Tony Hawk's Underground 2

The Hawk formula keeps evolving into something better than before, though. Players who didn't voluntarily step off the train with Hawk 4 or last year's Underground will find more to love here -- more new tricks, an even more streamlined system of goal selection, a ridiculous selection of goals to select, and levels that hurt to try and comprehend.

Completely new to the trick selection this year are the sticker slap (an easy way to reverse direction), the Natas spin (a stationary spin that catapults you in a random direction), and on-demand controls for rolls and flips, so something like a backflip is no longer a canned combination. They're fun to mess with in a vacuum, but mixing them up with larger combos creates even more. Using the slap move to 180 and go back the way you came makes it easier to exploit the lines you know or extend them into different ones. The Natas spin can launch you off into an entirely different line, and the roll commands can be abused to create ridiculous air combinations at the end of a long line.

Underground 2 integrates those new tricks into the level layouts in some subtle ways -- once you figure out what the new control scheme is up to, it's easy to see where the designers meant for them to get involved. To give newer players a boost, there are goals that specifically show off how to switch directions and use other moves to extend a line.

The best kind of goals are those, the ones that inspire new ways of enjoying what the levels have to offer. Clearing the challenges is a little less fun when Underground tries to be a platformer. It isn't very good at it. As in the original Underground, the walking controls are a fascinating way of stretching a combo into previously unreachable areas, but having to climb up four stories of fire escape isn't a lot of fun when failing to center the camera properly will cause some fiddly collision detection to knock you back down to the ground.

Luckily, the goals are laid out in a layered fashion, rather than a sequential one. Nearly every goal is active at all times, except for a few specific timed challenges, so it's possible to try a goal, leave it behind, go do something else, and come back later. Some collection goals you can even leave half-finished and return to some other time, which helps cut down on the frustration factor.

One thing Underground 2 lacks is the narrative that pulled players forward in the original Underground. There was a real sense of identification with the main character in that game, and a continuous plot that linked levels and events together. Underground 2, in comparison, is more like a series of comedy sketches. It's funny, providing you don't mind the Jackass brand of humor, but it's not as compelling as Neversoft's last game (not to mention that the similarly-styled cutscenes in the latest Def Jam fighter put its visuals to shame).

If you don't think Jackass is funny, well...it'll let you skip the cutscenes. Bam Margera's personality grows on you, though, even if he is one of the most abrasive beings since Archie Bunker. His voice acting is unusually good for this sort of thing, maybe because he's just being himself. Even listening to him bail is funny, when he hollers "WHY?!" like the devil made him crash. The rest of his crew's entertaining as well -- Wee-Man, his dad Phil, a surprisingly subdued Steve-O -- but it's Bam that gives the game its personality.

One bit of dialogue from earlier versions appears to have been cut from the final product, sadly. Monster Garage standout Jesse James no longer says "Everything I touch turns to bitchin'" in the first level, which is an unfortunate fate for a pretty funny line.

The story mode draws so much time and interest that it's easy to forget how much else there is here. You could call it maybe half the total package, give or take. Classic mode remixes all the levels with goals in the style of the first two Hawks, if you like that kind of thing, and throws in half a dozen more classic levels as well. All of those have been remixed with new content (the old Warehouse has a whole new section tacked on), which adds up to who knows how many lines alongside the ridiculously complicated new level designs. Online play, meanwhile, has two new games to enjoy along with the old ones, and there's always the edit mode if you ever completely master the stock level selection (not likely).

This is like a Thanksgiving dinner of Tony Hawk. You're going to feel stuffed and ready for a nap afterwards, and some players may even refuse dessert. It proves that the formula still works, but it may also cause some observers to sigh with relief at the knowledge that Neversoft is working on an original game for next year.

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