In the last six years, Activision and Neversoft have repeatedly proven themselves to be one of the best pairings since chocolate and peanut butter. The companies' series of games starring skateboarding legend Tony Hawk has broken new ground on just about every platform under the sun. However, after four entries in the Pro Skater series, Neversoft opted to shake things up with Tony Hawk's Underground, a story-oriented spin on the action that built on the solid mechanics honed in the previous entries. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 continues Neversoft's experimentation with the franchise, offering a meaty new adventure and an assortment of new modes and features that build on the original Underground.

Grind the world as Ben Franklin this fall in Tony Hawk's Underground 2.

For its next installment in the THUG series, Neversoft appears to be taking the "kitchen sink" approach and packing the game with a wealth of unlockable goods. The main meat of the game will once again be the story mode, which sends you on a skating adventure with Mr. Hawk. The narrative picks up shortly after your victory at the end of the original THUG and finds you basking in skating glory in the wilds of New Jersey. Unfortunately, you don't get much time to bask, thanks to a good-natured kidnapping at the hands of Bam Margera and Tony himself. It seems that the pair is looking to compete in a world destruction tour with teams composed of some of the best skaters around. Your recently cemented prowess makes you the perfect candidate, which is why you find yourself on Tony's team. The competition sends you and your group on a whirlwind tour of the globe, with stops at some key skating locales. As you'd expect, you and the gang will be doing more than your fair share of skating and destroying as you travel the world.

You'll find that story mode has been tweaked a bit to be friendlier to players who need to ease into pulling off the mega combos that are required for victory in the game. The mode's structure has been tweaked to cough up unlockables pretty regularly, offering you rewards in a trail-of-bread-crumbs fashion. Rather than requiring you to rack up boatloads of points, the game will now let you earn new playable characters simply by finding them. Each level in the game will feature roughly two characters hidden somewhere in the map. Once you find them, you'll be able to use them in any of the game's modes. The roster of character includes familiar pros from the previous games, such as Chad Muska, along with some nonskating folk as well. Yes, kids, this is likely the only game on the planet where you'll have to choose between Ben Franklin and Jesse James when going on a run. The twist to these special characters is that each will have his or her own signature moves, and one will even come packing a vehicle. For this year's entry in the series, Neversoft has tweaked the vehicles to allow them to be used in the same places as the skaters on every level.

THUG2's levels will feature an open-ended structure that lends itself to a more free-form experience. At the start of each level, you'll be given a brief fly-through of key spots that highlight where you should go and what you should do. Your goals will be a scavenger-hunt-style array of tasks ranging from skating challenges to more over-the-top challenges like finding a way to tag a massive billboard that's placed high up in the level. As you complete your goals, your score will go toward the team total. The open-ended goal system means all goals will be active from the start, which in turn means that you'll find yourself naturally completing some of them as you make your way around the level. From the sound of it, there should be roughly 24 goals per level. While you won't have to initiate any of them by talking to pedestrians, you'll still see them milling about and offering tips or hints on your tasks. The hidden characters you encounter will often add to your list of goals with unique challenges that you'll have to get through. While you'll often be able to tackle those challenges with your own character, some will require you to use a specific character. If you're ever unclear on a goal, you'll be able to call up an in-game objective list to get your bearings.

New to the mix of modes this year is classic mode, a retro bit of gaming that uses the time-based and score-oriented structure from the Pro Skater games. However, rather than just offer a bit of nostalgia for longtime fans using the new graphics, THUG2 provides a proper skating experience along the lines of the old game. You'll skate and trick across a mix of levels that includes those seen in the story mode, as well as six old-school levels taken from the four Pro Skater games. Each level will feature 10 goals and the same structure as the old classics, which is a nice touch.

The story mode will be driven by humorous cutscenes, complete with celebrity voice actors.

The last mode that will be sucking up your time in THUG2 will be the game's multiplayer mode, which will once again offer up online play for those with PlayStation 2 network adapters. We had a chance to try out two new games being added to the mix, elimiskate and scavenger hunt, which were fun additions to the already solid assortment of modes. Elimiskate is a scoring challenge that periodically cuts out the skater with the lowest score until only one skater remains. Scavenger hunt is an interesting mode that plays out in two parts. The first part will task you and your opponents with laying down five color-coded coins. You can put the coins down anywhere you like by pressing down and the relevant button. Once everyone has dropped their coins, the second part of the mode kicks in: a race to collect the most coins. This fast-paced mode is fun and easy to pick up, though it isn't as simple as it sounds. You may initially think it's a good idea to drop all five of your coins in one spot so you can quickly collect them when the second phase starts, but it's not quite that easy. When the second phase begins, all skaters are randomly sent to different parts of the level, meaning one of your opponents may end up sailing through your precious clump of coins, leaving you high and dry.