Tony Hawk’s Underground - Full Review (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, PC game)

Tony Hawk’s Underground was a revolutionary addition to the extreme sports game genre as it not only introduced a storyline but also the ability to get off your board and walk among the people you’d been terrorizing. 

Developer: Neversoft (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox), Beenox (PC)
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Adventure, sports game
Release date: November 21 2003 (EU)
Platforms: PS2, Gamecube, Xbox and PC
ESRB: T - Teen

The fifth edition of the Tony Hawk series, T.H.U.G was released in 2003 by Activision for a range of platforms and brought with it a huge array of new features that set in motion an entirely new conception of sports games. From humble beginnings you’ll journey from rookie to pro skater by completing challenges and missions amongst a sprawl of urban cities and suburban neighbourhoods, this radical gamble on focus and gameplay structure really did pay off and these days you’ll see all modern skating games following a similar trend to Tony Hawk’s Underground.

Story and gameplay

The story is fairly simplistic though nicely tied together. You start out as an unknown rookie skater who lives in New Jersey with your friend Eric Sparrow. A pro skater, Chad Muska, is set to arrive in Muska makes an appearance he’s impressed by your task performing abilities and suggests that you try to earn a sponsorship from the local skateshop. I can only guess that he’s not that impressed since he makes no attempt to support you himself. This experience marks the beginning of your skating career as you journey from amateur to professional, travelling from city to city and visiting places like Hawaii, Moscow and Manhattan along the way. The story has a few interesting revelations as you’re pitted against old friends and some odd moments never seen before in a skating game. This is by far the most in depth storyline any extreme sports game has ever attempted and, whilst it’s nothing particularly special, it’s certainly a nice change of pace to your usual ‘pointlessly skate through these areas and rack up big combos’ experience. If you enjoy the casual skating element then have no fear as there’s a free skate mode allowing you to play pro skaters, and some special, secret characters once you unlock them. 

Tony Hawk’s Underground marks the first game where you’re able to get off your board and this is an ingenious idea as it means you can climb buildings, steal vehicles and reach new heights never before accessible. In terms of realism too it’s essential as, now and then, you do want to walk into a shop or down the street to talk to someone. The only problem with your new found feet is that the mechanism is poorly implanted and so often results in slow, staggering gameplay that can take away from the overall thrill of fast paced, combo bashing skating experience. On the other hand, the skating gameplay is much improved compared to previous Tony Hawk games and there are a significant number of new tricks that have been implemented and all of them require absolute precision. Complex tricks are tricky to pull off but when you manage it you feel a great sense of achievement as, quite often, it will take you several attempts to nail it. Frantically mashing at random buttons just won’t work in this game and the fiddly ‘caveman’ mode where you get off your board mid combo, only to jump back on before the timer runs out, is difficult to achieve in certain missions. 

The missions themselves are a nice mix between easy and agonizingly difficult and the variety is pretty surprising for a skating game. In some cases you’ll have to purposefully crash and burn up a vehicle whilst at other times you have to break into a location, impress various people or film a local skater as he himself performs some tricks. The story of the game also puts you in some new situations such as being able to pick which team you want to join after watching their videos before proving how cool you are by throwing an awesome party. The ending levels consist mostly of a huge competition against all of the opposition and if there’s one thing that will spur your competitive street it’s this moment as it really manages to rile you up and get you ready to fight for your place. The situations where you have to drive a vehicle tends to come off a little forced and the driving mechanics in general are poor with terrible steering and constant low speeds. That said, you cannot deny the developers determination to keep things varied and interesting and, though the driving is terrible, the ability to set fire to cars makes those problems seem distant. Either way the game has a great balance of challenging and easy missions making it challenging for pros but also accessible to the skating newbies. 

