Tag Archives: Skating

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Tony Hawk’s Project 8

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Never before have I had so much difficulty deciding if I like a game or not. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Tony Hawk franchise, and Project 8 is one of the best Tony Hawk games in a while. But the problem I have is that even with the new skate tricks, the new completely open world, the new graphics engine that makes things look prettier than ever is that it still feels just like every other Tony Hawk game.

On the one hand, this is good – the Tony Hawk games have always been great at creating a skating simulation yet I still feel there needs to be something more in the game to keep me interested long-term.

The story in Project 8 is a little light, but serves its purpose. Tony Hawk is in town, and is seeking the top 8 skaters for his competition. You begin ranked at 200, and have to work your way up the rankings by skating and tricking around the city. The city isn’t a real location, but rather an ‘Anytown USA’ type amalgamation of previous locations found in the series. The city is huge, and although certain areas are locked at first, once it’s opened up is completely skateable. If you’re good enough, you could grind around the entire area, from the starting point, a white washed and picket fenced suburb, to the capital district complete with faux capital building and beyond, to a hardcore industrial SUV factory.

To help you achieve ranking are the various pro skaters and celebrities who direct you to perform in skate shows, as well as try to achieve different activities around the city. This time around instead of choosing which level of difficulty you’ve going to try to attempt activities there are Spot Challenges. With these it’s all up to how well you perform the moves. For example, there’s a task early on which requires you to natas spin on a number of poles. Get a certain number of poles, linking them with manuals, and you’ll get an Amateur ranking. Spin on a few more, and you’ll get Pro. Tricks are conveniently marked too, so grinding lines have graffiti spots telling you how far to grind before you’re awarded with Amateur, Pro or Sick. It allows a much better flow to the game, and you can re-try tricks to get better scores and thus a better story ranking.

Each Tony Hawk game introduces a new feature, and the new ‘Nail the Trick’ mode is especially cool. At any time, you can click the controller joysticks and you’ll go into a bullet time slow motion, with the camera zooming in and the joysticks becoming your feet. Moving the joysticks will flip or rotate the board, and you can do any number of awesome moves. It’s tricky, as you have to get used to a whole new timing mini-game, moving the sticks back to their original position at precisely the right moment, or you’ll bail in spectacular fashion.

But now even bailing is fun. If you stack it, you can bail out and cause massive damage to yourself, racking up a hospital bill and breaking bones. Pressing Y bounces you along and whilst only having minor impact on the overall game, it’s still fun bouncing along racking up points for failing to being able to pull off moves. Whilst the hospital bills are weighed in Stokens, the in-game currency, money doesn’t play any role except to tell you how gnarly you are.. Stokens are gained by impressing the locals in the area with tricks, as well as knocking people over and stealing from them. But if you don’t skate away quickly enough, they come after you and knock you off the board, stealing all your hard earned cash.

One of the biggest changes to the game is the updated graphics. Finally here is a Tony Hawk game for the Xbox 360. The graphics are great, and although the character models sometimes look a little off, it’s probably more to do with the Uncanny Valley effect than something wrong with the graphics themselves. When you go into “Nail the Trick’ mode, in the slow motion you can see the wheels of the board spin independently as you flip and manipulate the board. Moreover, the board is completely separate from the skater – not that the game ever felt like you were riding with your feet nailed to a plank, but it gives you a better sense of freedom from the board now as it is a completely independent entity.

Tony Hawk games have always had awesome soundtracks, and this one is no different. Featuring Australia’s own Wolfmother, punk like The Ramones and Sonic Youth, to rockers like NIN and Ministry, to hiphop from Ugly Duckling and Hieroglyphics, plus a few oddities like Gnarls Barkley and Toots & the Maytals. But on top of that the sound engine has been totally reworked. You can actually hear the wheels spinning independently on their ball bearings. You can hear the wheels clacking over the joins in the ramps. And you immediately notice when the surface underneath your feet changes through the tone and pitch of the board.

Even with all the new stuff packed into the game, I have to admit that maybe I’ve had enough of the Tony Hawk games. Which is a really hard thing for me to admit, and I’m sure that Tony Hawk fans will lynch me for saying so but I found myself getting bored really early on in the game, and simply didn’t feel that addictiveness that is often found in the series. I guess it’s partly the fact the series has been so damn good at representing skating in computer game form. But I just felt I was doing the same thing over and over, and although the difficulty was ramped up, I never felt the pay off was worth the effort.

