Customer Reviews

Tony Hawk Underground

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(58)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

In order to keep the series from running out of steam, Activision decided add a "story mode" to the game. You start out as an unknown everyday skater who dreams of turning pro. There are plenty of "story scenes", starring you as the main character. As you progress through the game, new levels open up, and the drama of becoming a pro skater unfolds before you. All of this is a little bit cheesy, but nevertheless makes for an entertaining game to play.

Let me hit on the positives first. The "story mode" of the game does add a decent amount to the game experience. I found myself continuing to play so that I could find out what happens next. Also, the graphics are more detailed and the sounds are taken up a couple of notches as well. The levels are huge with lots of obstacles and spines to skate. All your favorite pros are back, with a couple of new ones thrown in too. However, the only levels you can play with one of the regular pro skaters are the levels you have opened up in story mode. Just so you know.

And now the negatives...
Not much to say here. While the story mode adds to the game, it isn't realistic. The same thing goes for quite a few of the "goals" you have to achieve. They have more in common with Grand Theft Auto than skateboarding. That aspect is probably the strangest part of the game. I guess the creators wanted some stuff in there that would appeal to that type of audience.

Anyway, I would rate this game a 9 out of possible 10.

If you thought Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 was a phenomonal experience, wait till THUG comes out. Sorry to say, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series are dead, but think of THUG as a perminent substitute... and maybe a slight (yeah right) variation of Tony Hawk 5 where you (yes you) are the undisputed star in this game and can now WALK (yes walk, like on a road) without your board! Some of the biggest changes in THUG are undeniably the fact you can now walk, grapple, dangle, shimmy, jump, and run throughtout a level to find new and hidden areas or to accomplish a goal. Another new aspect, is that you can now gain sponsors unlike its predecessors, Tony Hawk 1, 2, 3, and 4. And no longer is Tony Hawk the star, but you are. Tony's in the game, but you are the one who gains sponsors, YOU are the one who completes tasks, YOU are the one to make it to the big time, YOU are the one who must start at the bottom of the food chain, YOU are the one who will get new boards, decks, locations, levels, etc. and YOU are the one who is the star. Literally, you are the star; for Sony PS2 owners, you will be able to take a picture of your face using a digital camera, send it to Neversoft (or upload in the game, I'm not sure), and have them place YOUR face on your created skater! Now, I'm not completely sure if this is only limited to PS2 owners only, but it will be a fun experience. Like I said, you start at the bottom, meaning Jersey. Why Jersey? I'm not completely sure, but from there, you'll help out local cops to bring down a banner (or something) to gain access to a whole new part of the level, impress backyard skaters on their modified pipes, chase a renegade (or stolen) SUV by stealing a car on the side of the street, post up flyers (or fliers, whatever) for the local skateshop, and much more. Again, with now being able to walk, dangle, grapple, etc., it will be easier for you to find new and hidden areas on a level, like if there was a wicked mini skatepark on top of a building or a secluded warehouse in the very back of a level completely filled with pipes, you'll have easier access to them by using the new walk system. Jersey is the only level I know of now, but there are sure to be other levels just as exciting and new. That's about all I can tell you about THUG now, but be sure that hopefully Activision 02 and Neversoft can pull off this new Tony Hawk series, hopefully, THUG want be a fluke. None-the-less, I can't wait for this title to come out in late October! And remember, the gang from the previous THPS games are in THUG, but they aren't the stars, YOU are.

Note that this review is geared toward previous Tony Hawk 3 and 4 players.

THUG is another addition to the Tony Hawk series, and focuses on a story line instead of the more open ended goal-orientated features of previous games. You can only use your Create a Skater in this game, but he eventually becomes functionally equivalent to any of the Pros in other TH games. Game plot involves you rising from the kid nobody street skater in the middle of nameless town New Jersey, to gaining fame and fortune and going Pro by showing everyone else how good you are.

All your standard tricks are in this version, and the create-a-trick feature is fun but requires alot of practice to make a trick that both looks interesting and isn't impossible to pull off. Create-a-park is also back with the addition of letting you set custom goals. Online play is also included.

The single-player story line is cliched and unrealistically annoying at times. You're often required to perform tons of very simple tasks in order to continue the story, and skill points are handled differently here. You can't buy skill points as in previous games, instead you have to perform stunts and use tricks in order to gain points. Sounds good on paper but in practice it can be fiendishly difficult to grind for 15 seconds to gain 1 grind point when you have so few points to help you out with at the start, or to do 900 spins when the opening levels have few massive quarterpies. You are also limited to gaining too many points in the opening chapters of the story. At the game start, you can only gain a few points (doing very basic tasks, like a 5 second Manual or a few air tricks in 1 combo) until you progress the story enough to beat an "Amateur" level competition. As a TH4 veteran I was able to max out all my stats before completing a single mission on the first level of the story mode.

