Tony Hawk's Underground - TV Tropes

"Music pow-pow-POWER."

Tony Hawk's Underground (commonly abbreviated as THUG) is a short series of two games that came between the classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games and the rest of the series. It was the first in the series to feature an actual story line, and introduced the ability to get off your board and jump all over shit.

The first THUG was released for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, and Game Boy Advance, and followed the player character as they rise to stardom with their childhood friend, Eric Sparrow, then have a bitter falling out after Eric starts becoming jealous as the player character starts to leave Sparrow in his dust, before Eric gets drunk and hijacks a tank. It's funny, but still quite a bit Darker and Edgier and action-oriented than the rest of the series. A Windows PC port also exists if you're in Australia or New Zealand.

The second game, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, takes place a year after Underground 1 and focuses on the World Destruction Tour, which is totally not similar to Jackass.^note  The celeb skaters (which are largely made up of people involved with Jackass) are divided into two teams and do dangerous and stupid stunts for points. The player character in this game takes a back seat to celebrity slapstick shenanigans as the tour takes him or her all across the world, to four continents in total.

This sub-series provides examples of:

• Acrofatic: Ben Franklin averts this by having extremely low stats even by the player's standards, but Shrek plays this straight by having maxed-out stats all around.
• The Alleged Car: One goal in the New York level of Underground has the player intentionally trashing an old car so its owner can use the insurance money to buy new shoes.
• All Germans Are Nazis: Averted with Berlin in the second game; instead, it opts for Oktoberfest. Given the game's proclivity for National Stereotypes, this depiction can be seen as either an attempt to keep things T-rated or a line being drawn at an outdated stereotype.
• All There in the Manual: The official BradyGames guide has an intro that states Underground 2 takes place one year after the first game, and confirms the protagonist being the same in both game. It also explains that them and the other pros are feeling burnout from the pro scene, which is why Tony and Bam create the World Destruction Tour.
• Ambiguously Bi: There are several instances in the first game where female NPCs will flirt with the female Player Character:
  • If the PC manages to impress the girls at the beach in Hawaii they will flirt with them by offering the male (as well as female) PC to rub lotion on their back.
  • In Moscow, if you impress the former circus performer-turned-actress with your tricks she flirts with the Player Character of either gender.
  • Later on when asked by another NPC if the PC is interested in Russian women they will answer positively even if they are female.
• Ascended Extra: Bam Margera was introduced to the franchise in Pro Skater 3, and only had a minor role in the THUG 1 story mode; in THUG 2, Bam is an integral part of the story mode (Which plays out like an episode of Viva La Bam) and is the only skater to join Tony Hawk on the cover art.
• Big Bad Friend: Eric, after the Hawaii level.
• Big Bad Slippage: Eric starts out as the protagonist's dimwitted yet loyal friend, but as the protagonist becomes more well-known, he grows jealous of their success and starts trying to undermine them, and eventually becomes the Final Boss of the first game.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: You can play as Bigfoot in Underground 2.
• Big Eater: Todd. When the player first meets him, he says he has to finish some hamburgers before he goes out to eat.
• Bilingual Bonus: In Underground 2, Paulie "Wheels of Fury" Ryan says this to a Spanish woman:
• Book Ends: The first and final levels of the first game is New Jersey, the protagonist returning to their humble beginnings after their world-trotting adventure through professional skating.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: When arriving in New Orleans in Underground 2, Tony says this:

  Another town, another party. And ain't no party bigger than Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Drunks, idiots, and drunk idiots.