Customizability

The game has great lifespan and the career mode alone with last you many hours, not to mention the huge amounts of customization that has been included for the multiplayer game modes. Whilst the ‘create-a-park’ mode is nothing new in a Tony Hawk game, T.H.U.G brings it back with style and substance. There’s a significant amount of new items and the new ‘rail tool’ in particular is great as it means you can place a rail wherever you want to. Even more impressively is the ability to create your own cities with towering buildings and skate parks within them, compared to earlier ‘create-a-park’ modes this one is out of this world. Interestingly, you can create your own challenges including time limits and ‘spell the word by picking up the letters’ type challenges for you and your friends to try and complete and this adds in not only an extra layer of custom design but a fun one too. Tony Hawk’s Underground has also introduced the ability to create and then name your own tricks before allowing you to test them out in the actual game and, continuing on with the customizability theme, you can also design and create your own skateboard to perform your own tricks on. If that’s not enough you can also play yourself by importing your own face onto your character by using the face mapping tool, at this point I’m not sure they could cram any more customizability options into this game as the PS2 would most likely implode. All of these additional features are surprisingly ahead of their time as, though creating your own custom content is commonplace nowadays, this stuff was revolutionary for 2003. 


Graphics and audio

Graphically, T.H.U.G is painfully average but considering this is the first Tony Hawk game to attempt things like, making people look halfway realistic, they didn’t do a bad job. The characters in the game do attempt to blink and move their mouths along with the speech but none of it is particularly in sync and it’s quite apparent that this was an undeveloped feature. The best part about the graphics are, by far, the buildings and city surroundings as there’s a fair bit of detail and it’s a reasonably open world game. Great effort has been taken to ensure that buildings don’t often repeat on themselves and lots of little details have been added to make the streets and cities feel as vibrant as possible. 

The music is definitely something worth noting as the soundtrack is absolutely huge with well over 70 different tracks that range from pop to rock music, I’m pretty sure there’s some reggae and country music in there too. The huge variety of music simply means that you’re not going to get tired of listening to the same monotonous tracks over and over again, though you may want to change up your playlist a little if you’re not into the ol’ country songs. The sound effects of the game are also much improved and now you can hear the difference in terrain as you skate over it whilst the general background ambiance now accurately reflects where you’re playing. The voice acting is above average and in the very least it’s expressive rather than dull though, again, the lip syncing is a major problem.

Overall

As I keep mentioning; this was a groundbreaking game for its time. If you like the Tony Hawk series and have never played this then for that reason alone it’s worth playing as I’m sure you’ll see the origins of modern skating games within this one. Although though the graphics are so-so, the lip syncing is diabolical and some missions are a little tiring it’s still a very imaginative game with a fairly interesting storyline, plenty of variation and some really brilliant skating gameplay. The levels are large and interesting with some really great level designs that tend to be based around urban cities or suburban neighbourhoods. There’s a huge level of customizability now introduced and you can really personalize your T.H.U.G experience, particularly if you want to play the game in co-op. All in all, this is the skating game that almost everyone remembers as being the start of new extreme sports age.

The Good:

• Lots of customizability
• Large soundtrack
• Huge, sandbox environments
• Fairly good storyline that breaks boundaries
• Varied gameplay elements
• Lots of new features proved groundbreaking

The Bad:

• Not much reason to replay the main storyline
• Voice acting and lip syncing generally poor
• Graphics can be bland
• Tedious in places

The Score: 7/10 

Last thoughts: "It's easy to see why this game started a sort of extreme sports revolution but, personally, Underground 2 is preferable as it irons out the kinks of tedious and repetitive gameplay"

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5 Days a Stranger - Full Review (Free PC game)

This point and click horror adventure game is witty, intriguing and extremely engaging despite the archetypal sounding plotline. What’s even better is this is a completely free game so, for that reason alone, you should definitely play this fantastic, albeit creepy, little gem. 5 Days A Stranger is an amateur game created by Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw and made using the Adventure Game Studio tool. Despite the game’s modest backgrounds 5 days a stranger has won a handful of awards so with all the raving reviews I just had to play it, and here I am, raving about it because it was an incredibly enjoyable experience.

