Tony Hawk's Underground

Added December 13th, 2003 by Rohaq

Introduction:

Well, having not played a Tony Hawks game since a few years back on the Dreamcast when Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 hit the console, combined with the fact that I'd just received my first pay cheque in my new job, I thought I'd purchase Tony Hawk's Underground, lovingly referred to as THUG, and see what I'd been missing in numbers 3 and 4. I have to admit that I was pretty much expecting more of the same, but THPS2 was an excellent game, so I bought THUG anyway.

Gameplay:

How wrong I was! The game has seemingly evolved since its second incarnation. THUG not only has larger levels than its predecessors, but plays better, looks better, sounds better, and lasts longer than its prequels. The new drop moves allow you to switch between quarterpipes at 90 degree angles, you can level out if you come off a pipe wrong, you can even jump off your board and climbs ladders and run around the level if you do so wish, during which any previous combos are stored for a few seconds so you can continue it if you're quick enough. The level of freedom in this game has increased so much over its predecessors it's unbelievable, which is a great asset in the new Story mode.

In order to play the new Story mode you must create a skater in the cunningly titled Create-A-Skater feature, or choose from a precreated one. Create-A-Skater, as always in the Tony Hawks games, is easy to use and includes lots of faces, clothing, and accessories to don your character with, as well as logos for the front and back of your top. I was incredibly happy with my first, as he did look a lot like me (with an Al Capone hat, anyway), especially after I gave him my trademark nose and large gut. Another new feature is the way in which you develop your skating stats: Rather than using the old system of allocating stats as you earned cash, stats are now added by performing certain tricks. You can increase your liptrick balance by performing a liptrick for a certain number of seconds, for example. This method seems to work very well; practicing to become better makes a lot more sense than spending winnings skill points.

...Back to Story mode. You begin in your neighbourhood in Jersey with your basic skateboard. You find out there's a demo going on in your neighbourhood with a professional skater. From here on you've got to build your skating career, carrying out missions for folks around the level in order to progress. Some of these missions are harder than others. Personally, I found that there was very little sense of progression in these missions; I was failing some of the early ones quite miserably, and found other later ones obscenely easy. In this respect THUG loses some of its shine, as unlike most games, where it gets harder to progress as the game continues, the missions generally remain at the same difficulty level through out the game, with a few either being too easy or too hard. Maybe I'm losing my touch at gaming, but I know that they should at least have a kind of difficulty gradiency, this is a small niggle however, and the RPG-esque tasks make the story mode fun to play, and add a greater aspect of freedom to the game, as you don't have to do every mission, and so are able to select which ones you want to play. Don't like collecting things? Do a high-score task. Don't like them? Try a line-combo task. The variety in missions is quite good, ranging from having to do tricks in front of wedding couples for photos, to collecting your clothes and trophy and then making sure you don't miss the bus, to doing a McTwist over a police helicopter off the roof of a hotel!

Of course, if you hate Story modes and just want to jump straight into the action, you can always dive head first into the high score mode, where you can attempt to rack up high scores to your hearts content, or just skate around the expansive levels until your fingers get tired and fall off. Some of the level are to big, and there's not a single sign of slowdown whilst playing them. You're also not restricted to the ground level; jump off your board, climb a few ladders, and you're on the roof of a building to do a huge drop down to the streets below, and rather than having to perform a task to unlock an area, like in previous games, there are hidden areas that simply require you to find them. Hit L and R whilst going up a certain ramp, and you'll spine transfer to the other side and find a whole new section of level to skate in. Grind a cable off the roof of a building, and who knows where you'll end up? The levels are not only big, but well laid out with plenty of areas to use as ramps, grind, or plant on. You'll also find the usual assortment of special gaps, transfers, plant areas and grind rails as you skate around the level.

Multiplayer disappoints slightly in the way that you can only play two player split-screen on one console. In a day where 4 player split-screen comes almost as standard, this is a shame, however for those of you with friends or Xbox tunneling software (or the select few with both...) you can tear up the streets with up to eight players via system link, which is a LOT of fun, especially with the HORSE game-type, where you can collect letters to spell out a word of your choosing, so abusive profanities ahoy!

Graphics:

The characters are quite well modelled considering the amount of detail that has gone into the levels in the game. Every character looks different, and look quite realistic with branded clothes, well textured and modelled faces and realistic movements. The levels are full of objects you'd usually find in such areas, each one being very detailed and true to life. While the game does look good, it could have looked a lot better. This game has a lot of flat looking textures and the charater models could have used a few more polys. It is the best looking version of the game, but you cant help but wonder how it would have looked if it was an xbox exclusive..

Audio:

Of course, a Tony Hawk's game wouldn't be the same without the usual assortment of music to skate to, and this game doesn't disappoint, with the sounds of Crash and Burn, Electric Frankenstein, Stiff Little Fingers, Bad Religion, and over three dozen other artists all contributing to make the music the best ever heard in a Tony Hawk's game. The only letdown is the sound effects; these seem to remain exactly the same for everything; every car sounds the same, every guy who bails makes the same noise, as does every girl. This is a real shame, because some variety in the game's sound effects would have really polished off a very classy game, heck they could have even made it possible to edit the voice of your character with real-time pitch changes during playback, which would have made the create-a-skater feature practically perfect.

Replay:

Once the story mode is complete, there's not much to go back to in single player, unless you want to complete all of the gaps, or find the secret tape for every level. Multiplayer can last a good while, as long as you have more than two players. Any less than three and levels can be just too huge for most game types. Overall replayability is majorly affected by how many friends you have, or if you’re using tunnelling software to play link games online via PC. More friends = more replayability here folks.

Summary:

In conclusion THUG is a fantastic game that deserves the high score I'm giving it. I usually find that sequels become dry and barren of any creativity over the years, but this really is one game that has really bloomed as each version has released. The idea of a skateboarding game may not be original on its own, but the addition of the story mode almost makes the game a skating RPG in the way it plays and adds a whole new twist to the Tony Hawk's series that is actually worth the cash.