Whilst most of the time the game played smoother than the proverbial, there were a few times where I encountered some really odd bugs and framerate drops. Once I was grinding along the edge of a locked area, and all of a sudden I was shot high into the air, just floating in space. Another time I was getting air and did a flip, and the flip animation bugged out, so I was caught in a continuous loop for about 3 seconds. And sometimes, especially when you do a spine transfer from a ramp into a wall, you can find yourself stuck, and you go back and forth hitting the back of the ramp and front of the wall.

Online is the game’s biggest let down. There’s only one new mode called “walls” which is like the light cycles in Tron – as you move a wall is formed behind you. Hit another player’s wall, and you are out of the game. Unlike Tron though, you can hit your own walls without penalty, so it’s much less of a challenge. The other modes are trick attack, score challenge, combo mambo, graffiti, and horse. There are a heap of online leaderboards and achievements, but I’m not someone who is really all that competitive, and would like something more than the usual lists of ultimately useless numbers.

Conclusion:
Not being a skater this series has allowed me to live out my fantasies of being a hella cool skater thrashing and grinding and getting wicked air. And Project 8 takes it to a whole new level of authenticity. You can hear the different pitch and wail and see the wheels rotating independently when you go into the air during “Nail the Trick”. But even with all the new bells and whistles, I was left feeling Project 8 needed something different, something more. Truth be told, I became bored with the game rather quickly, and being the fan of the series I am, this rather disappointed me. I’m not entirely sure what is needed, but the series definitely needs something more to get me to excited about the next one.

Pros
spot challenges allow a continuous feel to the game
‘nail the trick’ is really awesome
excellent new graphics engine
superb use of sound

Cons
the multiplayer modes offer nothing new
the entire game can feel repetitive
a little buggy at times when doing tricks

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Shaun White Skateboarding

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Taking influences from many sources, Shaun White Skateboarding seeks to forge a new path for skateboarding games, and adds a few new twists on an old genre. It attempts to muscle in on territory held by Activision with Tony Hawk on the one hand, and EA’s Skate on the other. Instead of knocking out the competition, it gets squished in the middle, making a little noise but ultimately being ineffectual in making itself really stand as a contender.

With the story of SWS appearing far more developed than in Skate or any Tony Hawk games, you find yourself in the world of the Ministry, a faceless, boring bureaucracy which insists everyone to behave in a regular manner, not dream nor imagine; not be exceptional, not be outstanding. It’s a dystopian view of the corporate world, not dissimilar to the one found in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, but nowhere near as clever.
As public enemy number one, presumably because he is exceptional and outstanding, Shaun White is arrested, and hands you his board. You transform from corporate slave to gnarly skateboarder dude, and then through the help of some friends, seek to free the whole city from under the corporate grey mundanity of the Ministry’s grasp.

You do this by skating, of course. Your main objective is to colourise the world, and in this way it is a bit like DeBlob on the Wii. As you cruise around on your board performing tricks, the world around you goes from drab and lifeless greys to full colour and life. Trees sprout from the side walk. Cars are splashed with bright colours. Walls become covered in animated graffiti artworks. The more tricks you pull, the wider your area of influence becomes. The wave of energy ripples out from where you land the tricks, shaking the cars and trees around you, reminiscent of Blur’s area effect weapon.

The trick system is very familiar to anyone who’s played Skate. You flick the Right Stick to pull off moves in the air, and modify with the face and trigger buttons. However, it feels like Skate –Lite. The tricks are easy to pull off, and the game guides you to land safely most of the time. It’s only in extreme circumstances, like falling from a great height or not completing a flip that you ‘bail’.

There’s also a Flow meter down the bottom of the screen, and filling up the meter means you can use Flow to influence certain areas of the world. For example, see a swirly yellow line in the middle of the street means there is something, usually a ramp or jump, which can be influenced to appear by landing a trick when your meter is in the yellow zone. Blue swirlies indicate objects which need you to be in the blue zone, and likewise purple indicate the highest amount of Flow you need to unlock the area. This also applies to the pedestrians who populate the world. Get your meter up and you can influence yellow and blue business people to become brightly clothed snap happy photographers and skaters.