Gameplay and plot

5 days a stranger is set entirely inside the DeFoe manor house mostly due to the fact that after Trilby, gentleman slash cat-burglar, enters the house to steal some valuables he finds himself unable to get back out the window again. No problem, he thinks, he’ll just try another window since his one is oddly stuck, but all the windows are jammed. And so are the doors, plus the wall is too tall to climb and far too smooth to get a grip on it anyway, and… wait, what’s this? There’s a layer of thick concrete beneath the lawn in the backyard. Something’s not right here and, worse still, Trilby’s not the only unfortunate soul stuck in this mansion. Together with a group of strangers, Trilby must find a way out of this luxurious country manor but when the murders begin suspicion threatens to tear this fragile union apart. What is the dark secrets that lurk within the DeFoe manor, who is stalking its opulent corridors and why the hell did Trilby’s fence not research the place before sending him there? 

I was hooked into this game in its first few moments after, discovering the window was jammed, I meandered on downstairs and ran into a man called Phillip. Phillip is another trapped thief, just not a gentlemanly one, who’s also got a bit of an attitude problem. It’s Phillip who you first get to talk to properly and it’s Phillip who’s the first one to explain what’s been going on in the house. At first he thinks you’re here to rescue them all but when he realizes you’re trapped too he explains what’s been going on, in some way or another every person in that house have been separated from their friends or co-workers and come into the house alone and, once they’re inside, they’re trapped. What’s really unusual though is that Trilby got in through a window and as he rightly points out, how did nobody notice it was unlocked for his arrival? The trapped guests were periodically checking every potential escape route, taking it in turns and being completely thorough but somehow that one window had been wide open just long enough for Trilby’s arrival. There’s something else at work in this house, some kind of intelligence, and my God I wanted to know what it was. Phillip thinks it’s a reality TV show, Trilby’s not so sure and for some reason I was more concerned that the fridge in the kitchen was devoid of food. They’re going to let us starve? I wondered to myself, staring at a huge pile of salt in a kitchen cupboard. Are they serious, how have these people been surviving, what have they been eating, the carpets? It’s been days! I really didn’t realize this was a horror game and that things were going to get a lot worse than rumbling tummies. 

The plot drags you in and forces you to stay, just like that bloody house, because it builds up suspense wonderfully and never reveals its hand until the last moment. It does admittedly contain some slightly typical themes, like being locked in a creepy mansion by some unseen force, but it’s all combined in a rather original way and, genuinely, I was confused as to what was going on just like the characters. The plot unfolds very gradually and primarily through reading the few texts present in the game which are short but sad. There’s a pretty decent twist in the storyline that you may or may not see coming, depending on how versed you are in creepy mansion fiction, and the conclusion is very satisfying and nicely wraps everything up. For some reason I was expecting an ending that was going to be anti-climactic and though it didn’t exactly have whistles and bells on it was very fitting, cumulative and had good a splash of humour just to top it all off. 

The way you play the game is very simple; you have several icons that can be used to interact with the world; walking, using, talking and looking. You switch which of these you use by clicking them at the bottom of the screen or by using the F1 – F4 keys on your keyboard and then use them on the environment to navigate around the place, talk to people or find and pick up items. Sometimes you’ll have to combine things to make new items to advance the game and to solve the puzzles within it. The game itself is split into days which act as chapters, between each day you’ll get a cutscene which is usually rather disturbing and very confusing. Each day something will change and they’ll be a new task for you to complete, the first day for example is mostly just finding out what’s going on and meeting everybody. But then things get strange and you’ll have a lot more on your hands.

