Tony Hawk's Underground 2

[Dr. Zoidberg 0]

THUG 2 was released Wednesday, and the game focuses on a round the world "King of the Road" idea. Team Bam vs. Team Hawk, whoever has the most points at the end of the trip wins. The levels are Training Facility, Boston, Barcelona, Berlin, Australia, New Orleans, and Skatopia.

 

 

 

So...right off the bat, this game is a disappointment.

 

 

The gameplay is great, the CAS is great, but one major thing pisses me off about it:

 

 

They took out Geoff Rowley, Arto Saari, Andrew Reynolds, and Jamie Thomas and replaced them with Jesse James (from West Coast Choppers), 13 year old skate fucker Ryan Sheckler, Phil "Bam's Dad" Margera, and Wee Man.

 

 

Fucking Wee-man.

 

 

Ok, two things...the levels are insaaaaanely small, especially the Boston and Australia levels. There's not enough room to "skate" and have a good skating sesh, you know?

 

 

However, on the plus side:

 

Gameplay is top-notch. It's still so over-the-top that it's fun.

 

Create-a-Skater is much more in-depth, but because of the departure of Reynolds, Rowley, Saari, Thomas, and the like, there's only Birdhouse and Element boards to pick from. However, the cool thing is, you can now pick a voice for your skater, and there's more selections of apparel.

 

A cool new feature called "Focus Mode" where you go in slow motion, making it easier to land gnarly tricks. Some of the objectives in the game center around this feature, and it's a lot of fun to use.

 

If you fall, also, there's a new "Freak Out" meter, where you constantly tap the triangle button, and judging by how far you fill the meter, your skater freaks out harder. My favorite one is where he just picks up the board and slams it against the ground, snapping it in half. A lot of fun.

 

 

So yeah, some good, some bad, and some Wee Man. No Geoff Rowley means lame, but once you get over that and break a couple of boards in the game, you have a good time.

 

 

Anyone else got this game?

[jimmy no nose 0]

Got the game yesterday and put in a few hours of multiplayer and some quick classic mode. I was liking the return of the classic goals, and have yet to see the Destruction tour really, but it sounds like a cool thing to mix in with them. I agree with you about the levels being too small. I was hoping they'd try and go bigger this time, it isn't really that huge a deal though. I thought it was strange that they went with less real skaters, I'm sure that almost everyone out there wants to be in the game. Soundtrack in this one sucks, I've got the Xbox version though so I just go custom.

 

EDIT--I've just now realized they took out even more skaters than you mentioned. They took out Kareem Campbell and Elissa Streamer and maybe even more that I just didn't notice. Also, create a deck is gone. Even worse there are no longer Pro Movies, which have always been something I enjoyed and one of the few reasons to try and complete the game with multiple skaters.

[Scroby 0]

I've been playing this game at work and honestly the only thing thats new about this game thats not from last years game is the storyline. So far to me it seems almost the same thing at the first T.H.U.G.

[Red Baron 0]

No Reynolds and no Thomas is not worth my money

[EricMM 0]

This game has become so MTV it's embarrasing.

 

Whereas the first game was NOT. I mean the first THPS. I haven't played one seriously since THPS2...

 

Have they changed the scoring system at all, or does a manual still give a +1x multiplier to the score of the trick in the way it did in THPS2?

[Scroby 0]

No Reynolds and (No Thomas was taken out of this quote)is not worth my money

 

Well Baron I didn't know I was worth your money....since Reynolds is my last name and all.

[The Ill One 0]

I never played Underground and I don't intend to play the second one. Funny story (since we're talking about Reylonds)- I stood right next to Reylonds without realizing it 'til after he skated off at a demo. The "road war" thing has me interested.

[Detective Comics 0]

Oh, GOD! They took a few skaters out? The game must totally blow now...

 

Phil > Elissa

[Dr. Zoidberg 0]

You don't understand. Geoff Rowley and Andrew Reynolds are the reasons I got the other games, so I could mainly see their pro movies. Now, they not only don't have pro movies, but my two favorite skaters, as well. It was a huge disappointment.

 

 

Other than that, there are a bunch more flaws. The characters are all cartoony and super fake looking, as i said, the levels are tiny...like, THPS 1 style, and the story is just lame as hell.

 

 

But yeah, Phil > Elissa....that's true.

[Golgo 13 0]

I haven't played the game yet (and I spent little time with THUG), but I like the transition to the cartoony character models. I wasn't a fan of the realistic models from previous games, to be honest, and cartoony characters seem to go along with the gameplay better. Let's face it, the physics and such aren't too realistic either.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Yeah, I have no interest in this game, even though I've played and loved every other Tony Hawk game. I didn't like THUG as much as the others either, really.

 

I think I'm just gonna get a copy of 4 (I only have the PS1 Version) so I can skate as Eddie, and be happy with that.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Oh, GOD! They took a few skaters out? The game must totally blow now...

A few? There's about 6 or 7 actual skaters in the game now. But no problem. You can play as Benjamin Franklin and Shrek if you want!

 

Rented it out, completed story mode in a few hours and the game is decent enough. Far too MTV though. It's alright if you want to play as Steve O on a mechanical bull, I suppose. But the shelf-life is pretty limited now. I got a little way through classic mode too, which seems decent enough. But again, after a while the game has lost it's appeal as there's not enough to actually do. And yeah, as someone said, the levels are surprisingly small now.

 

Okay for a rental, but not much more.