Flow is the main weapon used in the story of the game to unlock more areas and further the story along. There is more to do than just build flow though. There is an XP system, and by completing challenges around the world you gain XP, which is used to unlock more skate tricks. The more tricks in your arsenal, the more flow you build up.

The best bit of the game is creating ramps and rails out of thin air. Around the world you’ll see hazy green icons, and running up the ramp icon creates a ramp. Riding onto the street icon creates a wide path which can be manipulated up or down, creating bridges and the like. Jumping onto a rail and sliding onto the rail icons creates a rail which can get you up to higher places. At first the rails follow a determined path, but later on in the game you can manipulate the paths how you wish. This innovative approach to extending levels vertically works very well, making you feel some real freedom in making your own paths through the world.

There are also a host of things to smash, walls to wall ride, and tickets to collect, all of which grant achievements, experience and / or unlockable clothing and skate boards and accessories. The latter seems to be lacking somewhat in “real world” brands especially compared to Skate and Tony Hawk, although the subtle advertising in world (such as the Wendy’s shop fronts plastered with the Wendy’s logo) points to paid advertising in the game. As to why the advertising wasn’t more “skate culture” orientated I can only surmise that other companies had exclusive deals with the other franchises.

And despite the cool new things you can do in the game compared to the other skate games, about 5 or 6 hours into it things get rather dull. The story slows down, the new area is already full of colour so doing tricks is just morphing the world into ramps and jumps, and you feel like you’re simply going through the motions. I still like to fire up Skate and try to pull off new tricks, but the simpler trick system in SWS means there’s nothing to actually master.

The graphics of the game look decidedly underwhelming. Although the effects and colours are great, and the main character animations are smooth enough, the animations of the albeit numerous pedestrians are very basic. You’ll see the same animations over and over again. The in-game cutscenes look very basic, with low polygon models and atrocious lipsynch.

Although the game never takes itself seriously, with caricatures of stoner skateboarders throughout, the story script won’t be winning awards for creative writing. The dialogue is delivered well enough, although I often had problems in cutscenes where the voice would drop out entirely. The ancillary voices are repetitive to the point of annoying. It’s unintentionally funny you’re helping this repressed and conformist world to free itself, and everyone runs around saying “Hi, my name is Dave” and “Fight the Power!” Musically the game also underperforms compared to the other skateboarding franchises, being full of typical skate/punk/pop music with nothing too outstanding to make note of.

Multiplayer games simply do not exist. After more than an hour waiting over numerous nights, I didn’t find a single game. I admit it could have been one of those silly moderate NAT issues which sometimes occur with Xbox Live games, but I would have thought I’d have seen at least one person try and join my game. As it stands, not one person joined my on line game, and I never once saw anyone playing online.

Conclusion:
Shaun White Skateboarding provides a great deal of fun for a few hours, and then seems to collapse on itself. The ideas contained within are innovative in terms of a skateboarding game, but grow stale after a few hours. The ease of pulling off tricks, the poor quality of the characters and animations and music and dialogue all contrive to make the game lesser than the sum of its parts. Which is a shame, because given the state of the Tony Hawk franchise, the video game skating world does really need some fresh ideas.

Pros:
Interesting concepts
It’s fun creating your own paths through the world.
Easy to get the hang of tricks

Cons:
Poorly executed concepts, which grow stale after a few hours
Poor character animations, especially in cutscenes
Tricks are possibly too easy
Dialogue is too repetitive

67/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland

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Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland (simply THAW from now on) sees the series return to the more recognisable pastures of the Tony Hawk series. Gone is the MTV inspired craziness of THUG2 (XBW: 82). Gone are the vehicles of THUG (XBW: 88). And in its place we have a few more new moves, BMX biking ala Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX, and whilst all elements of the entire series are still retained, the biggest addition for Xbox gamers is Xbox Live! online play.


The series has always been known for it’s great presentation, but this time it’s been upped a notch by the inclusion of art by famous Santa Cruz artist Jimbo Philips. The name might not be familiar to those who live their lives on the Xbox, but those of us with even a passing interest in skating, surfing and the associated scene will be very familiar with Jimbo’s wacky designs and intense yet funny artwork. Jimbo’s art shows up in cut scenes, and the cut scenes tell the story of a young country boy (you) who makes his way to LA to make it big on the skate circuit. Once he arrives, he’s robbed by some skate thugs, but befriended by punk chick Mindy, who helps him get his stuff back. In return, the skater boy promises to help Mindy get her skate ‘zine ‘American Wasteland’ published. Along the way you get to help a bunch of misfits build a skate park, and impress the pro scene skaters.

