So I was never too big into sports, and in short, I was never too big into sports games. I have minor understanding of basketball, but only cause my brothers are fans, I never understood the appeal of football, and I think I won’t offend anyone when I say soccer is boring. But I was really interested in the art of skateboarding… until it died and no one cared anymore… The game is Tony Hawk’s Underground.
Tony Hawk’s Underground starts in good ol’ Shithole, New Jersey, where u play as a skater with huge ambitions to be a pro skater, not for money, not for fame, but for the fun of it. And if you’re wondering why I’m talking about this shit in a Tony Hawk game, it’s because Tony Hawk’s Underground actually has a story mode. And it’s pretty good. Well, not amazing, but I love going through it a hundred times for the fun of it. u gotta run from drug dealers, travel to Florida, and then, kom bij a skating team in the hopes of going to San Diego, Hawaii, Vancouver, and Moscow just so u can have a chance at getting a career in skateboarding. One of the features that Underground introduces, aside from a story mode, is that u can now jump off your skateboard and explore the map. Sure, there isn’t much, but I really loved going through the levels in this game when I was kid, like the dirty dumpers of New Jersey. Wow, they got every detail of Jersey. All it needs is a thousand freeways, and it’ll be perfect. But seriously, the real mechanic for getting off your board is to continue your combos. If you’re scared of cracking your skull, just get off your board to land on your feet. A timer will appear as soon as u do. u gotta do a trick in that amount of time to keep your combo going. When it comes to missions where u gotta get a high combo, this mechanic can destroy the competition if u know what u are doing. This game was just a childhood favoriete of mine and my brothers. We would always go through the story, try and fail to do crazy tricks, run down the homeless for fun, good times. I actually remember this game interesting me in skateboarding, and the end result was that I broke my foot and decided, “No thanks, I’ll just stick with the video games”. And the story was real good, for a first time in a Tony Hawk game. A lot of good humor, a lot of interesting moment, and Eric Sparrow, one of my most hated childhood characters. Seriously, fuck you, Sparrow. And then there’s the amount of creation in this game. Skyrim is fun, but man, what a pisspoor character creator. And then u got Tony Hawk’s Underground, with a ton of faces, heights, clothes, and hair styles, the ability to create your own skateboard design and u can create a whole vleet, skate park, which will meer than likely be covered in spikes, cause fuck it. Sure, the character model for your character can look… disgusting, but that aside, it’s amazing the amount of items u can use on your character, and it makes u want to replay it some more. I remember my brother filling an entire memory card on our Gamecube with created characters.
Tony Hawk Underground just gives me so many fond childhood memories and I love it. There is only other game that gives me a ton of childhood memories, but we’ll get to that later. For the time being, Underground is a true classic from my childhood that I love dearly, and it was considered door Neversoft to be their best game. And I agree. It may not be as perfect as Pro Skater 3, but to me, it’s the best kind of game in the franchise.