Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG) for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

I've been a fool. Several times over the past couple years I've come close to buying this game. Each time, I went with something else at the last minute because, frankly, I haven't been interested in skating since I was about 9. Now I realize the error of my ways.

This game is, above all else, a whole lot of fun. Sure, it has some flaws, but most of them are pushed off to the periphery and don't detract from the core gameplay. You'll notice them here and there, but you'll be having so much fun in between that you won't care.

The story, while not ground-breaking, is deeper than I expected for this sort of game. The gist of it involves taking your create-a-skater (which has pretty decent depth, for the record) from No-Name New Jersey Punk to the Big Time. Along the way, you'll skate through a small handful of neighborhoods and cities all carefully constructed for maximum skatability. Just about everything you see can be incorporated into some ridiculously impressive tricks.

And the tricks, of course, are the meat here. The learning curve starts off slow enough that you can get the hang of things while still being challenged. And while you can ride one or two tricks through the first several levels, you'd do well to expand your bag of tricks early--you'll need them all later when the difficulty ramps up sharply. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't spent half an hour trying over and over again to land a certain trick to meet an objective, and there is a sense of frustration that sets in (especially late in the game). But when you finally land that combo you feel, for just a moment, that you really accomplished something.

The game really only misses in a few small ways. The off-the-board stuff is clumsy (the camera and controls while walking are terrible, and vehicles feel sluggish and unrealistic). Some challenges seem a little too demanding, and a few have frustratingly poor design for what you're asked to do.

Bottom line: Pure fun, even if you don't skate.