October 27, 2003 - In less than three years, there have been three different versions of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater produced on the Game Boy Advance. Each has been a truly quality product, mirroring as much of the excellent console versions as technically possible on the handheld system. But after we've all experienced the game in three different times in separate iterations, it's clear that the designers would have to really do something special to the series to make the game worth a fourth time around. And that's exactly what they have done for Tony Hawk's Underground. While the basics of this sequel are relatively untouched from the tried-and-true Tony Hawk gameplay, the GBA team rethought the desingn structure and level layout for the sequel, and with that move comes a game that feels both familiar and entirely new. The way the team constructed specific gameplay elements opens up the game design in an entirely different direction, breathing fresh life into one of the best action designs of the past half decade.
Features
- Ten different skate parks
- Seventeen different pro skaters
- Career and Arcade modes
- Create-a-Skater and Create-a-Board editors
- Multiplayer (hot seat one system)
- Link cable support (multiple cartridge)
- Cartridge save (three slots)
On the surface, the game hasn't changed much from its isometric gameplay roots of the past Game Boy Advance games in the series. It's still about pulling off tricks by grinding ledges and leaping in the air off quarter and half-pipes, funboxes, rails...all within real-world situations and locations. Players will have the freedom to skate around and perform duties given to them by the in-game characters, trying to pull them off before their specific time runs out. Challenges haven't changed much from past Tony Hawk games, not straying far from the original "Collect 'S-K-A-T-E' or 'C-O-M-B-O' letters" tasks...but there are much more of them of increasing difficulty the further into the game you go. There are ten different skateparks in Tony Hawk's Underground, as well. But even though this all sounds like the same old Tony Hawk it's the way it's been structured that makes Tony Hawk's Underground a completely new experience.
This time around, players don't start off as a god-like thrasher. You can't just jump into the roll of a professional skater...you have to earn that namesake by getting out of the house and pulling your weight. Tricks and techniques aren't second nature, either; right out of the gate players can only do the basic grab, flip and grind tricks, but by pulling off a sequence of these the character's attributes will increase. The higher the skill level, the more the player can do, and the better he can do them. The addition of the character stats gives players another set of challenges to shoot for beyond the standard in-level tasks; they can see exactly what's required to build up a statistic by pulling up an easy-to-read menu. And players can easily see when a statistic point has been earned...but like the points structure in Tony Hawk, if statistic points are earned during a combination string, they're lost if the player happens to fall on his face and fail to complete that combo. There will be times when players will not be able to advance without reaching a specific statistics level, so players will have to practice on the side in order to advance to the next task on the checklist.
The levels in Tony Hawk's Underground are absolutely massive and well-designed with tons of ramps and rails to ride, but at the start of the round sections of these areas will be restricted; in these locked-out locations, skating is a no-no. Enter a new ability: hop off the board and walk. If you happen to find yourself in a No Skating Zone (the screen flashes an obvious red), you have a few short seconds to leap off your board and start running...otherwise you'll be inconveniently kicked out, and sent back to the start of the level. The boardless run ability isn't an incredible feature by itself...it's actually a silly little move that doesn't really fit the Tony Hawk gameplay. But the developers have incorporated it into a skating move...a trick to link other board tricks together. This is called the "run out," and like Tony Hawk 4's "spine transfer" and Tony Hawk 3's "revert," the "run out" is this generation's addition to the trick system. Players have the ability to leap out of a manual into a run-out, and then must get back on the board into another manual in order to keep the combo going.