Tony Hawk's Underground

I bought Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 back in the day. Spent many hours playing that. When I bought a PS2, the first games I bought were THPS3 (and then THPS4 when it came out). Also many fun hours with those games. Recently, I got myself the PC port of Tony Hawk's Underground. My spider sense should have gone off when I read on wikipedia that the port was a "budget release" and only released in Australia. Port sucked.

[IMG]http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww240/eztr/TonyHawksUnderground.jpg[/IMG]

First thing I noticed, browsing through the in-game menus, the sound effects would routinely disappear. Not sure if it was the game's problem or my computers - better to blame the game in these situations.

One of the bew features of THUG was the ability to upload a photo and then use it as a custom skater's face. I dug out a high school photo of myself, scanned it and popped it in. Pretty cool feature, though it probably would have looked better if I didn't have that gawky, exaggerated smile on my face. As a result, my custom skater was constantly smiling.

Unlike the Pro Skater series, the main part of the game no longer sees you completing different levels with your skater of choice. Here, you go through a story mode with a custom skater, starting as a local unsigned skater and working your way up. Sounds good. Only problem is that because the other pro skaters are no longer the main object, their graphics have been downgraded. Quite visibly as well.

Some notes from skating around in the first level:
- More sound problems. Various sound effects would drop out, then return later on.
- The new ability to get off your board and walk around doesn't feel comfortable. There's no sense of control. A lot of guesswork is needed to get from point A to point B (particularly when jumping to climb ledges, roofs, etc).
- The rejig of the controls was quite a jarring learning experience (mainly with the shoulder buttons).
- Gameplay motion felt fast. Add the fact that I found it hard to see much, and it felt quite chaotic.

The in-game missions are similar to objectives of previous games. Collect this, get this amount of points, hit this combo, etc. Stats could be raised by achieving certain goals. Getting new trick slots involved visiting a pro skater who would also offer a challenge. As with THPS4, you'd have freedom to select from whichever mission most tickled your fancy.

Easy going really. In no time, I was on the third or fourth level. Which was annoying, because I was wanting a challenge. I was wanting to fall in love with the maps. Instead, I was getting nothing. Rewards weren't rewarding, the story was ultra lacklustre (unaided by dull voice work and dialogue).

I gave up and uninstalled the game. No hesitation.