Tony Hawk’s Underground – XB – Review

If you were walking down the
street and someone came up to you and said, "You’re a punk," you’d be
extremely offended.  However, if someone came up to you and said, "You’re a
thug," you’d probably extend your right hand and smile.  No one wants to be a
punk.  But being a thug isn’t so bad when it means you’re in tune with Tony
Hawk’s Underground, the latest addition to the Tony Hawk family.

THUG is not at all what
you’d expect.  It could very well be considered a side-story to the Tony Hawk
series.  Just incase you haven’t heard, I’ll briefly bring you up to speed:
THUG does not star Tony Hawk; it stars you.  Average Joes and plain Janes are
in place of the pro skaters we know and love, for what reason I’m not quite
sure.  You can play as Tony Hawk and other pro skaters, but that aspect is
downplayed a bit.

Truthfully I don’t really
care who I’m playing as.  The secret characters are always great, but when I’m
struggling to complete a huge combo, land into a grind and finish with a
special, I’m not thinking about the aesthetics.  The moves differ to some
degree, but the characters are mostly the same.

Neversoft’s mission to
improve the controls in every Tony Hawk game continues with THUG.  It’s much
easier to grind and to hold a grind for a long period of time.  The grind
balance is a little more solid, giving players the chance to take further
advantage of it.  Hawk masters may not consider this to be all that important
– some might even consider it to be a downgrade in terms of the challenge.
But the game is still challenging.  You won’t be spending all your time
collecting the letters to spell "SKATE," nor will you performing the same
actions over and over again.  Not that you did that before, but Neversoft has
been trying hard to stop the yearly installments of the Tony Hawk series from
becoming mere upgrades.  They want each to be full-fledged sequels.  That’s
great, but there should be a limit to how much diversity a game has.

THUG diverts from the
extreme sports path by trying to include a little bit of everything.  The
developers seem to have caught the Grand Theft Auto bug that’s been going
around lately.  Expect to be baffled by some of the new gameplay mechanics,
including walking and climbing.  Even more baffling are the objectives that
you must complete using these new mechanics.  With a tiny amount of stealth
you’ll have to re-claim stolen goods.  Or – you’re never going to believe this
one – get in a car and drive around in circles.  This isn’t why I play Tony
Hawk games (to drive around circles), but if it were fun, I’d say bring it
on.  This isn’t a big part of the game though.  Some of the worst objectives
can be skipped, or temporarily avoided while you take on other, more
entertaining tasks. 

Gamers, let’s play a game
called Praise Predictions.  You remember how great Tony Hawk 3 was, and how
the following game was even better, right?  The courses were much more
expansive and featured improved level interaction (better placement of ramps,
pipes, etc.), keeping players entertained for weeks at a time.  Now let’s see
if you can guess what I’m going to say about Tony Hawk’s Underground.  It
feels weird to be giving similar praise to another Tony Hawk game, but as long
as Neversoft continues to improve the courses that can’t be helped.  THUG’s
courses are the biggest yet.  They’re very urban – expect to see lots of
houses and other neighborhood content.  (Try jumping from the roof of one
house to the other!)  The visual field is nearly perfect, giving you the
illusion that the world goes on forever.  Sadly it doesn’t, but any time you
step out of bounds the game will automatically take you back to where you
belong.

The upgraded
Create-A-Park feature is going to be cherished by aspiring level designers.
The Xbox hard drive takes away all memory worries, so the only restrictions
are the ones created by the developers.  THUG’s empty course space is larger
than in the last game, and there are many more pools, trees, rails and ramps
to choose from.  The controls feel a little odd in player-created courses
since you can’t control the camera, but other than that my only gripe is that
the empty course space does not go into infinity.  Having that would be
impractical, but a guy can dream, right?

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Gameplay: 8.6
Tony Hawk’s
Underground is a bold new direction for the series.  The story mode is
Neversoft’s answer to Grand Theft Auto but with mixed results.  The core
gameplay elements, both improved and unchanged, are pure joy.  You’ll not be
able to get enough of them!  The controls are as perfect as possible, making
the whole experience even more enjoyable.

Some of
the objectives (like dog-riding – grab onto a dog and don’t let go until he’s
had enough exercise) seem out of place.  If they occurred more frequently and
were forced on the player (meaning that none could be skipped), it would have
crippled the entire game.

Create-A-Deck, Create-A-Goal, Create-A-Park, and Create-A-Skater give gamers
the chance to do just what the title says.  In Create-A-Deck, you get to
design the graphics for your board.  In Create-A-Goal, you get to make your
own goals and challenges.  This won’t give you the options that a game
developer has, but it is pretty extensive, and is perfect for anyone who loves
to tweak their games.

Graphics: 9.2
Two words:
stellar backgrounds.  You’re going to see the environments more than anything
else, so the artists fought hard to make that the most beautiful part of the
game.  You’ll be amazed at how far you can see into the distance.
Leaf-covered trees, reflective windows, detailed brick on the sides of houses,
etc, etc.!!  There’s a distinct, realistic difference between surfaces (like
grass or cement).  Very nicely done.

What you won’t be amazed
by is the new characters.  The pro skaters look alright, but if the local
"skate punks" were any uglier, you’d need to cover their faces with paper
bags.  You don’t see their faces much outside of the character select screen
though, indicating why they’re so hideous.

Sound: 7
Semi-decent
no-name music from a large collection of virtually unknown artists.  You’ll
see a couple of familiar one-hit-wonders, but they add little to the
entertainment value of the sound.  You may wonder why a high-profile game like
this doesn’t have high-profile artists.  It may be because the Xbox version
allows players to listen to their homemade soundtracks.

Difficulty: Medium
Not a Tony Hawk
master yet?  Not a problem.  THUG includes several difficulty levels designed
to match the skills of most gamers.

Concept: 8
Great new
courses, strange new objectives.  I’m not sure where the inspiration for
"walking" in an extreme sports game came from.  That’d be like having Sonic
use a wheelchair instead of his running shoes.  The skate-to-walk transition
works well for the necessary combo situations.  Other than that it’s pretty
useless.

Multiplayer: 8
Two players can
go "underground" on one screen.  If you have eight Xboxes and eight TVs lying
around (and who doesn’t?), you can invite your friends over for a massively
multiplayer offline experience.

Overall: 8.5
Five years later
and still going strong, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series is continuous in
control and gameplay improvements.  The new urban courses are excellent.  You
can launch yourself off the roof of a house, land on a wire and grind till you
reach another house.  The combo variations are limitless.  Tony Hawk novices
will be happily overwhelmed, while Tony Hawk masters will enjoy taking the
game even further.  It has its flaws, but they’re worth overlooking to
experience the joy that the rest of the game provides.