We sat down with the good folks at Neversoft to discuss how the series has evolved, and what the game promises to deliver in its form. Neversoft President Joel Jewett spoke to us, answering questions about the team's "scientific" game processes, the state of the series, Neversoft's reasoning for skipping Xbox Live, and why he just kill us...
IGN: Many developers with a hit as good and as popular as the Tony Hawk series could easily add too much to ruin it. How do you keep from ruining Tony Hawk each year? What principles guide you in your design and production processes that keep you on track?
Joel Jewett: Every year we put as much into the game as we can, ship it, then we get worried about what to do for the next year. We brainstorm and try to come up with a new spin, then narrow that down to what sounds like the most fun theme to work toward. We then hit the ground running and start working on all the features we thought of during the last year that we did not have time to implement. Pretty damn scientific don't you think?
IGN: So what did you learn from Tony Hawk's Underground, especially about telling a story?
Joel: Stories are a lot of work, but ultimately they are a lot of fun to tell and they really let you do more with whatever content you are working with. I think it has really set us up to work well with the skate culture from many different angles going forward.
IGN: What's up with Bam Margera? Is he now as popular as Tony Hawk? What kinds of insights does he bring to the game? What kinds of comments did he and Tony make to improve it?
Joel: Bam personifies a segment of the skate culture that crosses over into the overall youth culture. He is all about getting crazy and having fun. Since we told a more serious story last year, we thought THUG2 needed to be more fun and to get a little bit crazy too. Both Bam and Tony came into the Neversoft offices to help us out with bringing their game characters to life.
IGN: Hm..OK..How has the destruction aspect added to the story and overall experience of playing Tony Hawk? Does it drastically change level design, and how? Please give us a few examples, and please, don't use Boston!
Joel: Here's the simple answer, the destruction adds more interactivity and it just gives the player more fun things to do in the videogame.
IGN: OK, so this game takes place all over the world. We've got Spain and the US, among other countries in THUG 2. Did your team visit these areas and find excellent spots to skate? Which ones were most interesting, bizarre, or surprising? And why?
Joel: We always send our teams to the locations to gather reference materials and to get a better feel for the culture of the area. Our designers are always looking for cool spots to skate. The theme of THUG 2 is the World Destruction Tour and I can guarantee you there will be some bizarre action going on in all the levels, but you have to play the game to check it out.
IGN: Xbox Live is very popular. It's constantly growing and upgrading, and in terms of online services, it's top quality. You've had the Tony Hawk series on PlayStation 2 for three games now (since Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3), since 2001. Why isn't Tony Hawk's Underground 2 on Xbox Live? From the outside, it looks as if Neversoft and Activision are punishing Xbox users, or at the very least, refusing to give Xbox owners their due respect. Why isn't THUG 2 on Xbox Live?
Joel: We led the way with online console gaming on the PS2 and that feature set has grown every year. It is not something we cannot continue to support. It is a question of how and where we apply resources, and at this point we have to support that which we have already invested so much time into previously. With that said, we are certainly not trying to punish anyone, and we very much respect Xbox owners. In fact, I play the game on the Xbox at my house all of the time.
IGN: In THPS2, Neversoft gave us the manual, followed in successive games new moves such as the revert, the spine transfer, and the off-the-board maneuver. What significant new move or moves evolve the series in THUG 2? Is it the wall plant?
Joel: This year we changed the wall plant to the sticker plant to make it more rewarding. Since it was ready to go at the beginning stages of developing the levels, there are a lot more lines you can find where it is really useful. For example, you can now grind a rail, gap off of it into a wall, sticker plant off the wall onto the rail and continue back in the direction you game from, which is a totally fun way to use it. Additionally, there are a lot more subtle changes to make the controls better, more new tricks, and the fact that you can work graffiti into a combo makes the controls more expansive than ever before. We have also added the Natas spin, the slow-mo focus control, and the tantrums that can all be used in your combos.
IGN: Can you import your former create-a-skater from THUG 1 to THUG 2? If not, why not?
Joel: We decided to change and upgrade so many things in our codebase this year, that a THUG create-a-skater will not work in THUG2. With that said you can still upload a digital photo of your face to us, and then download it and map it to your THUG2 create-a-skater using our exclusive face mapping technology. You can send last year's photo or a new one to faces@thug2online.com. Additionally, on the PS2, players can now use the Sony EyeToy to map their face and create a customized skater instantly.
IGN: I've heard Activision executives speak using interesting terms about the Tony Hawk Underground series. Is the Tony Hawk Underground "series" an off-shoot from the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater "series"? Are they separate? The same? Are they two different series, with THUG being an off-shoot from the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series?
Joel: To me they are two different series. Both series are based on skateboarding, the culture surrounding it, and a definitive underlying play mechanic. The Underground series is different however in that we are now creating story-based adventures within the skate world for the player to experience. This quite frankly is a much bigger undertaking than making one of the games from the Pro Skater series. This year the team outdid itself by bringing back classic gameplay elements of the Pro Skater series (two minute time limit and similar goal format) and incorporating that into a completely separate mode within THUG2. We call it Classic Mode, and it even allows you to play through the levels (including some old-school levels from previous games) in a totally different level progression than in Story Mode. This allows us to ramp the game differently in Classic Mode. THUG2 is really a huge game.
IGN: What have you done to improve the loony car physics from THUG? Or how have you changed and altered the driving aspect introduced in THUG?
Joel: Those were not loony car physics. They were the best damn physics we could come up with when you try to stick a car into a level that needed to skate like a Tony Hawk level. This year we took a totally different approach and we used vehicles that fit better into the environment and are more fun to play, like a super-charged Jesse James-style scooter.
IGN: There were at least 17 skaters in THUG. How many are in THUG 2, and who are they? Who's back and who's new? Are there still female skaters? Also, you've added a lot more non-skater type characters, such as Steve-O and, eh-hem, Ben Franklin. Who else is here that we should be on the lookout for?
Joel: Let's just say there are a lot more characters in this game than in any previous Tony Hawk title and they definitely go off in some strange directions. Like I said before, if you go on a World Destruction Tour, you're bound to run into some bizarre stuff.
IGN: In Tony Hawk's Underground, you added difficulty levels, four to be exact. But some folks thought that Tony Hawk's Underground was too easy or Medium or Hard (I think it was called Sick) mode. What do you think? Was it too easy? How do you plan on balancing Tony Hawk's Underground 2?
Joel: Difficulty modes are a great thing for our games in that they make the game much more accessible to our audience. At this point, we have to expect people of any skill-level to be able to pick up and play our game. We focus test our games throughout development, so we get to see players of all skill-levels play the game, and we do our balancing based on that testing. Additionally, we have a couple guys on staff here, Andy Gentile (also known as AndyTHPS) and Kurt Gutierrez who pretty much play the game exclusively on sick mode so for THUG2, we've made sure they don't think the game is too easy.
IGN: What's your other, non-Tony Hawk game about? We heard it's a Western first-person shooter. What's it like?? Tell us tell us!!!!
Joel: I can't tell you that or I'd have to shoot ya...