Graphics and audio

The horror elements of the game are apparent; there’s a fair bit of gore and some very dark themes though none of it is over the top and it’s certainly nowhere near as disturbing as IHNM. The blood and gore may not look like much to those glancing over but when you’re wrapped up in the storyline and the feel of the game it’s positively terrifying when the rare but effective gory scenes jump out at you. The graphics are a lot more subdued than other point and clicks but there’s no denying it looks pretty decent and is no less than I’d want from a 2003 point and click adventure game. There’s clearly a lot of detail that has been put into the environments and there’s a really great feel and personality present in the DeFoe manor, among other things. The animation of the characters too is truly brilliant. I’ll never forget how Trilby’s usually stoic face was contorted into utter, wide eyed fear as he awoke from a terrifying nightmare and the ability to portray that with such limiting graphics is exceptional. 

There’s not a great deal of audio in the game and it’s mostly restricted to sound effects such as footsteps and the creaking of opening doors. I encountered an annoying audio bug that meant whenever I clicked off the screen to look at something else the audio would repeat on itself over and over, such as his footsteps endlessly walking. Bugs aside, the audio is decent and the music is sufficiently creepy. Initially the music was only really present in the intro and credits but with the full edition of the game now available there is music throughout the game and it rises and falls with the tempo that the game sets. Though the music is creepy in and of itself it’s particularly disturbing when it cuts out entirely, leaving you standing there in the still silence wondering what’s caused this dramatic shift in atmosphere…

Overall

The personality of this game is not just restricted to the appearance of the DeFoe manor or its grounds, the characters are really well written and with very distinct personalities and great dialogue. Trilby in particular is such a brilliant character; charming and witty with bags of likeability factor that makes him an extremely strong protagonist for such a short little game. Trilby’s little comments when you look at things or talk to people are guaranteed to raise a few smirks and he is so utterly memorable I felt sad leaving him behind when the credits rolled. 

This game is the first of the Chzo Mythos series and if you enjoy this one it’s great knowing that the journey doesn’t end there as there are 4 sequels, though they’re not all point and click games. ‘5 days a stranger’ will last you around about 3 hours of play and I enjoyed it so much I wished for it to be longer with a lot more actions to perform and more item combinations in general. The game had some good puzzles and at one point I was left standing on a windowsill for ages, unsure of where to go from there, so I can’t say it wasn’t a challenging game. At times it was too easy but for a free game, it’s simply outstanding.

Score: 8/10

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Harvest moon: It’s a Wonderful Life, Special Edition - Full Review (PS2 and PS3 game)

The Harvest Moon series is a series of games that revolve around farming and relationships in some way or another.Harvest Moon: Wonderful Life, Special Edition is available on both the PlayStation 2 and on PlayStation Network as a graphical remake for the PS3. I’ll be reviewing the PS2 original but bear in mind the PS3 has slightly better, smoother graphics though they are otherwise the same game. 

You play a male character who has inherited an unused farm from his deceased father. His father’s old friend has invited you to take over the land and to raise a family here too, which you agree to. We know nothing of our character other than this so whatever ties he had to a previous life are left unmentioned; whether he’s running from a dark, desolate past or a violent crime spree there is just simply no way to know. You start out with a very basic set of equipment to help you get started and one lifestock though with great opportunity to expand. This Harvest Moon game is slow paced but incredibly addictive and a satisfying experience that will give you a fresh love of games that incorporate the simpler things in life; farming, fishing, friends and family.

Story and gameplay

The game is set in Forget-me-not Valley and the Valley consists of your farm, a neighbouring farm that doubles as a shop you’ll use a lot, a dig site where you dig for treasures, several houses where people live, a large mansion, a river, spring, swamp, beach and a few ‘special’ houses like a mad scientist’s lab and an artist’s caravan. You build your farm up using a small variety of methods which fall into the category of either ranching or actual farming; that is, crops and trees. You look after a rather large selection of crops and trees by planting, watering, fertilizing and so on and generally it takes quite a bit of attention to get your crop to its best possible state. Produce and crops all have ranks that are improved through either care of the animals; ie, hugging and brushing your cow, feeding it good stuff and keeping it out of the rain produces better quality milk or fertilizing and watering your plants which will produce a better quality of crop. The animal selection is fairly generous; a variety of cows, chickens and roosters, ducks, a goat, sheep, ducks, dog and cat. You also get a free horse to speed up travel around the valley, a much appreciated addition.

