Tony Hawk's Underground

Template:Game Tony Hawk's Underground, also called THUG and loosely referred to as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, is a skateboarding video game for the PS2, GameCube, Xbox and GBA platforms released in 2003. It is the fifth game in the Tony Hawk's series. PC version was released exclusively in Australia and New Zealand as a budget release in 2005. This version was ported by Beenox. The game is rated "T" for teen because of the strong language, mild violence, blood and suggestive themes. THUG is widely regarded by fans as being the best game in the series for allowing players to edit almost 100% of the in-game content, and having the ability to share all created content with other online users.

New game mechanics and features

Walking/Caveman/Combo Run-Out

For the first time in the series, the player can get off the board in order to walk, run and/or climb around. This is necessary to reach some locations and challenges. The player is now able to leave the skateboard in the middle of a combo and continue it elsewhere using Caveman, as long as he or she fits in the time limit. This time limit is known as Combo Run-Out and it is another skill that can be improved.

Wall Push

Skater is able now to push himself off the wall while in manual and continue combo in opposite direction which is called Wall Push. This move will cost skater a certain amount of speed loss.

Wallplant

Wallplant is Wall Push in the air, naturally, skater hits the wall in the air and jumps out in the opposite direction losing some speed. Note that Wallplant trick from THPS4 was renamed to Wallieplant.

Hip Transfer

Hip Transfer is much like Spine Transfer, but it links nearby quarter-pipes that are perpendicular to each other.

Acid Drop

Acid Drop allows skater to jump above QP and land into it. It is widely used to land high launches in combo.

Double tap grind tricks

While the extensions system was refined in THPS4, THUG added double tap grinds. Some special trick from previous games became double tap tricks in THUG, including Darkslide, Crail Slide, Hang Ten Nosegrind, etc. The double tap grinds are predefined - player has no ability to change the double tap grind.

Pressure flips

The game introduced pressure flips, performed using only one foot. In the game it works the same way as Nollie modifier: choose pressure mode first then perform the flip.

Driving

On each level, the player has the opportunity to use vehicles. Driving was a controversial addition though as some thought that it extended the gameplay a tad, others that it didn't fit inside of a skateboarding game.

Face Mapping

Basically this feature allows to replace skater's face texture with any other image, most likely the player's real face.

Plot

The following applies to Tony Hawk's Underground when the game is played in story mode.

Unlike its predecessors, Underground focuses heavily on it's story mode, and to this extent includes a large number of in-game cutscenes. It is the first of its series to really incorporate narratology, which is the extent to which a game follows a storyline or the events occur in a structured timeframe.

The story follows the trials and tribulations of two at-first unknown skaters, you (the game's custom skater), and the player's friend Eric Sparrow. The story begins in their hometown of New Jersey, with the main character and Eric exploring the area and helping prepare for Chad Muska's skate demo. After the demo, the player performs for Chad as he explores the New Jersey skating scene to grab his attention. Once accomplished, he suggests the player earn a sponsorship from the local skateshop, and gives you his skateboard out of respect. After impressing the local sponsored skaters, one of your friends, Shawn, says that the local drug dealers have stolen a skateboard from Peralta's shop. You go on a dangerous odyssey to retrieve it, after which Eric proceeds to light the drug dealer's car on fire, as "revenge" for stealing his skateboard earlier in the game. You then meet up with Stacy Peralta, and ask for a sponsorship from his skate shop. He makes an agreement, as long as you show him something original, and don't film in any local spots. When you tell Eric the good news, he says that the drug dealers have been following him, angry that he destroyed their car. In an effort to help Eric, you hurry to leave town with him to Manhattan, New York.

Once you have arrived in Manhattan, you decide to make a skate video hitting famous lines and tricks in well-known areas of Manhattan, and complete the sponsorship video by performing various tricks over a burning taxi. Once completed, you talk to Stacy who tells you to join the Tampa AM skate event in Florida. You arrive in Tampa in trouble with the police for driving a shoddy vehicle (an old hippie bus lent by Stacy) with an anti-police bumper sticker. Eric gets arrested for mouthing off to the officer, meaning you must first do favors for the local police force to bail out Eric, and proceed through to your Tampa experience. By the time the event starts, you get into an argument with Eric when he "forgets" to sign you up. After impressing local pros, and doing some doubles with Tony Hawk himself, you are allowed into the event.

Once you dominate the event, you join the sponsor of your choice (choosing from Birdhouse, Element, Flip, Girl, or Zero), which sends you to San Diego to do a demo. Eric is soon joined to the team, introduced to you during your party-induced hangover. When you and Eric impress your team manager Todd with your performance at the demo, you are sent to Hawaii to film for a team video. In Hawaii, you search for a spot that has been untouched by skaters. You eventually find the rooftop of a tall hotel, and call Eric to film you skating on (and off of) it. When a police helicopter arrives, Eric insists that you leave, but you want to seize the moment of a challenge, and perform a McTwist off of the hotel's roof, over the helicopter, and onto the rooftop of the neighboring building, with Eric capturing it on film. Your team then travels to Vancouver.

