly branching paths so you won't be stuck on a single stage. However, I wish stages were unlocked through total goals completed, instead of the certain number of goals done in a single stage). All the classics have returned like High/Pro/Sick Score, Snagging the Hidden Tape, Collect SKATE, and the usual Knock over/Grind/Spine over 5 Random Objects, and they are now joined by newer goals like COMBO, and getting a High Combo in a single run.

The THUG2 levels are all playable in Classic Mode, but the real boost for me was the fact that a group of older THPS stages including School I, Airport, Warehouse (In a modified, expanded form), Canada, and Los Angeles have returned for Classic Mode, and they are fun to blast through with your new tricks. However, it's obviously apparent in School I and Downhill Jam (Both of which are from THPS 1, which lacked Manuals, Reverts, Walking, Spines, and everything else we take for granted) that they were designed without the newer stuff in mind, and since they are unmodified there are few combo opportunities than other stages. The other problem is that many of the THUG2 stages are too big or poorly laid out to work with Classic Mode, and some of the goals like Acid Dropping are pretty aggravating. In comparison, the THUG2 levels also seem to lack the "zing" of some classic levels like Canada and Airport. Skatopia was really the only stage that was flowing and exciting, while many others just felt rather generic. There's the half-pipe, there's the rails, there's the big statue to jump over... etc. The usual stuff. Finally, THUG2 also brings back difficulty with a vengeance, especially in Sick Mode which becomes brutal sometimes in Classic Mode. After playing THUG1 which was far too easy even on Sick (If I remember correctly, the biggest score challenge was 900,000), and I had fond memories of trying to smash through THPS4's awesome 1.5 million point goals. THUG2 does not disappoint with scores reaching up through 3 million points, which is sure to drive some people mad, especially on the combo-less older stages.

REPLAY VALUE
Online is a blast, and makes this game much much better if you have the Network Adapter. You can compete in a number of games, including some new ones, and is a blast in a full house. Playing in custom stages is great fun, but unfortunately THUG2 still contains the problem of bigger parks having less memory for actual skating stuff. What's up with that? The other Custom Options are pretty good, with Custom Skater still working very well, and making Custom Tags is cool. Custom Tricks are still cumbersome to design, but look very cool if made well. Overall, the custom options, but especially Online will keep this game around for a while, and up it's replay value exponentially.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND
As usual, the graphics are very good, and the sound is outstanding. As with every THPS game, the music is nice, and very varied this time, with songs of all kinds. Graphics look pretty similar to THUG1, but the colors are much brighter in this more ballistic game, and the graphics are slightly more cartoony. The animations are very well done, which has always been the case of THPS, and every single trick looks great. There are realistic scrapes and marks along walls, rails, and kickers, and boards look good. People look much better than they used to, obviously, but their animations are still jerky sometimes. Wile choppiness is rare, it does occur sometimes, and I've seen a handful of pop-ups. But other than that, it's all great.

CONCLUSION
All in all, THUG2 is a very very solid game, and although it doesn't add many new things to the game (Sticker Slaps, Tagging, and the Natas Spin are cool, but not as groundbreaking ad Manuals or Reverts were, or as roughly useful as Spine Transfers and Walking were), it really expands on and polishes what's already there. There's so much stuffed into this game that it's unbelievable, and if you're a fan you won't be disappointed. If you've never played a THPS game, this is a great place to jump in, although I still suggest later getting THPS4, which I think was the most full, challenging, well-done, and fun game in the series. I just wonder how Neversoft will be able to expand on this series next year...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/04