The single-player World Destruction Tour mode is a blast so far. The cutscenes and story I've witnessed so far are freaking awesome, featuring lots of whacky Jackass-like antics and humor. In fact, along with Bam you can expect to see Phil as Team Bam's hapless mascot, tiny Weeman, and also Steve-O (who rides a mechanical bull instead of a deck). Kicking off in Boston, Tony's team must pursue a huge laundry list of goals around the massive level -- in fact, these are the biggest levels seen so far in the THPS series -- which, thankfully, can now be tackled in any order. Freeform skating is the order of the day, it seems.

Goals include knocking the heads off of statues, setting your desk on fire, and lighting a couple of level-rending cannons and praying while painting your new totally customizable tags over ATMs. Each city in the game has one "level-changing event" which completely alters the geometry, opening up tons more skating lines and giving access to previously hidden areas. In Boston's case, this was achieved by those cannons I mentioned. There are other hidden areas, too, which might contain a "guest" skater. I found friggin' Benjamin Franklin hiding inside a high-rise office block fer chrissake! There's plenty of off-the-wall stuff to find and abuse here.