In Vancouver, after doing some local favors, you go to Slam City and view your team's video premiere, after hurriedly finishing parts for it. To your surprise, Eric had edited your filming of the rooftop jump to his benefit. Todd immediately makes Eric a Pro, and presents him his own pro-model board. After confronting Eric, who couldn't care less about your plight, you enter the Slam City Jam contest, and (despite still being an Amateur) lie that you are a Pro and take on a series of Pro competitions. The competition resolves into a one-on-one between you and Eric. You win, and are declared a Pro by Todd. After designing your own deck and gaining a shoe sponsor, the team decides to go to an international Pro skateboard demo in Moscow. While practicing for the demo, you are reconciled with Eric, and the pair of you perform a double performance together.

In Moscow, you follow a drunken Eric when he steals the keys to a Russian tank, and he takes it on a joyride through town while standing on the tank. After attempting to stop it, you lose control, and crash into a building, and become trapped inside the tank under a pile of rubble. Eric jumps and runs off, leaving you to be arrested. The team kicks you off, and leaves you stranded in Moscow. The American Embassy bails you out, but you must get home by doing favors for locals.

When you get back home, you find that Eric has changed. He now has many sponsors, has a record label in the making, and now only skates for money. Eric reveals that he has been plotting to bring you down from the very beginning, and that the money is all that matters in professional skateboarding. You resolve to show Eric how wrong he is by making a "soul skating" video; a collection of pure skating exhibitions featuring a team of the best pros selected by yourself and Peralta. This is very successful, and provokes Eric into challenging you to a last skateboarding line in return for the Hawaii tape he refused to let air at the Slam City Jam. After you win, you take the tape and walk away from Eric, who curses as you leave.

On a second run-through of the game, there is an alternate ending. Instead of you following Eric's line again, a cutscene shows him flashing the tape at you, but in a final frustrated move, the player elbows Eric in the jaw, grabs the tape, and walks away as Eric faints onto his car. If all of the challenges are completed in Normal mode first, the player is rewarded with a collection of game cheats, presumptively done to assist the player in a replay under Hard mode. The game's producers admitted that by virtue of the difficulty of Eric's line (even in Normal mode), both the alternate ending, as well as the cheats, were added on following playthroughs to spare the player that frustration.

Levels

In Tony Hawk's Underground there are 9 story mode levels and 3 bonus levels:

Story Mode

• New Jersey
• Manhattan, New York
• Tampa, Florida
• San Diego, California
• Hawaii
• Vancouver, Canada
• Slam City Jam, Canada
• Moscow, Russia
• Hotter than Hell, Australia

Bonus THPS2 Levels

• Hangar, Montana
• School II, California
• Venice, California

GBA Levels

• New Jersey
• Mall
• Warehouse
• Battery Park
• Bronx
• Hangar
• Santa Monica
• Hollywood
• San Diego
• Slam City Jam

Skaters

The game's default in story mode is the Custom Skater. By playing the levels and challenges, the player can pre-emptively access the professional playable characters in Free Skate modes, as well as unlock secret and bonus characters through Story mode.

By completing certain difficulties in the game, the player is rewarded with secret characters. Easy unlocks Marvel Comics' Iron Man, Normal unlocks Gene Simmons of Kiss, and Hard unlocks a Sewer Monster known as T.H.U.D, which can be seen in the Neversoft intro cutscene.

Soundtrack

Full article: Tony Hawk's Underground Soundtrack

Tony Hawk's Underground soundtrack features 78 songs, 72 used in the in-game and 6 more songs used in the in-game skate videos, the soundtrack is split into three genres rock, punk and hip hop from the late 1970s to the present day. The soundtrack is also the biggest in the Tony Hawk series to date.

Trivia

• If you go to Create-A-Skater mode and go through the preset skaters, you can find "Sheena" and she is a punk rocker obviously, it's a reference to the Ramones' song "Sheena is a Punk Rocker".
• There is poster in CAS room which portrays Daisy from THPS4.
• All versions of the game feature incomplete versions of School, Downhill Jam, and Philadelphia in the game's data. They can be restored through a mod or hacking device such as GameShark.
• The PS2 disc also contains files from some of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4's levels, such as College, and London, but can not be accessed without significant editing.
• In the beta version All of the traffic vehicles stayed on the road rather than vanishing when you entered a vehicle.

See Also

• Tony Hawk's Underground soundtrack

External Links

• Tony Hawk's Underground gamepage at Activision.com