The storyline missions have alot of filler, and some are rather difficult. You'll fight the camera controls with the new Run missions, which take you off your board and make you jump up onto rooftops and such in order to find the usual tokens or items or whatnot. These Run missions aren't much fun, and the drive-a-car missions are also bad, basicially providing game filler that is neither challenging nor skateboard related. Some of the earlier "Do the tricks as I call them out" missions from TH4 are also frustratingly difficult.

In contrast, some of the earlier "trick point" missions are ridiculously easy, and I found many of those solved with only a handful of basic flatland manual tricks strung together.

Also, you'll often find yourself completing missions and gaining stat points using advanced tricks you've already learned from TH4 or TH3 (or from practice, or reading the instructions). Strangely, you'll often find your next mission from a guy who "teaches" you how to use those same skills, which seems like redundant filler.

Mission descriptions can also be very vauge and require many attempts not because you bail or run out of time, but instead because you don't know what you should be doing or what item you should be looking for. Fortunately missions that are multi-part don't require you to start from the beginning should you fail a portion.

Graphics and sound are on par with previous TH games, although I found the graphics to be a bit darker and grainier. Alot of the goofy dark-hearted humor and secret areas in previous TH games are gone in THUG, which is a shame. There are secret tapes and gaps galore but so far I have found them to be either too easy to find or too hard to temporarily abandon the story line to go back and get them. Remember, more story = more skill points, so the incentive to plod around areas you've already beaten isn't quite as strong as in previous TH games.

It's fun to finish missions and eventually pick your sponsors, which provide you with new gear graphics and outfits. There are a ton of pro skaters involved but they mostly make cameos, and after you hear their two or three lines of speech, you're dealing with nameless "team members" or "team managers".

Other than all the above negatives, it's of course difficult to give the game a low rating. It's still the fun Tony Hawk gameplay you're used to, and still a challenge. There are a bunch of new options and tricks, including wall-pushes to continue your Manual when you find yourself heading into a wall, and the Run ability which lets you stop a combo mid stride and jump off your board to run towards some new rail or pipe or whatever - kind of like a Revert or a Manual but without a balance meter. Unfortunately I haven't found much use for either, unless a mission requires it.

I still feel TH4 is so far the epitome of the Tony Hawk series of games, and THUG feels more like an expansion pack to TH4 than a true sequel. Still, it's alot of fun and a good addition to any PS2 library.

You download your face by taking a head shot of yourself, and then you send it to a certain website, and then they give you a code to put in. When you type in the code, it will put your face onto the person. It even shows it in the story parts. Ity is very cool, u can drive motocycles, bikes, cars, and you can even set the cars on fire. You get your own sponsors and every thing. In the beggining, your friend eric rapps on the window, to go see a famous skateboarder, Chad Muska. You have your first chance to get the hang of the controls. There are nine huge levels. I only know 2 of them, Massachuates and New Jersey.I have played the demo of it, believe me, it is the best game ever made. It is sort of like GTA, but there is no killng and no weapons, and no other things like that. It will be the best game in 2003 when it comes out

Everyone else covered the basics so i wont go over that again. But they forgot to say that when you play in the other modes of the game like two-player and so on you can skate as the regular pros. And in this game they brought in two new skaters, Arto Saari and Paul Rodriguez. I've only heard rumors about the soundtrack so i wont spread fake speculations. Oh, and check out the neversoft skaters video.

The biggest name in skateboarding takes a back seat to a nation full of wannabes in Tony Hawk's Underground-and the results represent a fresh start for the series. The game's centerpiece story mode stars you as an unknown skater who gets the chance to live the scrub-to-am-to-pro dream. It's a classic tale of opportunities, power, and betrayal among friends-just like Julius Caesar or Showgirls. Your personal quest takes you from New Jersey to various spots around the globe, where you'll be meet pros like Hawk and Bob Burnquist while doing burly tricks...and much more (no spoilers here). Some of the missions are a little hokey, and while the driving sequences do break things up a bit, they feel a little forced-but the satisfying story mode is a big improvement on THPS's structure. The story ramps up the difficulty gradually, so you build skills as you go, but there are now four difficulty levels, making THUG totally accessible to newbies.
When you finish the story, you can create almost everything yourself-skater, deck, tricks, levels, even level goals. PS2 owners get two major perks: They can map their own photo directly onto a player's face (very easy, very cool), and they can trade all of the above while skating online. The control and gameplay feel as tight as ever; old vets can drop in with ease. The new mechanics this time are wallpushes as well as getting off the board, running on foot, and climbing ledges. Jumping off the board (and keeping a combo going) expands your trick lines immensely, but it's just tricky enough to get on your nerves. It's easier on the PS2 than on the Xbox (mapped to the Black button), but it ultimately feels like one priority too many. Graphically, the game's no slouch; The Xbox version looks a hair prettier than the PS2, but the levels are huge and richly detailed on both systems, and linking animations are noticeably improved. Expressive voice acting and an enormous 75-song soundtrack featuring NOFX, Jurassic 5, and Jane's Addiction (the Xbox also supports custom tunes) make this the best audio experience in the series. The PS2's online elements give it an edge, but skate fans on any platform-including those who have strayed from the franchise in recent years-should buy Underground. The new name signals a new experience.

