This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

Quick! A new portable system is coming out, what’re you gonna do? Port the games you made last year and add a few features so you can get away with not calling it a port. Congratulations, you’ve just qualified for a job in the gaming industry.

Well, today’s new portable system is the PlayStation Portable, and last year’s game that Activision decided to port.. err.. “remix” as Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (or THUG2 if you’re a hip, young gaming journalist). As is customary with ports, the basic game here is exactly as it was on the consoles (skate around, hit things) and adds a few new features (four new areas, wireless multiplayer). It’s almost like a brand new game, except that it isn’t at all.



I need to preface this review by stating that I do not understand these games at all. Every iteration of the interactive Tony Hawk experience has been lost on me. I barely understand skateboarding itself (jump off things, grind on things, scrape knees and wear pants low), but these games just don’t work for me. That stated, I’m trying to judge this game on its merits as an interactive piece of software and not a dip into whatever social piety this type of game caters to.

The game itself is both straightforward and varied. It offers a handful of different play modes, the highlight of course being the Story mode, which pits you on a team of skaters, Tony Hawk and some less popular, more “extreme” analogs. Your team (“Team Hawk”) is tasked with the dubious mission of riding on a specialized wooden board with four wheels, through multiple locales across the globe.

Along with the Story mode a few simpler modes abound. One addition to the PSP version is a four-player wireless multiplayer mode, which is really just a high score competition; a Classic mode, which is just like older (pre-Underground) Tony Hawk games; and a “HORSE” game meant for multiple players to use the same PSP - players all take turns trying to match or beat the previous guy’s score in a short amount of time.

As a launch title for a new system, THUG 2 Remix needs to demonstrate the capabilities of the PSP as best it could. For the most part, Activision has succeeded. Graphically, the game looks almost identical to the PlayStation 2; textures have lost a bit of their definition, and there are some annoying camera and clipping problems, but for a game that was effectively shoved off the assembly line we can spare a few points for effort.

The soundtrack carries over nicely as well, though there aren’t as many in-game voiceovers as in the console versions.

Starting with a bit of social commentary, it annoys me how transparent this game is. Ooh, I get bonus points for breaking stuff! Hardcore! I can collect tomatoes and throw them at random people! SPLAT! This kind of stuff isn’t fun or interesting, and it’s obviously just included to make the impressionable teens playing this game think they are really as “extreme” as breakfast cereal and portable yogurt commercials elude them to be. I’m getting sick of the pandering, personally.

Beyond that poignant look into our social consciousness, the game has some actual flaws as well.

As I touched on before, the graphics are prone to glitches. The camera likes to bust outside of a level’s four walls and hover in that sky-blue netherland that every videogame is suspended in and all bad camera systems love to flee to. Characters occasionally move right through walls, or get stuck between two walls, hopping about and unable to escape.

The thing that irritated me the most, however, was the controls. When you’re on the skateboard, you can only control direction with the D-Pad while the analog stick is reserved for clumsily tossing the camera about. However, when you’re moving around on foot, you are allowed to use the analog stick to move about. Because of this, I often forgot to move from the analog to the digital controls when hopping on the board, so my character would roll around aimlessly while I defiantly pushed around the camera and wondered why I couldn’t use the analog stick for the precise movements of skating tricks. Not only that, but the controls are just altogether unresponsive and frustrating. It seemed like I had to hit the same button four times before it would do anything, and whether or not a perfectly-performed trick would award you points (even when landed perfectly) was up to the gods of chance.

The whole game just seems to be running on autopilot. It has no purpose, as far as I can tell. Why do they need to stitch such a ridiculous story onto such a simple premise? It’s not necessary, and it just wastes time. If you’re a fan of skateboarding games, I can understand the interest in a game like this, but by attempting to pass it off as a combination of a skateboarding game, an adventure game, and season one of Jackass, the game shoots itself in the foot. If you want skating, play this game. If you don’t, stay away. It’s all so obvious.

I can’t say I’m a fan of ATV racing or snowboarding, but I can get into games like ATV Offroad Fury or SSX because they’re good games and they don’t expect that you know all the lingo already. Tony Hawk’s Underground 2: Remix is not for novices.



If you own a PSP, you like skateboarding, you couldn’t get enough of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 on the consoles, and you didn’t go broke buying yourself that PSP, this game is for you. If you’re just looking for another game for your brand new, beautiful PlayStation Portable, look elsewhere.

As a skateboarding game, THUG2:Remix works well enough. Don’t expect anything more.

A good time if you know what you’re doing. If not you’ll be lost and bored.

A rather seamless transition from the console world, but the camera and clipping are buggy.

There are lots of licensed music I’ve never heard of before, but a lot of VO work had to be cut

Again, it depends on what you like. I had very little fun here, but a fan might be stoked.

An abundance of modes and unlockables should give fans plenty to do.