• Bring My Brown Pants: In Underground 2, Eric Sparrow not only pisses himself, but crapped himself after Bam pulled the chainsaw away.
• Broken Bridge: In the first game, several levels in the story have sections locked off until you complete certain story missions. In particular, New Jersey blocks off the bridge with police cars and road dividers for the first two chapters until you escape the drug dealers in Chapter 3, then it takes another mission to access the train station.
• Brutish Bulls: The Barcelona level in 2 features a bull that the player has to save a bullfighter from. Once freed from its cage, the bull chases down a mime and causes mass destruction throughout the level, eventually ramming into a tower and somehow knocking it over.
• Butt-Monkey: Eric Sparrow, and to a lesser extent, Bob Burnquist in Underground 2. The same game also gives us Nigel Beaverhausen.
• Call-Back: The game features the return of competition stages from the first three Pro Skater games, where you have to place at least third within a set time limit while trying to get a good score from the judges. Most of them are optional missions, but there are also a few mandatory story competitions.
• Canon Name: Two of them actually. Odd since the player character is the same in both games. They are referred to as "Steve" in the Pre-Made skaters of Underground and "Chris" in Underground 2.
• Cats Are Mean: Skatopia from Underground 2 features a purple cat that will attack the player if they approach it at the top of the hill.
• Chainsaw Good: In Skatopia, Jesse James had a skateboard rigged with a chainsaw engine for you to use. A bigfoot comes from out of nowhere and steals it.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Eric Sparrow's primary characteristic in the first game.
• Company Cameo: Slam City Jam in the first Underground has various ads for real-life companies adorning the stadium, including one with the logo of Neversoft, the game's developers.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the player character's room in Underground, there's a poster of Daisy on the wall, a skater from Pro Skater 4. There's also a crude mockup version of her without her most memorable characteristic in the "Pre-Made Custom Skaters" section. A copy of the game can be seen briefly on the player's desk, in the cutscene following the character creation in Story Mode.
  • Ollie the Bum makes his final appearance in the series towards the beginning of Underground. He looks and sounds much less comedic and much more like a cracked-out homeless person. And he's no longer "Magic".
  • Eric Sparrow is one of the pro skaters on Bam's team in Underground 2, but he doesn't play a major role. He's treated as the Butt-Monkey throughout the game, with the player character and Sparrow switching teams for a level at one point. While the switch is in place, Hawk messages you saying that they need you back on the team because Sparrow just bailed and took out a brass band in the process (possibly killing the tuba player).
  • Like the first game, the player is chosen to trick over the helicopter in the New Orleans level. The BradyGames guide even references it.
• Continuity Snarl: Despite the fact that the story, for all intents and purposes, casts you as the same protagonist in both Underground games, no one even remotely acknowledges 1 in 2 even with Eric Sparrow still having it out for you specifically and people apparently forgetting your big trick reputation or Eric's crazy slip into petty assholery the first game culminated in. However, with how different the plots of the two games are and with no Old Save Bonus in sight, it makes sense that the devs may not have wanted to tether the whole World Destruction Tour down with baggage from the previous game.
• Crossover: 2 features Jesse James, Wee Man, Phil Margera and Steve-O from Jackass as members of Bam's skate crew and recurring players of the World Destruction Tour.
• Cutting the Knot: The alternate ending to 1 that you get for beating the game has the player punching out Eric and taking the tape rather than humoring his challenge.
• Darker and Edgier: The first game, at least compared to the Pro Skater games. While the Pro Skater games lacked any kind of story whatsoever, the first Underground has a fairly intricate plot with plenty of darker moments, be it having to save your friend from angry drug dealers intent on killing him, your character getting screwed over by just about everyone in the process of becoming a pro, or being stranded in Russia after said friend crashes a tank and blames you for it.
• Demoted to Extra: The player character in Underground 2. While they were the main focus of the first game, they take a backseat to Tony and Bam's antics in the second. They rarely speak in cutscenes and have almost no interaction with anyone including Eric, despite their rivalry having a major role in the plot of Underground.
• Denser and Wackier: The series themselves aren't too serious with their objectives and Funny Background Events but Underground 2 basically combines the Tony Hawk games with Jackass and a cartoon with the amount of destruction that seems infeasible in real life without hurting anyone and how many characters survive injuries that would kill or cripple them in real life. The graphics also became cartoonier, with bigger heads and more exaggerated facial expressions.
• Disaster Dominoes: The second game turns this trope into a gameplay mechanic. By performing a trick in a certain place, you can trigger a cutscene of a series of things getting broken, radically reshaping the level.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: One of the missions in the first section of Tampa in THUG 1 has a cop tasking you with grabbing donuts for him and the other officers. Additionally, the police cars in this level have bumper stickers reading "T.R.Y. to eat many donuts".
• Ephebophile: In Moscow, if the Player Character manages to impress an actress with their tricks, she will suggestively flirt with the PC... even if the PC is 16 years old and is still a minor.
• Establishing Character Moment: Eric seems like a normal, if slightly douchey, friend after being introduced to him, but the first sign he's bad news is that he torched the drug dealer's car.^note  Though "accidentally" forgetting to register you for Tampa AM (and his fuming in anger after you win it) showed how much of a backstabber he'll become.
• Face–Heel Turn: Eric Sparrow at the end of the story.
• Fat Bastard: Todd, the manager of your team from the first game. A sleazeball who was willing to let you rot in Russia to evade paying $700,000 in damages from a stunt Eric framed you for.
• Flanderization: Bam Margera is, well... Bam Margera, just turned up to eleven.

