thepolkapunk (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thepolkapunk) wrote,@ 2005-02-10 20:38:00 |
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Video Game Review: Tony Hawk's Underground 2
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
For The Playstation 2, XBOX, and Gamecube (Playstation 2 version reviewed)
Rated M for Mature
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 is the sixth iteration of the insanely popular Tony Hawk skating video game saga. Sadly, the series has become so derivative of itself, even the major retooling found in this game cannot bring the series back from the pits of mediocrity. The game primarily features the same moves and controls from all its past outings (both good and bad), with a couple of new tricks thrown in to try to pretend this game offers something new. The tedious gameplay, uninspired plot, uneven levels of difficulty and poor level design left me wishing this series had finished a long time ago.
THUG2 at its core is a skateboarding game. The controls for skating are still relatively tight, combos are even more insane than previously and a few new tricks were added to the move-set. Two single player modes exist, a story mode that was used in THPS4 and THUG, and classic mode that plays like the first three games. There are multiplayer modes on all three systems, and online play for the PS2 version. A diverse soundtrack is included with the game, and the ability to pick which tracks you want to listen to and randomize the play list are nice features .The game also contains interesting create-a-skater, create-a-park, create-a-move, create-a-goal options. Although you can’t create new content anywhere near the complexity of what comes with the game, you can still create some truly impressive new content. New levels can be uploaded to Activision’s servers and can then be downloaded by other players.
With all the extra features that THUG2 contains, it’s a real shame to find that the actual game lacks polish. With all the moves that are in its repertoire, controls for the series have become so complex that players frequently execute wrong tricks because of similar commands (trying to do a wall grind and instead doing a sticker slap was a frequent problem for me). When you’re trying to perform a combo chain for the nth time, only to ollie when you were supposed to acid drop because of similarly mapped controls, you’re bound to get annoyed. The controls aren’t the only cause of the game’s difficulty. Many of the game’s goals are ludicrously difficult, requiring repeated attempts. There were several goals on the last level of the game that required hours each of constant repetition for me to complete. There is a difficulty setting available but it merely affects the score required on point based goals, thereby offering no assistance to players who are unable to do a constant grind on an electrical wire that encircles an entire level. Confusingly, the story mode goal point values and their difficulties seem to have no relation whatsoever. Many goals with high point values are immeasurably easier than goals with low point values. It seems almost as if points were randomly assigned to goals.
One of the biggest draws to the Tony Hawk games has always been the long combos one could string. While this is still an important factor in this game, the new levels in the game do not seem to be built for this purpose. Whereas previous games featured unrealistic levels that were designed specifically for skating, the developers seem to have forgotten that THUG2 is a skateboarding game, and instead focused on creating more realistic landscapes with less possibilities for scoring. There are walls in weird places that seem placed just to make comboing more difficult, weird angles on grindable objects that lead your skater to fall off when he should be continuing on, and places where there just doesn’t seem to be anywhere to trick.
A new technique introduced in THUG1 was the ability to step off your board and walk around. This gameplay element has remained in THUG2 with horrific results. The abysmal on-foot controls make me wish I could never get off my board, but most of the levels in the game require you to traipse around in places you could not go while skating, ultimately leading to massive control and playability problems. Further complicating matters is the on-foot camera, which does not follow your character properly and does not have the necessary range and speed of motion for you to control it yourself. Perhaps if the levels were not designed to necessitate walking and off-board merely became an option instead of requirement, I would’ve enjoyed the game a bit more, as I did have some fun playing levels from previous games.
The graphics for THUG2 are the most impressive of the Tony Hawk series, but they still come off looking a little flat and boring. I believe this is caused by attempts to make levels in the game more realistic looking, as levels included from previous games possessed a much more visual punch. The sound for the most part is quite good. The music selection is broad and customizable. The sound effects aren’t terrible, but there are a few effects here and there that could’ve used a bit of tweaking (explosions sound like muffled thuds, skating over brick produces an car-like sound from your board).
