THUG 2

Rating:
Summary: Yawn inducing yet addictive...
Review: Tony Hawk Underground 2 seems like either the last addition to this extremely successful gaming series, or just a money maker until the next big game-engine revolution or extreme style change. This isn't saying it's a horrible game, in fact it's quite addictive. But Neversoft and Activision could've done a lot better as the programming, porting, and levels seem to be plagued with signs of laziness from the developers. There's plenty of spots where you can't see what's going on, plenty of goals that are nearly impossible due to game bugs (breaking 3 balconies in the New Orleans level is a great example, as often the balconies you fly through aren't counted), and very noticable technical problems they never bothered sorting out. For example, if you use face mapping (where you can put your own face on a skater) and win classic or story mode, your save file is forever corrupted and you have to start the game over. Activision's online support even mentions this inept bug in the FAQ, yet not offering any solution to getting your game back or a patch to fix the problem. On a positive note, the story mode includes some quirky scenes and goals that are fun to play, and the create-a-skater, trick, graphic, goal, park editors are much more detailed than previous games in this series. Retailing at $19.99, this is probably worth your money for the entertainment it will give you. But if you're a Tony Hawk veteren, you'll likely be annoyed by the redundancy of the goals and levels, especially since half of the levels in classic mode are simply ported levels from previous games. There's also a "tagging" option in the game now, but I'm failing to see the fun with it's relation to gameplay. So all in all, yeah it's fun, but they could've done a whole lot better.