  Bam: Tanks. Oh, tanks. Look at these tanks. [Later] It's so good, we can't go skating now, look at these tanks.

  • My God, Eric Sparrow. In THUG 1 he's an effective, compelling antagonist, and just a really good character, which ain't bad for him being the series' first villain. In the first game, he's your jealous best friend-turned-rival. By THUG 2, he's reduced to just an idiotic jackass, no pun intended.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The very first mission has the player helping Eric regather his stuff after he ran afoul with the drug dealers, even offering to hold your board. This hints at how he ultimately leaves all the hard work to you, while he coasts off you and takes credit for your accomplishments later on down the line.
  • A lot of the pro skaters are oddly humble despite being millionaire celebrities. The very wealthy Chad Muska is who encourages you to seek out a professional career and Mike Vallely is first encountered casually soul-skating around the player's run-down neighborhood in the first level. Much of this is to show how the player would eventually find the pro skater life daunting and want to go back to basics with skating, which many pros, including Vallely himself, would agree with him on in the final level.
• Fun with Acronyms: THUG. Followed by the perplexing THAW with American Wasteland.
• Funny Foreigner: Nigel Beaverhausen, a British video producer that hounds you in the second game.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Underground 2 Remix is one of several early PSP games affected by an issue where the game will refuse to create any save data on a memory stick that has more than 2GBs of storage. Can be worked around either by either downloading another save file onto the PSP or installing homebrew that can fix the bug.
• The Ghost: One recurring mission in Underground 2 is to spray your own tag over that of someone who leaves their own marked "Spat". Even after the game's storyline ends, we never even get a hint of just who was behind the Spat tags, or how they were seemingly able to stay one step ahead of the World Destruction Tour (since it seems awfully convenient that the tagger happened to hit all the same cities).
• Gimmick Level: Both games have a bonus level only accessible by completing the main story mode:
  • Underground has Hotter Than Hell, which is essentially a KISS concert where you have to collect the four KISS letters to summon the band members to the stage. It also prominently features a dune buggy course to drive around on, which takes up the majority of the outside area of the level.
  • Underground 2 has Pro Skater, a three-part level with three fantasy-based themes and a storyline. You start off in an alien base, then progress to an Aztec temple, before ending up in Hell, where you can open up a gateway to the devil's office and eventually dance with the devil himself.
• Green Hill Zone: New Jersey in the first game and the remake of Warehouse in Underground 2.
• Groin Attack:
  • At the end of the Boston level, Hawk's team have to lose a guy by having the team play Russian Roulette with a tennis ball launcher at crotch level. Bob Burnquist was the unlucky victim.
  • It's also possible for certain grinds to end this way if you're on a rail and you lose your balance.
• Guest Fighter:
  • Underground features Iron Man, Gene Simmons, and a T.H.U.D.
  • Underground 2 features Jesse James, Wee Man, Phil Margera, Steve-O, Shrek, and a C.O.D. Soldier.
• Guest-Star Party Member: In Underground 2, each leg of story mode divides the list of goals according to four playable characters. Besides your own skater, you have:
  • The pro assigned to your team, which you can choose from: Bob Burnquist^note , Rodney Mullen, Chad Muska and Mike Vallely. Berlin and Skatopia are the exceptions as Bam^note  and Tony fill in for each level respectively.
  • A "guest" skater themed after the level. For example, Boston has a Ben Franklin impersonator, Barcelona has a matador, Australia has a shrimp vendor, etc.
  • A "secret" character who has their own unique vehicle as opposed to a skateboard, like Steve-O on a mechanical bull. They each have their own unique movesets and can accomplish tasks the others ordinarily can't, but cannot move on foot.
• Guide Dang It!: The Rail and Manual skill points that aren't just holding a grind/manual for a given amount of time involve performing esoteric tricks such as Lipslide, Darkslide, Casper, and Half Cab Impossible, and the game isn't in a particular hurry to actually tell you how to do them.
• Handicapped Badass: Paulie "Wheels of Fury" Ryan, who, despite being in a wheelchair and having casts all over most of his body, is still willing to kick and insult the player character and can pull his weight for Team Bam. He's also an unlockable skater, and still wears his casts when you play as him!