Although you wouldn’t expect a sports game to hinge on its plot, THUG2 pushes the brainless and banal tale of the “World Destruction Tour” down player’s throats with the story mode. The plot is as stupid as it comes (an underground tournament to cause damage in cities throughout the world), the jokes are hard to come by, and the acting is terrible as all the characters are voiced by their real life counterparts, none of whom are actors. The humor, which you would assume to be the center of such a nonsensical plot is horribly forced and more often than not will leave you questioning how it’s supposed to make you laugh. It’s not a matter of the humor being too crude, the problem is that the script was obviously written by a bunch of people in their forties trying to come up with ideas that would make the youths of today laugh. To top it all off, they gave Bam Margera, who comes off even more annoying than in his television shows, a starring role in the script. There is thankfully no story whatsoever in the classic mode, so if for some reason you wish to torture yourself by playing through this game, you can do it without the “let’s attract gen-x” story.
The multi-player is actually the highlight of the game, not because it is particularly well done, but merely because the rest of the game is so hurtful to play. Split-screen can make things playing a tad difficult, but playing for free over broadband works out nicely. It can be difficult, however, to find good games and people. In my online experience, I found most games to be on player created levels, many of which are even worse than the one’s that come packaged with the game. Some levels seemed built specifically so that if you don’t know where things are, you have no chance of keeping up with the game. If you can play online with people you know, however, you can generally stick to well designed levels and people who aren’t going to spend the whole game asking for you to e-mail a naked picture of yourself.
I am giving Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 a Avoid like the plague rating. Although it tries to reinvent itself with some new features and moves, the game bites off more than it can chew. The over-complicated controls, poor level design, annoying difficulty, and agonizing off-the-board action make this game a brutal play at best. It seems like Activision tried to put too much into this game, and didn’t give each important part the attention it needed to make this title enjoyable. Maybe they’ll fix things for THUG3, but I’m not holding my breath.
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 gets 42 thumbs up, my worst rating ever.
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
For The Playstation 2, XBOX, and Gamecube (Playstation 2 version reviewed)
Rated M for Mature
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 is the sixth iteration of the insanely popular Tony Hawk skating video game saga. Sadly, the series has become so derivative of itself, even the major retooling found in this game cannot bring the series back from the pits of mediocrity. The game primarily features the same moves and controls from all its past outings (both good and bad), with a couple of new tricks thrown in to try to pretend this game offers something new. The tedious gameplay, uninspired plot, uneven levels of difficulty and poor level design left me wishing this series had finished a long time ago.
THUG2 at its core is a skateboarding game. The controls for skating are still relatively tight, combos are even more insane than previously and a few new tricks were added to the move-set. Two single player modes exist, a story mode that was used in THPS4 and THUG, and classic mode that plays like the first three games. There are multiplayer modes on all three systems, and online play for the PS2 version. A diverse soundtrack is included with the game, and the ability to pick which tracks you want to listen to and randomize the play list are nice features .The game also contains interesting create-a-skater, create-a-park, create-a-move, create-a-goal options. Although you can’t create new content anywhere near the complexity of what comes with the game, you can still create some truly impressive new content. New levels can be uploaded to Activision’s servers and can then be downloaded by other players.
With all the extra features that THUG2 contains, it’s a real shame to find that the actual game lacks polish. With all the moves that are in its repertoire, controls for the series have become so complex that players frequently execute wrong tricks because of similar commands (trying to do a wall grind and instead doing a sticker slap was a frequent problem for me). When you’re trying to perform a combo chain for the nth time, only to ollie when you were supposed to acid drop because of similarly mapped controls, you’re bound to get annoyed. The controls aren’t the only cause of the game’s difficulty. Many of the game’s goals are ludicrously difficult, requiring repeated attempts. There were several goals on the last level of the game that required hours each of constant repetition for me to complete. There is a difficulty setting available but it merely affects the score required on point based goals, thereby offering no assistance to players who are unable to do a constant grind on an electrical wire that encircles an entire level. Confusingly, the story mode goal point values and their difficulties seem to have no relation whatsoever. Many goals with high point values are immeasurably easier than goals with low point values. It seems almost as if points were randomly assigned to goals.
