Tony Hawk's Underground 2

Tony Hawk's Underground 2 followed up on the successful first game and pushed the series even further away from pure sports simulation toward story-driven, arcade-style fun. Together with his buddy Bam Margera, the player travels through a series of cities on the fictional World Destruction Tour, completing not just classic skateboarding challenges but also funny, often absurd tasks off the board – from demolishing other people's vehicles through graffiti to all sorts of pranks in the style of skater subculture. The game keeps the proven combo system and tricks from previous entries while adding new manuals, reverts, and the option to play as a character without a board.

On PlayStation 2, the game ran smoothly and offered more sprawling, open levels than earlier entries, heightening the sense of free city exploration. The soundtrack, combining punk, hip-hop, and rock, remained one of the main drivers of the atmosphere and, together with the boisterous, teasing humor, rounded out the series' unmistakable tone. The graphical presentation of characters and environments was clean and clear for its time, though the engine was already starting to show its age compared to rival sports titles.

The game also introduced the World Destruction Tour mode with a competing team of players against computer opponents and added an editor for custom tricks and levels, extending the game's lifespan even after finishing the main campaign.

Underground 2 was received at launch as an entertaining, if somewhat less balanced, sequel than the first game – some players appreciated the exaggeration, humor, and new game modes, while others missed the more serious tone and more elaborate story of the previous entries in the series. Today the game works mainly as a nostalgic memory of the peak popularity of skateboarding games in the mid-decade and of the era when the Tony Hawk series still defined the arcade sports genre, before it was replaced a few years later by more realistic simulations like Skate.

Why play it: For nostalgics remembering the peak popularity of skateboarding arcades in the mid-decade – Underground 2 bets on exaggeration, humor, and new game modes, even at the expense of the more serious tone and more elaborate story of the first game.