’ve played through all of the Tony Hawk titles and enjoyed them, but in the end each just seemed like more of the same and I pretty much believed that I was burnt out on the genre altogether. Players got the addition of the manual, the revert, then the omission of the clock – plus the usual new parks and slight additions – but the Tony Hawk games never saw any real evolution.  Last week I was invited to Neversoft to get the full-on demo of Tony Hawk's Underground by the developers, check out a near-finished build of the game, and play some multiplayer.  I walked out shocked.  Neversoft has reinvented the Tony Hawk franchise, and added the coolest damn thing that they possibly could have – you!

THUG actually has a plot.  This time around, the single player game features you as the main character instead of the normal barrage of pro skaters.  You create your skater any way you like, start in the trenches of the skateboarding world with your buddy Eric, and work your way into a world of fame.  Instead of each level just featuring the usual number of goals you need to accomplish to advance, Neversoft attempted to make it more like a personal quest.  Your character learns tricks and gets new equipment in the beginning levels, and as you advance, you need to prove that you know how to hang with the best.

For the first time your skater can get off his board (by pressing both shoulder buttons), run around, jump, and climb buildings.  You can run with the analog stick, jump and then grind or do a flip or grab trick and continue skating. If you’re in the middle of a combo you’ll see a timer counting down until you have to pull off another trick to keep the string going.  One unexpected and completely strange addition to the world of Hawk is the driving missions. Some objectives will have you ditch your board for a car.  Car-based goals will range from things like jumping your overheated car into the water, chasing kidnappers, and racing the clock. The cars do take a bit of time to get used to, but it does add variety to your adventure and becomes part of the plot.

As your player progresses through the game, he’ll gain experience, get new equipment, acquire sponsorships, and inevitably join a team.  This all takes place within the first three environments.  It took me a couple hours to get to this point in the game, making me think that the first person element is the largest of the series.  Neversoft has said that there will be eight environments in the game, not including unlockable areas. 

Couple the multitude of skater creation you can do and create-a-park features, and THUG is a completely customizable game.  Complete the story mode?  No problem.  You can create your own parks, add goals, and ultimately create your own new game and save it to memory card.  You are only limited to the space on a memory card, and the amount of system memory your console of choice has on-board.  THUG also has a create-a-trick editor so you can design your own tricks, and then map them to button presses.  You can then use those tricks in story mode, free skate, and even take them online.

All the previous multiplayer games are included in THUG – trick attack, score challenge, combo mambo, slap, king of the hill, graffiti, and horse. These are in addition to the new game called Firefight.  Firefight is a mode where you can shoot fireballs at your opponents and try to deplete their health meter.  Your fireball size and power level depends on the last trick you pulled off.  Pull off a 20,000 point combo and you’ll have a fireball that will destroy your opponent, but just do a simple kick-flip and you’ll deplete only 10% of their meter.

THUG also features an extremely large customizable soundtrack.  The preview version we played had over 70 tracks to choose from.  While Activision has not allowed us to post the names of the bands, there is some pretty big names, and a very wide variety of music.  If you don’t like a specific genre of music you can remove it entirely.  The Xbox version utilizes the hard drive so you can add your own songs to this extensive list. 

For you GameCube and Xbox users, your gaming experience will be slighted once again in Tonyland because the PlayStation 2 gets all the online goodies – which really give you the best and full THUG experience.  The Xbox and GameCube will look the best with their advanced graphical prowess, but that’s about it.  With THUG’s PS2 online capabilities players will actually be able to add their faces (and anything else they desire) to their characters.  The process is simple: take a digital photo or another picture of your face on your computer and e-mail it to faces@thugonline.com. Within moments (10 seconds on average for me) you’ll receive a password in a reply e-mail that you enter through your online-enabled PS2 to download your face.  Map out points on you eyes, nose and lips, change your skin color, tweak your hair a bit and voila - You’re really the skater!  I have to admit, it’s really funky to see myself in the game.  Granted, with the limited texture abilities of the PS2 it’s not absolutely perfect, but it’s pretty cool to see your likeness skating and playing the role of your character in the cut scenes.  This is just the tip of the iceberg with the online features of THUG.  All of the multiplayer games are available online, you can track stats, download courses, and more.

For not being all that excited about “another Tony Hawk game,” I have to admit I’ve taken a proverbial 180° - THUG has made me a believer in the series once again.  Neversoft said they are adding and tweaking things up to the final bell to make sure THUG is a polished title, and after pouring in more than 10 hours into the preview build, I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.  You may have thought the series was dead after you played THPS 4, but Neversoft has flavor-injected some serious juicy skateboard love into the series, and this could be the best Tony Hawk title yet.  Get your knee pads out of the closet and fill your fridge with the appropriate extreme beverages – this fall Tony Hawk is back.

-Billy Berghammer