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The dialogue in the first THUG is cleverly written to avoid using the character's name but still seem fluid. In the second game, the player character is so unimportant to the story it doesn't really come up.
• Human Traffickers: The Russia level in the first game has a mission where the player has to drive several Russian women to a man (supposedly hosting a private party) in exchange for money for a plane ticket home. It's all but stated that the women are being trafficked, but the player remains oblivious to this.
• Idiot Ball: Eric keeps screwing the player character over at every single opportunity, yet the player character keeps forgiving him and asking him for help. It isn't until Eric frames the player character for grand theft tank and massive property damage, leaving him stranded in Moscow without a passport that they finally take the hint.
• Interface Spoiler: Underground 2 has three:
  • The intro features random cutscenes from the game, including Bob Burnquist being kicked off of Team Hawk.
  • The main menu is on the "Wheel of Loogies", which won't be introduced until the end of the first chapter.
  • The credits video can be accessed at any time, but it features spoilers about the plot and objectives.
• Intimate Lotion Application: If the Player Character impresses the girls at the beach in the Hawaii level, they will flirt with them by offering the PC to rub lotion on their back.
• In-Universe Game Clock: A feature that was advertised in the first game's marketing. In-game however, the time of the day was tied to story progression (usually changing after certain missions or each chapter) and the player could set the time of day in Free Skate. THUG2 would have a proper internal game clock where time passed as you played, which reappeared in THAW.
• Invisible Parents: In the first game. While it is implied that your character and Eric are young enough to still be living with your parents and they are mentioned once in the game, you never actually see them.
• It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: New Orleans in the second game.
• Jerkass:
  • Eric in the original Underground. Supposedly your character's closest friend and skating buddy who steals their chance at glory when the opportunity arises and remains a persistent thorn in your character's side for the rest of the game.
  • Paulie from Underground 2 isn't too likable either, being the most ill-tempered member of the tour and taking every opportunity to act like a jerk to anyone nearby.
• Joke Character: Averting Acrofatic, Ben Franklin in Underground 2 has horribly low stats well below what the player character has by that point.
• Karma Houdini: Eric in the first game, who after several attempts to get the player kicked off the team, finally succeeds in the Russian level when he runs off after drunkenly driving a tank and leaving the player locked in it to take the blame. He continues on gaining fame and money while the player has to work his way back home after being abandoned by the skate team. Granted, the player recovers from this and goes on to make a successful series of skating videos and even punches out Eric on the second playthrough instead of taking the final challenge. But he never really does pay for the tank incident by the end.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After being a Karma Houdini for most of the first game, the second game fixes this by including Eric Sparrow on the losing side of the tour (even when he's temporarily swapped with the player to Team Hawk) and constantly getting humiliated until he's eventually shipped off when it was time to out one of the skaters. Judging by his treatment from both fellow skaters and fans, his pro skating career is now a complete joke.
• Last Lousy Point:
  • On Sick mode in the first game, the fourth Grind stat point is to hold a single grind for 25 seconds straight. This is frankly hopeless before you get to 9/10 Grind, and even then is an incredibly tall order after the fact.
  • While the same point is trivialized in the second game thanks to the introduction of Focus, its place gets taken by the fifth Flip point, which calls for 50 flip tricks in a single combo. Spamming flips, reverts, and run outs in a half-pipe won't cut it here, as you'll run out of air and time on those. The only hope you have is to make up the difference by getting the last few tricks by doing a manual, jumping and doing one flip, then falling right back into a manual and repeating until it's done, for which going into Focus is basically mandatory.
• Lighter and Softer: The second game is considerably lighter and more comedic than the first game. While the first game told the tale of two friends' friendship gradually falling apart as they took different paths to becoming pros, the second game is basically a feature-length episode of Jackass.
• List of Transgressions: In the sequel, the bill for all the damages caused by the World Destruction Tour. ^note