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Tony Hawk’s Underground
By: Nathan and Nick

When I look back at other Tony Hawk games, like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x, Tony Hawk 2, Tony Hawk 3 and Tony Hawk 4, I see a game where you get to choose your favorite pro skater. Not in Underground. Now, now, don’t get ahead of your-self, this is a good thing, we need to see a change in game play. In Tony Hawk’s Underground you are the “skater” it is your job to work up and become a pro. You have to work your way up to the top, so in Underground you start out as just a regular teenage skater. But, then you meet Chad Muska and he influences you to keep working at it. Later on in the game you will have to make your own team, you also get to name the team. You can pick a lot of your favorite pro skaters, such as: Tony Hawk, Bucky Lasek, Bob Burnquist, Steve Caballero, Kareem Campbell, Rune Glifburg, Eric Koston, Bam Margera, Rodney Mullen, Chad Muska, Andrew Reynolds, Paul Rodriguez, Geoff Rowley, Arto Saari, Elissa Steamer, Jamie Thomas, and the one and only Mike Vallely.

The best part out being your own skater you can choose to how you skater looks. You can change his clothing, his face, body, you can have him/her, wear glasses, have a fro, pretty much anything you want you got in T.H.U.G. What makes Underground better then the previous games I aforementioned, is that you can actually get off your board, and explore your skating environments. This means you can walk, and climb certain buildings and do some nasty looking trick combos of them. The career mode is gone, out of there, and is replaced with a nicely set up story mode. I think this was one of the smartest moves Neversoft has done for awhile. We need something new, I am pretty sure if you asked anyone who has played the past game that they would agree we needed a change in game play.

One real problem in Underground is the story mode; it doesn’t flow relatively well, and some of the goals you do have nothing to do with a life of a skater. I mean picking up leaves with a leaf blower (lawn mower type thing) is what a pro skater really doesn’t do. I think they couldn’t have had more contests and challenges having to do with skating would have done nicely in this game in my opinion. There are a total of 27 chapters in this game, to keep you going. There are a total of 8 total levels in this game, some include: Vancouver, Manhattan, San Diego and Hawaii. It is true though that Tony Hawk Underground is one of a kind, after the ageing franchise of Neversoft. 4 years of making the same old game, was indeed getting pretty boring.

Gameplay
The gamplay has change drastically, first off we got more tricks then ever before not to mention you can now make your own tricks in create a trick mode. Now instead of just skating you can get of your board find someone to talk to and to do an objective with. This makes for a totally new experience. Now that you can get of your board you can climb buildings and do some sweet drops off the buildings such as the acid drop. In THPS4 you didn’t have to complete every goal, in underground you do not have too either, you can just pass on to the next level, so if your stuck on a goal don’t worry about it just move on.

The story mode is a great change I think. It lets you be the skater instead of being a pro skater. Also it gives the game a “Story” instead of career mode where you just go out and skate for really no reason except to be pro. The coolest part is seeing how Neversoft has replicated skaters ways of live, such as the yo-yo-in-your-face intensity of Chad Muska to the super coolness of Tony Hawk to the great Stacy Peralta. Also you may be thinking that you cant be any of the pros at all, most certainly you can! There are still there: Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Steve Caballero, Kareem Campbell, Rune Glifberg, Eric Koston, Bucky Lasek, Bam Margera, Rodney Mullen, Chad Muska, Andrew Reynolds, Paul Rodriguez, Geoff Rowley, Arto Saari, Elissa Steamer, Jamie Thomas, Mike Vallely, plus several others who appear in Story mode. Okay so we have a Story mode where you can be yourself.

Not including what you can do with your good old PS2 if you have the game for it. You can actually put “YOUR” face in the game no not a pros face not a created face, “YOUR actual face. Here’s what you do: take a picture of your face and then with different things you can digitally add it to the game and it really does look like you. For more info you can go to Thugonline.com. Now when you get off your board as I said before you can climb buildings etc but its not an absolute necessity, at least I didn’t find myself using it all that often just in a couple of goals etc, its there basically for the possibilities of mixing up the gamplay. Although on a positive note it makes you think about the game with an entirely new perspective. Getting off your board is a cool feature although when you get off your board its not fluent, its hard to time your jump. Also a new think Neversoft has done is adding different cars in each level to actually race in. After doing a goal in a level with a vehicle you can ride it. Not really a necessary feature or an important part of the story but does make for changes.

Graphics
If you talk to any Gamecube or Xbox owner they will most likely tell you that the graphics are better then the PS2. In my opinion I believe the same thing. Now, PS2 owners I am not saying they are bad, besides you have some lucky features, first of all you guys can play online. Also, you can put your own face digitally in the game. So the PS2 game definitely has its advantages. The graphics in any of the Tony Hawk games, were never bad, infact they haven’t been that bad ever as far as I can remember. The textures are pretty decent, and so are the pro skater models. The game is clean and well textured; also there are less sharp edges.

In the PS2 version of the game you will see some sharp edged trees and buildings and so forth. You wont see this in either the Xbox or Gamecube games. The Xbox version has nice and smooth graphics and definitely well designed nature levels. Also there are newer bails, if you crash you board will go sailing into the distance; this is a small but nice effect. Also if you do a trick but bail and manage to crack your board in half your skater will kick it. It does kind get old hearing the same old thing like “OH! MY ANKLE!” or “OH! My Knee”! Other then that I think it ties into the game great.

Overall There are some fans that just love the game to its guts. Ps2 fans especially like it for the scanning technology they got with it. Overall I think this ones better then all the Tony Hawk Proskater games. So if you liked the old THPS games, are you in for the ride of your life. We have new things such as: getting off your board and just jumping around getting to the tops of buildings, nailing landings from the tops of builds, its limitless with this feature. You can’t ask for better graphics then this; very smooth nicely texture. Character models look superb! Not much you can say negatively about this game. The level designing has virtually no mistakes, has absolution unforgettable gameplay, and the lighting-fast trick popping is still as addictive as the first game. Truly this one will give any other THPS game a run for its money.