THUG is not at all what you'd expect.  It could very well be considered a side-story to the Tony Hawk series.  Just incase you haven't heard, I'll briefly bring you up to speed: THUG does not star Tony Hawk; it stars you.  Average Joes and plain Janes are in place of the pro skaters we know and love, for what reason I'm not quite sure.  You can play as Tony Hawk and other pro skaters, but that aspect is downplayed a bit.

Truthfully I don't really care who I'm playing as.  The secret characters are always great, but when I'm struggling to complete a huge combo, land into a grind and finish with a special, I'm not thinking about the aesthetics.  The moves differ to some degree, but the characters are mostly the same.

Neversoft's mission to improve the controls in every Tony Hawk game continues with THUG.  It's much easier to grind and to hold a grind for a long period of time.  The grind balance is a little more solid, giving players the chance to take further advantage of it.  Hawk masters may not consider this to be all that important – some might even consider it to be a downgrade in terms of the challenge.  But the game is still challenging.  You won't be spending all your time collecting the letters to spell "SKATE," nor will you performing the same actions over and over again.  Not that you did that before, but Neversoft has been trying hard to stop the yearly installments of the Tony Hawk series from becoming mere upgrades.  They want each to be full-fledged sequels.  That's great, but there should be a limit to how much diversity a game has.

THUG diverts from the extreme sports path by trying to include a little bit of everything.  The developers seem to have caught the Grand Theft Auto bug that's been going around lately.  Expect to be baffled by some of the new gameplay mechanics, including walking and climbing.  Even more baffling are the objectives that you must complete using these new mechanics.  With a tiny amount of stealth you'll have to re-claim stolen goods.  Or – you're never going to believe this one – get in a car and drive around in circles.  This isn't why I play Tony Hawk games (to drive around circles), but if it were fun, I'd say bring it on.  This isn't a big part of the game though.  Some of the worst objectives can be skipped, or temporarily avoided while you take on other, more entertaining tasks. 

Gamers, let's play a game called Praise Predictions.  You remember how great Tony Hawk 3 was, and how the following game was even better, right?  The courses were much more expansive and featured improved level interaction (better placement of ramps, pipes, etc.), keeping players entertained for weeks at a time.  Now let's see if you can guess what I'm going to say about Tony Hawk's Underground.  It feels weird to be giving similar praise to another Tony Hawk game, but as long as Neversoft continues to improve the courses that can't be helped.  THUG's courses are the biggest yet.  They're very urban – expect to see lots of houses and other neighborhood content.  (Try jumping from the roof of one house to the other!)  The visual field is nearly perfect, giving you the illusion that the world goes on forever.  Sadly it doesn't, but any time you step out of bounds the game will automatically take you back to where you belong.

The upgraded Create-A-Park feature is going to be cherished by aspiring level designers.  The Xbox hard drive takes away all memory worries, so the only restrictions are the ones created by the developers.  THUG's empty course space is larger than in the last game, and there are many more pools, trees, rails and ramps to choose from.  The controls feel a little odd in player-created courses since you can't control the camera, but other than that my only gripe is that the empty course space does not go into infinity.  Having that would be impractical, but a guy can dream, right?

Gameplay: 8.6
Tony Hawk's Underground is a bold new direction for the series.  The story mode is Neversoft's answer to Grand Theft Auto but with mixed results.  The core gameplay elements, both improved and unchanged, are pure joy.  You'll not be able to get enough of them!  The controls are as perfect as possible, making the whole experience even more enjoyable.

Some of the objectives (like dog-riding – grab onto a dog and don't let go until he's had enough exercise) seem out of place.  If they occurred more frequently and were forced on the player (meaning that none could be skipped), it would have crippled the entire game.

Create-A-Deck, Create-A-Goal, Create-A-Park, and Create-A-Skater give gamers the chance to do just what the title says.  In Create-A-Deck, you get to design the graphics for your board.  In Create-A-Goal, you get to make your own goals and challenges.  This won't give you the options that a game developer has, but it is pretty extensive, and is perfect for anyone who loves to tweak their games.

Graphics: 9.2
Two words: stellar backgrounds.  You're going to see the environments more than anything else, so the artists fought hard to make that the most beautiful part of the game.  You'll be amazed at how far you can see into the distance.  Leaf-covered trees, reflective windows, detailed brick on the sides of houses, etc, etc.!!  There's a distinct, realistic difference between surfaces (like grass or cement).  Very nicely done.

What you won't be amazed by is the new characters.  The pro skaters look alright, but if the local "skate punks" were any uglier, you'd need to cover their faces with paper bags.  You don't see their faces much outside of the character select screen though, indicating why they're so hideous.

Sound: 7
Semi-decent no-name music from a large collection of virtually unknown artists.  You'll see a couple of familiar one-hit-wonders, but they add little to the entertainment value of the sound.  You may wonder why a high-profile game like this doesn't have high-profile artists.  It may be because the Xbox version allows players to listen to their homemade soundtracks.

Difficulty: Medium
Not a Tony Hawk master yet?  Not a problem.  THUG includes several difficulty levels designed to match the skills of most gamers.

Concept: 8
Great new courses, strange new objectives.  I'm not sure where the inspiration for "walking" in an extreme sports game came from.  That'd be like having Sonic use a wheelchair instead of his running shoes.  The skate-to-walk transition works well for the necessary combo situations.  Other than that it's pretty useless.

Multiplayer: 8
Two players can go "underground" on one screen.  If you have eight Xboxes and eight TVs lying around (and who doesn't?), you can invite your friends over for a massively multiplayer offline experience.

Overall: 8.5
Five years later and still going strong, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series is continuous in control and gameplay improvements.  The new urban courses are excellent.  You can launch yourself off the roof of a house, land on a wire and grind till you reach another house.  The combo variations are limitless.  Tony Hawk novices will be happily overwhelmed, while Tony Hawk masters will enjoy taking the game even further.  It has its flaws, but they’re worth overlooking to experience the joy that the rest of the game provides.