ive Neversoft’s crew credit: They never settle. Each edition of the Tony Hawk series has added new things to the already-awesome formula, and Underground is no exception. Expanding on Tony 4’s wide-open worlds, this game is molded as a skateboarding action/adventure – one that lets you take a aspiring skater from the streets of Jersey to the heights of skateboarding fame. It’s quite a journey. Along the way, you’ll cross paths with skating legends like Stacy Peralta and Tony Hawk, get betrayed by your best friend, and even be thrown in a Russian jail!

There’s also a load of new gameplay. On the plus side, you can now get off your board mid-combo, jump back on, and keep your string going (although you are limited in the amount of time you can be on foot). Basically, this is going to mean that top Tony players (not me!) are going to be able to essentially combo indefinitely. As innovations go, it’s definitely above the spine transfer, and only a little behind the revert and manual.

Unfortunately, Neversoft didn’t stop there. Some other new features, specifically the vehicles and on-foot platforming sequences, add something else that the Tony series has never seen before: bad gameplay. Seriously, this might be the worst driving engine I’ve ever witnessed. Your control on foot is no better. While, in theory, this was done to add some variety to the mix, I found that it did nothing more than frustrate and distract me from the pure, exhilirating experience that the skating provides.

I also have the same gripes about the career mode progression that I had about Tony 4. Although the curve has been leveled out a bit, you still face oddly matched objectives. For example, on one stage, you might have to get 50,000 points in a minute (easy), then have to turn around and do an insane combo string. The result was – unlike in Tony 1-3 where the games did a perfect job of training you as you went along – by the time I reached the last few levels with my team of pros, I wasn’t really ready for the challenge. Also, while I like being able to use the pause menu to skip between goals, it did discourage me from really exploring the environments and looking for cool lines.

Now I know this may sound pretty negative, so let me emphasize: If you love Tony Hawk games, you’ll have a blast with this one. The Vancouver Slam Jam course is one of the best ever in the series, and the new control tweaks improve on what is a genius gameplay engine. Also, the new "Create-a-Trick" mode is endlessly amusing.

However, I miss the intensity of the original trilogy, which forced you to explore and pull daring maneuvers against the clock. Yes, the new story-driven model is amusing, but there’s far too much chaff amongst the wheat, in the form of gimmicky, pointless missions; dreadful driving; and repetitive "fetch me five of these" goals. It’s a great game, but one that would benefit from a "back-to-the-basics" approach next time around.  

ANDY MCNAMARA   8.5 Underground is both brilliant and stupid at the same time. The skating, as before, is fantastic. The playcontrol is right-on, and I absolutely adore just tooling around, especially with the new moves and enhancements this edition brings. However, the single-player game has really hit rock bottom in my opinion. The story mode is just plain stupid, and the goals have reached such an asinine level that I barely even want to play the game (which is saying a lot since I really do LOVE this series). Neversoft needs to drop all this driving a car BS and platform-like goals, and bring this game back to its roots. I want to skate and I want to be challenged. Sure, in time, the game becomes more interesting, but going through six hours of stupid goals and annoying story for a pay-off isn’t what I’m looking for. THUG is fun for just hitting lines, and I will buy it for that, but the rest of the experience is marred, and no online play for Xbox is ridiculous.