Tony_Hawk's_Underground_2
Tony Hawk's Underground 2
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (also known as THUG 2 or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 6) is the sixth installment in Neversoft's Tony Hawk's Series and is the sequel to 2003's Tony Hawk's Underground. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 was released on October 6, 2004 for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Windows, and Game Boy Advance platforms. It is also backwards compatible with the Xbox 360.
On March 18, 2005, it was released for the PlayStation Portable and renamed Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix.
Story
The opening sequence shows the player skating at home (the New Jersey neighborhood from the previous game). A van shows up in the middle of the ramp and the player slams into the van. Two people wearing hockey masks kidnap the player and take him to a dark room with other skaters like Eric Sparrow, Bob Burnquist, Mike Vallely and others. Then, Bam Margera and Tony Hawk explain their plans for the first annual World Destruction Tour, a "sick-as-hell" around-the-world skateboarding tour. The final goal of the Tour is that the losing team has to pay for everything. The skaters then split into two teams - Team Hawk and Team Bam - and the player joins Team Hawk.The tour starts off in Boston, where Bam manages a last-minute win thanks to one of Paulie's stunts (he dumped a port-a-potty in the sea with someone inside), which surpassed the advantage Team Hawk had at the time. As a result, it was determined that one of Hawk's teammates should be eliminated, and this fate fell over Bob Burnquist. Later on, in Barcelona, Tony's team takes the lead again; however, the punishment for Team Bam was to have the rookies of each team swapped (in this case, the player and Eric Sparrow, which moves from Team Bam to Team Hawk, much to Bam's relief, and Tony's annoyance). At that time though, word had spread out about the World Destruction Tour, which was supposed to be a low-profile event but now is appearing on TV news.
The next leg of the Tour is the German capital, Berlin, where Sparrow and the player are swapped back. At that moment, an underground film "writer, producer, director" by the name of Nigel Beaverhausen wishes to bring the tour to the public but instead winds up being humiliated by Tony and Bam. After causing chaos in Bangkok (the skaters were en route to Australia, but Chad Muska suggested a stop in Thailand), the Tour lands in Australia (actually, Bam's team arrives later due to departure problems that make them wind up in India). At the end of the leg, the player is supposed to be eliminated by being stripped naked and hit by mousetraps launched at him/her, but due to Rodney Mullen spotting a mathematical error in the teams points, the player has to compete with Eric - the loser will be eliminated from the tour. The group ponders what to do when an Australian skater kid shows them a video of the tour, created by Nigel Beaverhausen. Bam then decides that whoever humiliates Beaverhausen will stay on the tour. Eric only manages to steal his clothes but the player, with Nigel's clothes (Bam's idea, as he too did not want Eric around anymore), goes off causing rampage on Australian citizens, so that Beaverhause will be blamed for it. Also, Eric is eliminated from the tour, which advances to New Orleans.
At the end of the New Orleans leg, Nigel revealed that he filmed the whole tour, even before he met Tony and Bam in Berlin. Nigel then proposes that if he is allowed to film the whole tour, he will pay for all the damages of the tour. After Phil Margera shows Tony and Bam the long damage bill (with a high final money sum), they accept. Team Hawk then performs a death-defying stunt called the "Equalizer" to tie up with Team Bam and is successful, but team members Mike Vallely, Chad Muska and Rodney Mullen are arrested by the cops for stealing the helicopter used for the stunt, leaving only the player and Tony Hawk for the final leg of the Tour: Skatopia, defined by Tony as "the skateboarding Mecca". Though Team Hawk, reduced to two members, performs well enough to win, Bam decided to blow up Skatopia, confident on his victory. In order to save people from the imminent damage, Tony quickly evacuates the skaters and, soo thereafter, Bam dares the player, who is still stuck in the back end of Skatopia, to exit the whole flaming park in a combo (which he considers impossible), which the player does and gives Team Hawk the win in the World Destruction Tour. Nigel then wants Bam to give him the tape of the tour, which only shows Bam's father, Phil Margera in the toilet. The game ends with Bam and Tony humiliating Beaverhausen once more, as Bam pulls down his pants in international TV broadcast.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is similar to that of previous Tony Hawk games: the player skates around in a 3D environment modeled after various cities and attempts to complete various goals. Most goals involve skating on or over various objects or performing combos. Scores are calculated by adding the sum of the point value of each trick strung together in a combo and then multiplying by the number of tricks in the combo.THUG 2 also sees the return of the much loved Classic Mode. In this mode, the player has 2 minutes to complete as many of the tasks as possible, including high scores, collecting "SKATE" letters and finding secret objects. Many levels return from previous games, including an expanded warehouse from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and the airport from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.
New tricks
- Natas Spin - The player can spin on a post or a fire hydrant while standing on his or her board.
- Destruction Bonus - Some objects can be breakable by skating or walking through them (e.g. glass), which can earn you a small bonus called a "Destruction bonus", but major destruction (which are shown on a cutscene) does not give you points, but instead changes a part of the envirnoment or opens up a new area.
