Then there's the option to get off your skateboard, climb buildings and even drive the odd car, but these feel aspects like they've been attached with an old stick of glue that's about as adhesive as baby oil. There's a new story mode, focusing on a hackneyed narrative strand in which the player's nameless character has to evade local drug dealers, find the best rail lines, meet pro skaters, and finance a skate demo video to impress a local shop owner into sponsoring him amongst other things (All the more comic when you combine it with the expansive range of character customisation options, and your skull-on-a-suited-body of a character still stands there delivering heartfelt dialogue), but for all its efforts it still sits on top of the roaming dynamic of THPS4 - with the player picking up missions from various non-player characters dotted around each level and, gasp, not having to complete them in any particular order! (And sometimes not at all.) Of course, Activision isn't lying exactly - THUG is a different game to its predecessor - but the thing is that most of the changes are very superficial. Then again, that's kind of how skateboards work.

THUG is no different, offering more customisation options, more game modes, more online options and more tricks whilst relying on the same core technology and gameplay and arguably moving further sideways than it does forwards.

Although Activision will tell you that Tony Hawk's Underground (or THUG) is more than just the fifth Tony Hawk title in as many years, these days Neversoft's extreme sports skating franchise operates on much the same terms as any other sports game - you get a new version every 12 months and it'll probably have enough gimmicks and marketing devices on top of last year's feature list to hook you in.

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