The gameplay of THAW hasn’t altered too much from the paradigm set up in THUG. You skate up to people with Stars over their head, and they will give you goals to achieve in order to progress the story. Most of these involve tricking off certain items in the map to proceed to the next goal. All the old tricks are available, and if you know the series you won’t have any problems performing them. The key to most goals is to perform the tricks called out, or gets the highest possible score in a combo. New tricks include rolls, off the board skills, and old skate tricks pioneered by the Dog Town Z Boys. Rolls are where you spin your entire body when in the air, and they look cool although they’re quite difficult to pull off. The off-the board skills involve wall climbing and flipping off walls. The old school moves include the Natas spin which is spinning on a pivot, and the Bert Slide, which is where you put your hand on the ground and pivot on your hand, much like how surfers touch the wave when surfing.

Once you unlock the skate park, usually the goal will involve tricking off something in the environment causing it to crash or smash, and then the item will be transported to the skate park, where you’re encouraged to make a big score off of it in some way. This is a little different to the THUG series where the goal was just to cause destruction and open up new areas of the maps. This does happen in THAW, although not to such a great extent. Something that is different is that you can now skate from one side of world to the other without seeing any loading screens. This makes the game world seem much more cohesive, and it’s a lot of fun skating and tricking from one area of LA to another. For example, it’s possible to skate from Hollywood to East LA via the subway. There’s a bit of slowdown in the connecting areas, but it’s barely noticeable.

The BMX is a new feature and replaces the vehicles found in THUG. Whilst the controls are similar to the skateboard, the bike does have different physics and some different tricks. For example, you use the triggers as the front and rear breaks. And yes, you can flip the bike by applying too much pressure to the front break at too high a speed. Tricks are pulled off using the same face buttons as skateboarding, as well as the Right Joystick to do further BMX specific moves, such as tail whips and crank tricks. The bike isn’t used a great deal in the story, but is a lot of fun to ride – much better than the vehicles in the previous series, and by finding the guy with the bike icon above his head and performing certain tricks, you can make money to customise your skater.

Classic mode returns with classic maps from the entire Tony Hawk series, and like in THUG, this is a welcome addition to the game, as it extends the gameplay greatly. This time Co-operative Mode on classic allows two players to try and achieve the goals in the two-minute time limit together. In addition to these modes, all the usual Multiplayer of the Tony Hawk game are included such as Trick Attack, Score Challenge, Slap!, Combo Mambo, Firefight, and a new one called Pot ‘o Gold, – the person who is “it” scores points until they are hit by another player, who then becomes “it”. And also the Create-A- modes make a welcome return, allowing you to customise your online skater, create tricks, new graffiti tags, and skateparks. Unfortunately you can’t take your parks online, which is a shame.

Xbox Live play makes a welcome entry into THAW. There are three extra modes available on Live and they are Elimiskate, Goal Attack and Capture the Flag. Elimiskate is like trick attack, but the person with the lowest score at the end of the round is eliminated. This seems to be the most popular game on Live, and playing it I experienced a little bit of lag, but never enough to really cause concern. Sometimes the lag will cause you to do utterly weird things, like change direction in mid air, but it never seemed to actually interrupt the flow of the game. Goal Attack is like playing classic mode against other people – the person to score the most goals like collect the Videos, or find the letters SKATE – wins. Not knowing the maps makes this mode a little more difficult for n00bs, so practice in Classic mode first. Capture the Flag is fun, but I have difficulty finding players. Overall the Live experience is just like playing in with a friend, and is great fun, and a great break from all the shooters and driving games.

Apart from the cool artwork of Jimbo Philips, THAW doesn’t really boggle the mind with its graphics. The levels are colourful, but the detail is lacking in the skater models. There are certain times where graphic and animation glitches occur, especially when on the bike and you end up in an unusual position the animation will freak out and you’ll see your skater spin or jump around in place, but these occur fairly infrequently. There are some cool animations though, and the breakdance move is classic, especially when you do it in the alien costume.

