PS2 - TONY HAWK'S UNDERGROUND - PLAYSTATION 2

When it comes to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, there are some standards that have remained constant throughout the entire series. In the game's career mode, you picked a professional skater and went from level to level, completing goals that really didn't have much to do with being a professional skater. Year after year, the career mode got bigger and bigger, piling on more and more goals and slowly tying them into the pro skater's real-life career. Sure, starting with the second game in the series, you could create your own skater, but that was more of a secondary bonus than anything else, and the focus from year to year was on a series of new moves that kept the gameplay fresh and made the next installment in the series just as addictive as the last. This year, rather than focus on replacing the levels and adding new layers of depth to the gameplay, Activision and Neversoft have tried to turn the entire series upside down, taking the focus off of the skaters who are already professionals and instead putting the spotlight on an unknown skater and his quest for fame, which takes him from the mean streets of New Jersey to the heights of skateboarding stardom. While the classic Tony Hawk gameplay is present, and still fantastic after all this time, the new story mode doesn't make as dramatic of a change as it probably could have.