Crops are grown according to their seasons and generally need to be watered twice a day, except when it rains, and if you want to increase their rank they require fertilizer twice a day too. The time it takes for a crop to grow varies and some are fast growing though some can take an entire season. They cannot get diseased and will only die if they’re trying to grow in the wrong season or they’re not watered. Later on in the game get the ability to create ‘hybrid’ fruit and vegetables by meeting certain criteria after the first game chapter where you can then combine fruit or vegetables seeds into new, weird ones. There’s something really entertaining about seeing what a turnip combined with a strawberry would create, then turning it into a delicious meal. There’s a huge number of crop and fruit tree variants which can also be enhanced using flowers found in different seasons that grow around the valley. These enhancements can be applied to seeds to give benefits like growing in any soil, growing in any season or by raising them up a rank level without need for fertilizer.
Crops are generally there to be sold, eaten, given as gifts or using a ‘seed machine’ turned into twice as many seeds to continue the cycle. There’s also a wide variety of meals that can be made which incorporate crops, fruits and also produce made on your farm like butter, milk and cream. There are dozens of different things you can create from soups to desserts which you can then sell either on your store or to a trader who visits bi-monthly. Alternatively, you can always put them in your fridge so later on your wife and child have something to eat. The immersion of creating three course meals for your family is a fun addition and, even if essentially pointless, gives you something else to strive for.

The large array of animals is restricted to just eight pens in your main barn and you’ll likely have cows since they’re the most profitable. Cows can be bred once they reach adulthood and, if you’re buying new cows, they need to have a calf before they can give milk. You can breed them by having your own bull or by buying a ‘miracle potion’ which is basically artificial insemination. Cows can be milked twice a day and start out giving ‘B grade’ milk which is the lowest and, by looking after them and increasing their love for you, they’ll give ‘S grade’ which is worth a lot more. Milk prices also depends on the breed of cow and there’s roughly 5 different breeds, all of which can be purchased. Sheep give wool once a month and by looking after them they can give ‘clean’ or ‘golden’ wool. Chickens give eggs, unsurprisingly, which can be hatched into chicks using an incubator. There’s also extra animals like a goat and ducks and pets like the horse, dog and cat.

The gameplay is slow though, extremely slow. If anything is going to put you off this game it’s likely to be how slow everything progresses. This is not a game where you dip in for a quick blast about and go home happy. Sometimes, it feels intentional as the sheer about of work and patience required to complete this game is reminiscent of actually having to sweat and toil on a real farm. The minutes tick by very gradually and it can be so dull that many players are tempted to just sleep away the days which, ultimately, will wreck your farm. Slow gameplay aside it is actually genuinely enjoyable if you don’t mind the slow and steady approach and enjoy building up something from nothing.

The game is divided into chapters with different elements to keep things a bit more interesting as time goes on. The first chapter will include you starting your farm and finding yourself a woman to marry. There are four women who you have to get to know, woo and then marry at the end of the year. To enhance the relationship there are cutscenes with the girls which can be triggered at different times in different places. To check how much a girl likes you you can check their diary since rather than communicate using words they just draw the number of hearts which best describe their feelings. You also share the valley with a lot of residents other than the 4 bachelorettes and all of them can be befriended by giving them certain gifts, depending on what they like. There’s no actual way to tell what they like other than to use an online guide or to just keep trying and failing, a lot of this game is like that actually. In the second chapter you’ll have a toddler who can barely talk but who you can start influencing. This kid’s personality, skills and interests will vary depending on who you marry and also how you influence him or her. Your child will start out as a toddler and, as the years go by, will grow into a child, teenager and finally an adult. By the end of the game they’ll choose one career out of six, one of which is taking over your farm. Influencing your child into a career makes up a chunk of the later gameplay. This is an especially fun component of the game if you’ve always wanted to be that pushy parent who gets angry when their future-scholar toddler shows you their non-scholar related drawings. Gameplay also includes past-times that are related to money making or befriending people such as helping out at an archaeological dig, opening your own store, fishing, cooking, flower picking or some pointless mini-games like ‘milk drinking’ or ‘territory capture’.

