Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 Remix
Tony Hawk… who doesn’t know him? He’s about the greatest skating legend of all time, but amongst gamers he’s most well known due to the games that carry his name. According one, the guys from Activision have sucked the nipples of the Tonycow so dry that the uterus could use a tittielift. The other, however, finds that the games keep renewing. So what’s going on? Is Tony still worthy of your hard-earned cash? Or should you leave him on the shelves? I for one checked out the brand new PSP version and tried to find the answer to this extremely important question. Meuh!
THUG2 Remix has a storymode where our friend Tony Hawk sets up a skating contest together with Bam Margera, the World Destruction Tour, which will run across the entire world. For this, a lot of pro skaters, a wheelchair patient and a little noob (you) have been divided into 2 groups that will compete against each other. One group is under the lead of Tony himself, the other gets the guidance of Bam. It must be said, the cut scenes that tie together the whole story are truly hilarious and are in true “Viva la bam/jackass” style.
In the story mode you need to fulfill certain goals with which you earn points, once you’ve collected enough of those, you can go to the next level. Luckily these are very varied and fun to do; you can set a bird on fire with your skateboard or free a bull by throwing tomatoes against it. There’s also the classic mode, this coincides with the story mode, except that the goals are a bit different and there aren’t any cut scenes to tie things together. The creative people amongst us can also design their own skater, trucks logo and park, something that increases of course the lifetime of the game.
Since the feeling of the PSP is a lot like that of a PS2 controller, the controls hardly differ from its big brother. Due to this, THUGR is filled with fast arcade gameplay which we’re used to from the series, also we get a number of tricks on our dinerplate, most of them which are known from the skater himself. As usual we don’t need to expect realism, combo’s that make you do 12 grinds after each other are as real as a Russian woman with a moustache.
The PSP is of course a bit more targeted towards the graphics whores amongst us than its competitor, the DS, and luckily this game doesn’t disappoint. THUGR looks truly amazing on the little handheld, I did see a small flaw of slightly irritating camera viewpoint, but this is so rare that the player won’t bother. Also the soundtrack and effects will please you. We get singles from big names as Metallica, Red Hot Chily Peppers, Frank Sinatra, and many others.
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 Remix on the PSP has become an extremely strong launch title that managed to deliver me several hours of fun. THUGR however, isn’t much more than just a port of its console brother, so for those that already have it on PS2, there’s little new… except for 4 new levels but these don’t really justify a sale. For those that have bought a PSP and are looking for a fun extreme sports game, this is definitely a must have, brains turned off and skating with the jackass crew… sounds nice, doesn’t it?
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