The music is, as always, top notch. The game kicks off with Dead Kennedy’s Holiday in Cambodia, which made me rate the game highly right from the beginning. The soundtrack is full of old and new punk, hiphop and rock, and of course you can have your own soundtracks, but there was never I moment when I thought the music was repetitive or boring. The dialogue is a little less top notch, with some scenes the game pausing a little too long when loading the next line, making it seem very much like the lines were read rather than acted. There doesn’t seem to be too much emotion in the readings either, but it’s never enough so you want to mute the game.

Conclusion:
THAW shows that the series isn’t quite dead, but like THUG2 it’s really hard to see what they can do with the series in the future. The addition of Xbox Live means fans can finally compete and rank themselves against each other online, and it’s more than worth the price for that. But if you’ve played THUG and THUG2, then THAW isn’t all that different. The return to more trick based gameplay is welcome, but there doesn’t seem to be much more they can do with the series. Then again, I said that at the end of my THUG2 review, and Neversoft have delivered an enjoyable gameplay experience once again.

Pros:
A welcome return to trick based gameplay
BMX is really fun to ride
New tricks and animations that look cool.
Finally Xbox live enabled, with fun, relatively lag free skating to be had.
No loading screens between areas.

Cons:
Some graphical glitches
Voice acting not that great
No real improvement to gameplay (but that’s only because it’s so good to begin with)

87/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tony Hawk’s Underground 2

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Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (THUG2 from here in) is the second in the “underground” series, and 6th in the Tony Hawk Skater series. The original THUG was a great departure from the tradition of the Tony Hawk games, by placing you as the central character going across the world in a cohesive storyline, rather than choosing your favourite Pro-Skater and haphazardly moving from park to park. It introduced two new modes of transport for your skater – off the board walking and vehicles. The THUG2 doesn’t offer too much different apart from a wacky new story, and comes across feeling as an update rather than a fully-fledged sequel.

This time the series has gone totally MTV, featuring Bam Margera and the loons from the TV series “Jackass”. The story sees you join Team Hawk with other pro skaters in a race around the world on the World Destruction Tour. Your goal is to smash and break as much as humanly possible in each city that you travel to, beating Team Bam’s score. The story is, as you would expect if you’ve seen the TV show, puerile, immature and at times gross, but it has it’s moments of laugh out loud hilarity, especially if you’re a fan of this unique blend of humour. Some people may be put off by this, but remember – skating is first and foremost an activity of fun. Tony, Bam, Steveo, Bob Burnquist, and all those guys are great mates who really do crazy stuff both on and off the camera. To make it into some kind of serious endeavour, especially in a computer game, totally misses the point.

In Story mode, you build up your skaters stats by performing tricks. Following the formula of the previous THUG game, the more tricks you perform the better your skater becomes. For example, if you do a double kick flip your kick trick meter goes up, and to go up again you need to pull off a triple kick flip. It’s a nice way of building up your character, but if you’re patient enough you can max out the stats on the first level, making the other levels just a little more easier. Throughout each level there are many light posts and glass windows to smash through, and this is where the destruction part comes into play. Each level has some kind of structure which can be deformed by tricking in a particular place. For example, on the first level grinding the cannons whilst your board is on fire shoots a building under construction allowing you access to more places to skate.

There are no mindblowing new stunts this time around. All the tricks from series are here, and the new tricks are simply cherry on an already scrumptious apple pie. There’s the ‘freakout’ where hitting the Y button causes your skater to flip out and kick or smash the board, and this can be the starting point to linked combos. There’s a sticker slap which replaces the wall plant, and you can get off the board and tag graffiti on walls. Vehicles have been made a little better – you won’t be racing cars around this time, but be using smaller motorised vehicles. They handle much like the skateboard, but are far more ‘extreme’. This lack of new moves may well be the first indication that Neversoft may finally be clutching at straws with the franchise.

For those who didn’t like the direction THUG took the series, the game also ships with a “classic mode”. This takes it back to the old school and instead of the outrageous antics of Story mode, you’re presented with the classic THPS challenges, such as collect the letters S K A T and E, and timed trick modes. This mode is far more satisfying, as you feel compelled to explore the maps a lot more in the effort to get greater scores. You can also unlock some of the most popular maps from the series, although if you’re a fan of the series you would have skated these to death already.

