TONY HAWK'S UNDERGROUND 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Neversoft And Shaba Games

Publisher : Activision

Engine : RenderWare

Genre : Skateboarding

Release Date : October 4 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon XP 1600+ / Intel Pentium 3 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0b Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Series
ATI : Radeon 9500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The opening sequence shows the player skating at his/her hometown. 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/her to a dark room with other skaters like Eric Sparrow, Bob Burnquist, Mike Vallely, Eric Koston, Rodney Mullen and Chad Muska. 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, which surpassed the advantage Team Hawk had at the time. As a result, on the "Wheel of Loogies" 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 his 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. 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, 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, in the backwoods of Ohio, defined by Tony as "the skateboarding Mecca". Though Team Hawk, reduced to two members, performs well enough to win, Bam decides to blow up Skatopia, confident on his victory. In order to save people from the imminent damage, Tony quickly evacuates the skaters and, so thereafter, Bam dares the player to exit the whole flaming park in a single combo, which he considers impossible, but is accomplished by the player, giving 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, with Bam pulling down his pants in international TV broadcast.

The game also has a new "freak out" function. After some falls, a freak out meter will appear, and mashing the grind button will cause it to fill up. If you reach a certain point on the meter before your skater stands back up, you'll make him get mad and destroy his board. A new board gets tossed in and play continues as normal, but your tantrum translates into a couple thousand points of base score. So if you can get a combo going a few seconds after your bail, you'll get some bonus points to throw in there. However, freaking out just means it'll take longer for you to get back on your board and start skating again, and the game has almost completely de-emphasized point scores in its goal-based modes. The online game is largely the same as it was in the previous game, with a few additional modes. Up to eight players can participate in the standard game modes like trick attack, score challenge, combo mambo, slap, king of the hill, capture the flag, firefight, and graffiti. The game's new modes are elimiskate and scavenger hunt. The former works like a knockout race in a driving game, where the player in last place is eliminated at specific intervals until only one player remains. Scavenger hunt has two phases. In the first, each player skates around and drops five coins at different spots in the level. After that, it's up to the players to collect as many coins as possible. The first to collect them all, or the player with the most coins when time expires, is the winner. The audio has a lot of voice work from various pro skaters in the game, and most of it comes across quite well. The sounds of actual skating haven't changed much, but they still fit well and sound great. The soundtrack is as varied as the previous game's, containing a hefty list of really crazy songs. You'll get your chance here, as Old Blue Eyes joins artists like Metallica, The DOC, Ween, Less Than Jake, Violent Femmes, Atmosphere, Ultramagnetic MC's, X, Ministry, Brand Nubian, and, yes, Audio Two, who contribute the classic track, Top Billin'. With over 50 tracks in all and the ability to turn off tracks that don't fit your tastes, you'll probably find a suitable bunch of songs to skate to. All in all, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is a strong skateboarding game, though if you've remained devoted to the series, you might not be so impressed with its changes. Nevertheless, the gameplay remains fast, fluid, and exciting. The visuals are, for the most part, pretty sharp, and the story mode, though short and devoid of much of the character development that made up most of the previous game's story, is still fun to blast through.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Trailer :-