Graphics and environments:

There’s no denying that the PS2 version has extremely muddy and unbearably bad graphics, there just isn’t. Everything is seamed, blurred and generally low quality. The villagers all have unique appearances however which makes them identifiable from just a glimpse across the valley. There are scenic areas in the game like Turtle Swamp where a turtle in a handkerchief wanders around or the Harvest Spring where an abominable snowman resides in winter, and weird fairy ‘sprites’ hide otherwise. Almost everything can be looked at and interacted with to some degree and in this version you get different outfits for every season. You’re restricted to one large area, the valley, and the border of it is kind of like a large hill with some half assed 2D trees floating around behind it. The ocean is also restricting you from exiting the other side of the valley but, considering, the valley is quite large with several different locations. It is though the sheer lack of interactive areas in the game that is rather unfortunate as most areas are fairly pointless and really just for show. Saying that, you will notice tiny little details that enhance the overall feel of the game like tiny little leaves falling from branches in the fall, an expanse of tightly knit together flowers that sway gently in the wind and the surprising details you'll find inside people's homes that reflect their business or personality.

The seasons are noticeably different and you’ll get snow in winter, scorching summers, wet autumns and mild springs and it makes a sincere difference to the way you run things; not only what you plant and harvest but also how you care for your animals. The surrounding scenery is particularly responsive to the seasons as trees turn from their summery forest green to shades of red, pink, orange and yellow in the autumn time before turning bare, cold and dead during the winter season. Someting else that this game does incredibly well is the rain; waking up in late autumn I could already hear it absolutely hammering it down outside my house and my first, panicked, thought was, the cow! The strength of the rain varies from light showers to complete downpours and when it's the latter you can barely see where you're going which, frankly, is incredibly accurate. The light levels also noticeably change depending on the time of day which is a nice addition and the sunsets and sunrises make good use of what graphical ability this game actually has. 

Music and audio:

The audio is surprisingly good with nice, hollow sounding rain when you’re inside and changeable music tracks. You can collect music discs by buying them and befriending villagers, there’s around 16 in total, and you can change the background music by putting a disc on your record player in your house. The music itself is different enough to be worth pursuing this goal of getting different records but until then you’ll probably grow sick of the same song and just turn the music player off. No characters speak in the game; it’s all done by text and the most sound you’ll get out of someone are squeaks, ‘hmm’s and laugh’s depending on what they’re saying. Every animal and action has a sound, whether that’s a plopping noise as a fish latches onto your bait or whether it’s a boinging noise as you jump over your cow pen’s fence. There’s nothing special going on in terms of audio, apart from the nice guitar playing that a couple of villagers engage in, but there’s nothing particularly wrong with the audio either. The fact that no characters actually speak is most likely intentional and, frankly, I don’t think I want to hear what some of the residents sound like so it’s probably for the best.

Playability:

Once you’re into the game you’ll likely find it very addictive and it will keep you occupied for, quite easily, longer than 40 hours playtime.  If building up something from nothing is your thing then you’ll be right at home with a harvest moon game and if you’re a perfectionist then I’m sure you’ll enjoy the challenge of making your efforts as efficient as possible. It’s admittedly a fairly cutesy game but no more than your average fantasy RPG, aside from all the chicken cuddling and cow nuzzling, and it’s not too cheesy and lovey dovey. In fact, half the characters in it are jerks until they’re friends with you. What’s unusual about this game is there’s a lot of ‘hidden mechanics’ in the way certain things work and it can be quite hard to break into as a newcomer. This is one of those games that will last with you for the years to come, through childhood to adulthood as you develop fond memories of this odd little game that keeps you entranced with its slow but thorough approach to entertainment. 

Overall – 8/10

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