The extreme customisation is back once again, and as well as creating the perfect skater, graffiti tag, tricks and skate parks, you can now make your own goals. It’s a little bit fiddly, but then again you’re basically given the tools to make your own version of the game! However, the only way these can be shared is via memory card swapping – again Xbox Live! is totally overlooked and not only can we not play against another person online, we can’t even share user created goodies. Multiplayer is limited to two people on one console – this time around not even system link play is included. The multiplayer modes are as numerous as in the previous title, but yet again the lack of innovation here suggests that Neversoft are running out of ideas.

The Tony Hawk series has never been a great looking series, and THUG2 is no exception. It’s not an ugly game, it’s just no Halo. However, the massive environments and rock solid framerate more than make up for this, and this time around there is an over-the-top sensibility, almost cartoonish in feel, and it works really well with the outrageous activities in Story mode. The Soundtrack on the other hand has always been a big stand out for the series, and again THUG2 has an outstanding number of tracks. This time there is the usual suspects – EMO, Rap, Old school hiphop and punk – but there are also some quite surprising tunes in the form of songs by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Joy Division. And, if you like graffing and grinding to the classy sounds of Mozart, you always have to option of importing your own playlists stored on your Xbox.

Conclusion:
THUG2 shows signs of the franchise weakening. There is no real improvement to the gameplay – you essentially have THUG with a few nips and tucks here, more whistles and bells there, but nothing in the way of a major upgrade. This can be seen as a good or bad thing – the gameplay is still as solid and exciting as it always has been, and if it ain’t broke… But the question has to be asked – how much longer can THQ and Neversoft carry this beast in this form? After 5 years the gameplay is getting a little stale, and whilst the game isn’t ho-hum, it’s not exactly mindblowing either. The lack of multiplayer online play is a serious oversight and would give the game greater longevity. Even 4 player split screen would have been nice.

Pros:
Funny story if you’re into the whole “Jackass” thing
Inclusion of “Classic Mode” in case you don’t.
Massive amounts of hiddens and unlockables
Great level of detail in customisations

Cons:
No real improvements over the previous game
No online or system link multiplayer

82/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tony Hawk’s Underground

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The Tony Hawk Pro Skater series has been an institution in gaming since the late 90s. It set the mould for all extreme sports games that have appeared since, with many games using it’s simple control set up to allow the average player to pull off stunning tricks quite easily, as well as letting the more experienced play rack up massive points and show off their skills. Each of the games in the series added to the range of tricks and customisation of the game, but with Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, the series was looking a bit thin. How far can you really go with a skate boarding game?

Tony Hawk’s Underground (THUG from now on) takes a departure from the usual Tony Hawk games, as YOU are the central character. No longer forced to play the part of one of the world’s greatest skater; from the beginning of the game you create your own skater and play with them throughout the game. Skater creation is quite a lot of fun, and quite some time can be spent going through the motions in perfecting your character. And the character can look quite average to very bizarre, with any colour of skin from brown to bright blue, a wide assortment freaky hairdos, a collection of tattoo’s that can be scaled and placed on many parts of the body, plus an incredibly wide range out clothing from safari suits to clown outfits. There’s even the option to be a skeleton complete with bare bones and skull!

This ties neatly into the new Story mode of the game. Unlike previous games where you start out as a Pro, and travel from city to city and park to park, story mode builds you up from being a no name street rat in New Jersey to a major Pro skating the big parks of the world. This is quite a departure from previous titles, as it links the hitherto unlinked cities and parks, giving you a particular and deeper reason for finding yourself wanting to move from location to location. Although it’s rather contrived, it adds a refreshing difference to a game that has had essentially the same gameplay for almost 5 years. In THUG, the Pro Skaters still make an important impact, as they serve as the plot devices in most cases, and you have to meet them and achieve objectives (or goals as they are called) they set to progress through the game. The old favourites are there, such as Chad Muska, who is one of the first met in New Jersey, plus of course Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, old schooler and all round nutter Stacy Peralta, and a couple of new stars including Arto Saari, Paul Rodriguez and Mike Vallely.

