Tony Hawk's name is synonymous with his sport of Skateboarding. Much like Michael Jordan in basketball and Babe Ruth in baseball, he is often mentioned in the same breath as the sport. He has done a great deal to increase the awareness and popularity of the sport and, with thanks to the Tony Hawk Skateboarder game series and the latest, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, is available on multiple and extremely varied platforms including mobile phones. Tony Hawk can now be, literally, everywhere.
The mobile version of the game follows the same loose story as the other platforms. Tony Hawk has recruited you and Bam Magera to join the World Destruction Tour - a no holds barred underground skateboarding contest held in numerous cities around the world. The story merely serves as a backdrop to indicate why you are in certain different themed cities, such as Berlin or Boston, and the focus of the game is, as always, on the gameplay.
The game is side-scrolling action title where you control your skateboarder and are given certain tasks to perform. You have one main task to accomplish in each city, with a number of optional tasks to perform which merely serve to increase your score. Once this primary task is accomplish, you can then move on to the next city. At this point, you will be connected to your provider and will download the new city location, as only one location is stored on the mobile at a time. I understand that this is due to memory requirements on the phone and while it can be frustrating when you want to switch from city to city, the time required to download each location is thankfully very short which helps to minimize the annoyance as much as possible. Once each location is cleared, you can then choose to replay the area at any time and attempt to beat your score, or perhaps to complete all the side goals. These side goals tend to be the same from location to location and usually involve finding all of a certain item, or items, on the level.
The tutorial system does a great job of slowly introducing you to the different tricks you can perform as well how to perform them, allowing even a newcomer to the sport to learn what a "grind" or a "manual" is. The X and X keys are used to perform the different tricks while the 5 is used to jump, or "ollie". Movement, as may be expected on the mobile platform, are fairly straightforward. The 2, 4, 6 and 8 keys control the movement while the 0 will cause your skater to stop completely. Your skater is essentially on a horizontal track and each time you press up or down, you will jump to the adjacent track. This works quite well in adding a sense of depth and perspective, but can take a frustratingly long time to go from the top to the bottom while your skater is constantly moving sideways.
The graphics do a serviceable job at depicting the locations they are suppose to represent but the different items you can perform tricks off of, such as ramps and railings, are repeated frequently which can make some of the locations seem very similar. The soundtrack, however, goes a long way to prevent this as each location has a very unique music track accompanying it.
This is a fun little game, but there is not a great deal of depth to it. I found myself rather bored after having accomplished the same tasks repeatedly in each location. While fun the first time through, the replay factor didn't appear to be there. While I can see myself having fun from time to time attempting the different goals, I don't see myself playing this on a regular basis. It's good as a one-month subscription for that long trip, but at present, doesn't have the legs to hold your attention beyond that.
I've been playing games ever since I was a wee lad. My favorite games as a child were the classic Pitfall and a game called SNAFU, which was a sort of puzzle game along the lines of Tron Light Cycles. I've had most of the major console systems since the early days and have a wide range of tastes of games and I'm always eager to give a new one a try.
