Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Preview

Always the last one picked, but that means you have something to prove.

Let the first annual world destruction tour – BEGIN!

Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, from Neversoft and Activision, is a robust skating game that embraces both the old Tony Hawk history while forging ahead with the new.

If you are looking for multiplayer action, this title has it. There are several online games that can be played, including a timed trick-out contest – both for high score and in a low-score elimination round; a grab the crown game in which you snag a crown and then try to avoid a full-on body tag by other gamers (one with the most crown time wins); and a game in which all players drop coins and then when the time goes off you try to collect as many coins as possible.

The game begins with a rookie skater performing at a local park when a black van barges in, two masked men jump out and kidnap the skater. The masked men are Tony Hawk and Bam Margera, who are organizing a “sick as hell” World Destruction Tour. You arrive at various world locations (starting in Boston), are given a set of goals to accomplish, and then turned loose. That is the single-player game. One of the big differences between the single-player and multiplayer games is that in the former, the environments are fully destructible. Not so in the latter.

Each of the levels (represented by the cities) has unlockable characters, like Benjamin Franklin and Jesse James in Boston, and you can expand the number of goals you have, and rack up more points, by playing as those characters and accomplishing their tasks. This is also where the team concept comes into play. You get a professional advisor, from one of the skaters featured, and can switch to that skater at any time. Of course, while the pro skater may have better moves and better inherent skills, it still comes down to the person behind the controller.

All the goals remain active all the time. The idea is to rack up points and progress to the next city. But because this is a “team” competition, there are penalties if your team does not succeed. The goals are varied and entertaining. You may have to steal a hospital gurney (with patient onboard) and avoid attendants who dive out and try to stop you. Much easier said than done.

The second installment of the game comes with a create-a-graphic option that allows you to create your graffiti tag. You can tag the cityscapes with it, and the bigger the combination you pull off, the bigger the graffito (ok, don’t write – graffito is the singular of graffiti). Yes, there is the create-a-skater to enable players to create the right avatar for them – from “ordinary” to “outlandish,” if there is such a thing.

The game also allows players to sticker slap a straight wall. You ride toward it, double tap the jump button to launch up, slap on a sticker and reverse directions.

Graphically the game is full of goodness. The skater’s heads are  bit bigger, the pants a big baggier, but the trips are outrageous and a whole lot of fun to pull off. Building momentum up to the top of a wall, to do a one-handed hand stand, watch the points rack up and then lose all of them by failing to successfully dismount the trick can be infuriating, but the spills are worth the view. The NDA prohibits talking about the soundtrack at this time, but stay tuned, details on that will be forthcoming.

The game also has a focus mode, in which you fill up the meter by pulling combos, activate focus mode and slow everything down – this enables you to pull off really huge combos with precision to nail the big points.

Of course, not everyone will succeed at the tricks they attempt. But there is a way to come up with points off the misses. There is a freak-out, which means pounding on the triangle button to trigger an instance where anger bubbles over, but you can also build up points by freaking out.

To advance to the next city, you have to meet goal point totals – 250 in easy mode, 500 (all of 1,000) in normal and 850 in sick mode.

In addition to the World Destruction Tour, the game also boasts well over 100 goals in the classic mode. Both modes of play combine for a game that has a lot of variety, and entertainment.

THUG 2 is bigger and better than its predecessor. And since the series has already been well-founded in the bestseller lists, that bodes well for the developer and publisher. But it is also a very good thing for the fans looking forward to the next installment. This is a ‘sick’ game.