The joy of story mode is two fold – you can skate around and explore, and when you are ready go up to those marked with stars and then attempt to do the goal they require of you. You’re not forced along a linear trail. Even better though, you can simply hit “start” and then select the goal you want to do. This is especially good if you can’t find someone on the map, or are just lazy like me. Furthermore not all the goals have to be completed. There is a minimum amount that must be completed in each level to proceed to the next, but there are more goals than required for that level, so those that don’t hold your interest can be skipped. Unlike previous versions, skills aren’t built up by completing goals, but rather as you skate around the expansive cities and parks performing tricks, skills build up. For example, doing a double kickflip will increase the flip skill by one point, and this can be attempted at any time in the story mode. As you become an Amateur and then Pro, the tasks to increase your stats become more complex; again, using the flip tricks as an example, you have to perform a double triple kickflip as a Pro to increase its stats. It’s almost like a role-playing game progression, and again adds just that little bit extra, making the game feel much refreshed. In addition to the required goals, there are also goals that teach you new tricks, and these are acquired by talking to skaters with orange hexagons over their heads. Some of these are quite a challenge, but they can be attempted at any time when you are in the level, and can be revisited later via the pause menu.

There’s also something completely new added to THUG – the ability to get off your board. This allows the levels to be explored like never before. You can jump and grapple and climb to the most inaccessible parts of the level, finding bonuses and unlockables and places to do awesome tricks from. In addition to this, there are also vehicles that are available to drive. Although this adds to the gameplay immensely, the handling of both these is a little less than optimal. Running on foot feels akin to running in mud, and vehicles drive like tanks. Having said that though, it does allow a nice change of pace, and the ability to combo and jump off your board (called a caveman) and then back onto it allows for massive amounts of points.

This series is well known for it’s unlockables and customisation, and THUG ups the ante once again. I’ve already discussed the character creation, but there’s even more customisation that is unlocked during story mode, including deck building and special moves. Deck building is unlocked once you go Pro, and here you get to make your custom deck. Using a wide variety of graphics, text and colour, the amount of board customisation is phenomenal. Likewise, the special moves you can make are truly awesome – want to make a triple triple kickflip with a 900 frontside grab at the end? No problemo! The easy to use interface allows you to create a near limitless array of totally over the top special moves by combining tricks, including other specials. In addition to this, there’s also a fantastic map editor, the best in any Tony Hawk game so far, and possibly one of the best in any console game. The new rail tool allows pinning of rails to all objects, so you can have a rail hanging off and around every object in the park. You can also create goals for your skate park, much like the goals found throughout the level, and you can simply customise for hours on end, in addition to the hours of gameplay found in story mode.

Unfortunately for Xbox users, these maps and tricks can’t be shared over Xbox Live! and the multiplayer options are also limited to two player and system link, although there’s always the option of tunnelling if you must play people on the other side of the world. The Multiplayer options are quite varied though, and they include:

  • Trick Attack – beat your opponent before the buzzer
  • Score Challenge – beat your opponent to the target score
  • Combo Mambo – bust the highest combo before the time limit
  • Slap! – beat your opponent off their board by getting a special and collide with them
  • King of the Hill – get the crown before your opponent, and then keep away
  • Graffiti – tag the joint by hitting the most objects
  • Fire Fight – Do combos to gain fireballs and shoot them at your opponent with the directional pad; new to THUG
  • Goal Attack (System Link Only) – beat your opponent in story mode or with your self created goals
  • Capture The Flag (System Link Only) – the traditional game of CTF, but on skateboards
  • Horse (2 Player Only) – nail a trick and get a letter if your opponent beats it. First to HORSE (or word of your choice) loses!
  • Free Skate – go crazy on the map of your choice!

Final thoughts:

THUG continues the great tradition of the Tony Hawk games, and attempts to and exceeds in prolonging it’s life by adding the ability to get off the board, and also drive around. While these aren’t great revolutions in gameplay, and not that well executed, they do add to the game greatly. The level of customisation is phenomenal, and allows your creative side to run wild. While this won’t win over any new fans, those who like the genre will love these additions, and those who thought that the Tony Hawk series was on it’s last legs may be more than surprised at what has been dished up.

Pros:

Great new story mode that moves the series forward.
More customisation than you can poke a stick at, allowing for hours of gameplay.
The ability to get off the board and run around, and even drive vehicles.

Cons:

Off the board play not well implemented.
No Live Support.
Not one for those who aren’t fans of the skating genre.

Score: 88%