This game is amazing! I am going to tell you a bit about it.

Graphics- They have improved, its easy to tell. The mouths move, and the backrounds look more realistic as well.

Gameplay- This is one of those games that you pop in and can't get off.... It is worth the $50 no question.

Goals- The goals are fun and enjoyable to do. Some of them are kind of hard, but im sure you can do it.

Online Play- It is amazing!!! It is really fun and cool to play this new level you get called firefight, you shoot fireballs out of your skateboard and hit people with it.

This game is the best game ever!! If ya dont ahve it get [...]up and go out and get it.

The newest Tony Hawk is gonna be the best yet! It has 9 levels. Many people don't understand this because in other previous Tony Hawks, there were around 12. Well, THESE LEVELS ARE HUGE! They say each levels is 2-3 times bigger than THPS4 levels. After beating this game, there will still be secret areas in each level that have been unexplored.
This revolutionary game will be online, too. Unfortunately for gamecube and Xbox users, the online function will only be available for Playstation2. If you have PS2 and you don't have it online, now is the time to buy the network adapter. If you send in a picture of yourself to Neversoft, they will upload it to your game free of charge and your character can have the same face as you!
Some other great features of this game are: the abilities to get off your board to explore the level easier and driving cars. Walking can also be used as a kind of a manual between tricks to create combos. Just as in the Grand theft Auto series, stealing and driving cars is an option. Driving and walking adds accessibility to certain secret areas in levels that would be much harder to get to by skating. Also new to this game is the story mode. You start out as a nobody and work your way up to being famous and a pro.
I've just scratched the surface of this incredible game (I can only fit 1000 words in this review)

In Tony Hawk Underground(which I will be calling thug) is a really cool game. I got the game the first day it came out and I loved the new feature where you could get off of your board and run around where ever you want to go. I also loved the storyline in other Tony Hawk versions you would just go into levels having fun, but having no meaning to what you are doing. In thug you can also drive cars. This feature is really cool. At the last level you can drive a little dirt go kart over amazingly high jumps. The only bad thing about this game is that when you get out of the car you get out where the car originally was. I thought had they not done that it would of had more of the GTA feature to it. It's really cool to create your own character and having him start in an old run-down New Jersey neighboorhood and then going to competitins with Tony Hawk and other hit skaters. Overall, this game was the best and I think you should get it.

And in the beginning there was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater...

Let me first say that I have been playing the THPS series since the first game. And through all the years and games since then, it has always remained at the top of my list through every new release they came out with. Fast forward to the present and we have a new Tony Hawk game. Tony Hawk's Underground.

I picked this game up the day it was released and have been obsessed ever since. Once again, the Tony Hawk series never ceases to amaze me. This time they brought a fresh new idea to the series and I think it is quite welcomed. While the other games are fantastic - it was a good idea to freshen it up a little bit. Although, it's really not all THAT different. The goals are basically the same type of goals from the previous games. (e.g. collect 5 of this, do a trick here, etc.) except now, there's a story line behind it, which is better, because it makes doing the tasks a little more interesting.

The best part about the THPS series and now with this game, is, the gameplay never changes - and that's really what makes the Tony Hawk games fun. The gameplay. As always, with new Tony Hawk games, comes new innovations in the trick department. And this game is no different - going as far as to let you create your own trick. Of course, the usual things you expect from a TH game are present, crazy levels, awesome stuff to unlock, crazy new tricks and the ability to create your own skate park. Of course, all the usual suspects are here for your PRO skating needs.

The new feature of the game that everyone is talking about is the ability to download your face onto your skater. I can't comment on this since I don't have an adapter for my ps2, therefore never tried it.

In summary, this game is outstanding. A NEW Tony Hawk game with NEW features/storyline that stays true to it's THPS roots. My only complaints with the game are: I think the song selection could have been a little better for the soundtrack of the game and it could run a little smoother on Playstation2. I've seen the FPS drop a little bit and it lag a tad. I'm sure the latter of my complaints is remedied on Xbox. (But who wants to play Tony Hawk on an Xbox controller? Answer: not me.)

These complaints are quite minor in comparison to the fun you will have playing this game. This one's a no brainer folks. Game of the Year!

GRAPHICS: 8/10 (PS2)
GAMEPLAY: 10/10
SOUND: 8/10
STORYLINE: 9/10

OVERALL: 4.5 Stars !!