- Throwing Objects - Throughout levels there are usually boxes of objects such as graffiti cans and smokebombs which can be thrown at pedestrians.
- Sticker Slap - Instead of wallplanting (from the first underground game) the player "Sticker Slaps" the wall, therefore bouncing off it and leaving a sticker on the wall.
- Focus - This allows the player to slow time down mostly to land tricks perfectly and keep balance steady.
- Flips and Rolls - The player can perform front flips, back flips and roll tricks. Although possible in Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1, this is not considered a special trick and can be done without special.
- Freak Out - When the player falls or bails off his or her board, the player can rapidly press a button which can cause the player to "Freak Out" (Extreme Anger), depending on how far the meter goes, the player will either kick, throw or snap his or her board, you can also start a combo where the amount of points depends on how far the meter goes.
Major characters
Tony Hawk: Tony Hawk is basically the 'good guy' in this game. His team has none of the 'odd skaters' (ex. Paulie, Eric, etc.) The player is on his team, briefly swapped, and then brought back to his team.Bam Margera: Jackass veteran Bam Margera is depicted as a loose cannon, playing the immature and outrageous pranks he is renowned for. As is the case in Margera's Jackass spin-off Viva La Bam, his favorite victim is his own father, Phil Margera. Margera's prominence in THUG 2 can be attributed less to professional skateboarding than to the level of fame and popularity he had achieved through Jackass and Viva La Bam.Eric Sparrow: The player's rival from THUG is back in THUG2. He is a member of Bam's team, but after Spain, they swap him with the player. After the completion of the Berlin level, the swap is undone and the player is gladly welcomed back into Tony's crew, who were getting annoyed by Eric's shameful performance. Sparrow is kicked out of the competition after the Australia level and Nigel falls from a crane onto him. In the ending of the game, newscaster Hugh Jass says Sparrow was recovering nicely after undergoing plastic surgery after the incident. Eric is not playable in the game.Nigel Beaverhausen: The teams meet Beaverhausen on the Berlin level of their tour in which Nigel offers to sell videos of the tour. After having the skaters refuse his offer (and they also duct-tape him to his own truck and put a scared turtle in his pants), he starts selling out videos with unauthorized footage of the competition. In Australia, the teams temporarily unite (with the excuse of deciding which skater would get expelled from the tour, if the player or Eric) and gets their revenge by making some Aussies angry enough pick him up with a crane (by his somehow durable underpants) after the player, disguised as Beaverhausen (thanks to Eric stealing some of his clothes), annoys the locals. In New Orleans, he finally makes his deal: he pays for the entire tour in exchange of an exclusive video of the event. But in the end of the game he is only being given a tape of Phil Margera on the toilet.Paulie "Wheels Of Fury" Ryan Paulie is a ten year old boy that is in a body cast from skating on wood chippers. He and the player were the only two left and Bam had to choose. He chose Paulie over the skater, due to his fiery spirit. His wheelchair is battery powered and he is able to grind and do grab tricks with it. He is selectable in free skate and classic but he is not in his wheelchair. He uses a regular board. He is playable on the Berlin level of the game as the hidden skater.Playable characters
Story Mode levels
Classic modeIn response to longtime fans' dissatisfaction with the format introduced in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Neversoft has added a classic mode, which allows players to skate through both new and remade classic levels in the traditional 10-goal, two-minute time limit mode that was present in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, complete with the stat points scattered all around the levels. In classic mode, the player chooses from one or two levels in which to attempt to complete enough goals to advance. All of the "remade" levels are accessible only through "Classic Mode" although once unlocked, it is possible to use them in any mode except "Story Mode".Classic mode levels include the levels found in the story mode of the game with the exception of "Pro Skater", as well as the remade levels:
The remade levels from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 are based on the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox versions as opposed to the versions for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Although some of the levels are the same regardless of the version, Canada, Airport and Los Angeles, California are based on the higher resolution versions of the game, with many things changed (like goals removed) between the two games. ReceptionGame Rankings currently scores it 84% for the PlayStation 2, 83.9% for the GameCube, 82.8% for the Xbox, 83% for the PlayStation Portable, and 86.1% for the PC.RemixTony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix for the PlayStation Portable is largely identical to the console and PC versions, but adds four new levels ("Las Vegas", "Atlanta", "Kyoto" and "Santa Cruz"), which were exclusive at the time, but later included in Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, in the classic mode. Due to space and battery consumption issues, much of the voice acting was removed, create-a-park was also removed. THUG2 Remix was ported by Shaba Games, previously responsible for porting Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 to the original PlayStation. The game was released to generally good reviews, averaging 83% on Game Rankings The following characters were added:
Soundtrack
Asterisks mark songs that are censored in the game. The Ministry song "No W" is named "No " in the game, but in the Remix it was changed back to "No W". The Tony Hawk games have a history of changing song names for example: Agent Orange's "Speed Kills", from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, is actually "Bloodstains," and in Tony Hawk's Project 8 the Ministry's song is called "Stigmata Remix." External links |
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Last updated on Wednesday October 08, 2008 at 07:28:38 PDT (GMT -0700)
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