THPS fans have awaited THUG with great anticipation, it's been hyped and there have been a lot.of rumours. The game would be going GTA style; with free roaming as an important concept .One things for sure, the game needs a change because the old successful formula is wearing out and losing its edge, something that already began in THPS 4.

Graphics:

Visuals were never Tony Hawk's drawing point and that tradition has continued in THUG. Compared to THPS 4 the visuals are hardly better, although the textures seem to be improved and it looks slightly brighter and more colourful. THUG is a good example that gameplay is more important then state of the art graphics and so far Tony Hawk has always delivered on the game experience.

The video clips in the game are one of its stronger points and always have been a good ambassador of the sport. But in THUG the clips have found an extra goal, which is to promote the various skating teams you can join somewhere in the story mode.

An extra plume goes out the special art menus. Graffiti and skating often go hand in hand and the graffiti art is nicely implemented in the menus without getting too muddy.

Sound:

About eighty songs does the musical score have, eighty! Ranging from rap to 70's rock. So no more complaints about the soundtrack because there should be at least a handful of songs that a person should like, no matter what musical style he's into.

There are lots of dialogues throughout the story mode and voice acting of the pro skaters, no matter how small their part, is authentic. And you can hear it all in Dolby Pro Logic II.

Gameplay:

Tony Hawk's main feature is the brand-new story mode. Its goal is to take your own created skater and turn him into a pro skater, the kind that lives for the sport. You start out as an insecure but potent daredevil who lives in the outskirts of New Jersey. As the story progresses you will travel from town to town where your main objective is to get attention from skate promoters or other skaters by doing favours or challenges for them.

The goals vary from a lame to a frustrating difficulty level, with the car missions being a low-point. When it is supposed to be a humorous change of pace, it is a boring mandatory with hardly any challenge. Thankfully, you can skip some of the goals in the game and pick up the ones you really like. One of them could be the new follow the line missions, where one must follow a specific route. Some assignments bring back fond memories of the early Tony Hawk games where you could spend hours of trying to achieve the goal in the game.

Other new gameplay elements are the create-a-trick, create-a-deck and also the stats system has been changed. To improve your abilities you'll now have to perform, shall we say, mini-missions such as a 10-second grind, a 20-ft ollie or make 3 combos in one manual. The guys at Neversoft probably noticed the convenient upgrade system of Aggressive Inline with its realistic learning curve and decided to come up with their own version of it.

The create-a-player mode on the cube misses out on the face-mapping option, which the lucky PS2 owners are blessed with. Besides that there are numerous possibilities to mould your character to your liking.

Controls:

The arsenal of moves has expanded substantially, the most obvious of them is that you can run around, climb rooftops and controlling vehicles. The latter is poorly executed and is hardly fun, because the cars physics aren't exactly convincing. On foot camera view fails at times, but luckily it's a gimmick feature, meaning you can stay away of it most of the time, if it bothers you too much.

Overall the control system remains solid, and even with the new extra possibilities, Neversoft kept the playability smooth and as easy as possible.

Lifespan:

With an impressive eleven multiplayer games, THUG offers a lot of replay value. The list includes Firefight, Trick attack, Combo Mambo, Graffiti and King of the Hill. As far as the single player concerned, the story mode takes about 8-10 hours to finish, add up a few extra hours to finish it 100%.

Traditionally there are tons of things to unlock such as levels of old Tony Hawk games, other characters, decks and movies.

Final Say:

Having more in common with the underrated Aggressive Inline than it is the revolutionary game many thought it would be; THUG does offer some new and refreshing gameplay elements to prevent this franchise from saturation. Though the new 'stuff' has its share of imperfections it is a good step forward nonetheless. People who had high hopes for this game may be disappointed because despite a different package, for the most part it's still the same candy.