One of the biggest draws to the Tony Hawk games has always been the long combos one could string. While this is still an important factor in this game, the new levels in the game do not seem to be built for this purpose. Whereas previous games featured unrealistic levels that were designed specifically for skating, the developers seem to have forgotten that THUG2 is a skateboarding game, and instead focused on creating more realistic landscapes with less possibilities for scoring. There are walls in weird places that seem placed just to make comboing more difficult, weird angles on grindable objects that lead your skater to fall off when he should be continuing on, and places where there just doesn’t seem to be anywhere to trick.
A new technique introduced in THUG1 was the ability to step off your board and walk around. This gameplay element has remained in THUG2 with horrific results. The abysmal on-foot controls make me wish I could never get off my board, but most of the levels in the game require you to traipse around in places you could not go while skating, ultimately leading to massive control and playability problems. Further complicating matters is the on-foot camera, which does not follow your character properly and does not have the necessary range and speed of motion for you to control it yourself. Perhaps if the levels were not designed to necessitate walking and off-board merely became an option instead of requirement, I would’ve enjoyed the game a bit more, as I did have some fun playing levels from previous games.
The graphics for THUG2 are the most impressive of the Tony Hawk series, but they still come off looking a little flat and boring. I believe this is caused by attempts to make levels in the game more realistic looking, as levels included from previous games possessed a much more visual punch. The sound for the most part is quite good. The music selection is broad and customizable. The sound effects aren’t terrible, but there are a few effects here and there that could’ve used a bit of tweaking (explosions sound like muffled thuds, skating over brick produces an car-like sound from your board).
Although you wouldn’t expect a sports game to hinge on its plot, THUG2 pushes the brainless and banal tale of the “World Destruction Tour” down player’s throats with the story mode. The plot is as stupid as it comes (an underground tournament to cause damage in cities throughout the world), the jokes are hard to come by, and the acting is terrible as all the characters are voiced by their real life counterparts, none of whom are actors. The humor, which you would assume to be the center of such a nonsensical plot is horribly forced and more often than not will leave you questioning how it’s supposed to make you laugh. It’s not a matter of the humor being too crude, the problem is that the script was obviously written by a bunch of people in their forties trying to come up with ideas that would make the youths of today laugh. To top it all off, they gave Bam Margera, who comes off even more annoying than in his television shows, a starring role in the script. There is thankfully no story whatsoever in the classic mode, so if for some reason you wish to torture yourself by playing through this game, you can do it without the “let’s attract gen-x” story.
The multi-player is actually the highlight of the game, not because it is particularly well done, but merely because the rest of the game is so hurtful to play. Split-screen can make things playing a tad difficult, but playing for free over broadband works out nicely. It can be difficult, however, to find good games and people. In my online experience, I found most games to be on player created levels, many of which are even worse than the one’s that come packaged with the game. Some levels seemed built specifically so that if you don’t know where things are, you have no chance of keeping up with the game. If you can play online with people you know, however, you can generally stick to well designed levels and people who aren’t going to spend the whole game asking for you to e-mail a naked picture of yourself.
I am giving Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 a Avoid like the plague rating. Although it tries to reinvent itself with some new features and moves, the game bites off more than it can chew. The over-complicated controls, poor level design, annoying difficulty, and agonizing off-the-board action make this game a brutal play at best. It seems like Activision tried to put too much into this game, and didn’t give each important part the attention it needed to make this title enjoyable. Maybe they’ll fix things for THUG3, but I’m not holding my breath.
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 gets 42 thumbs up, my worst rating ever.
