Santa Cruz came complete with shopping center, boardwalk and of course beachfront goodies, and had the unshakable feeling of a San Francisco-from-THPS4-meets-Australia-from-THUG2 mash-up (in a good way, of course). Like the home console versions of THUG2 there are the same level-changing events (Neversoft and Activision's term, not ours) that reshape the course, and here it was a boat headed out to sea that pulled a rope and some trampolines masquerading as inner tubes out with it. The event literally took the course out past the beach and into the ocean.

We only got the chance to play through the Kyoto level a bit, but were promised that the level-changing event would be a sight to behold as a b-movie monster tore through the city. The level itself was a wonderland of multi-leveled grindable lines through bus stations and an outdoor mall façade as well as the usual freely skatable goodies all around the Japanese city streets. The other two levels, Atlanta and Vegas, also promise some nice themed changes, though we weren't able to get extensive play with them due to time constraints.

THUG 2 Remix is arguably the most technically impressive game on the PSP, and that's saying something. Part of it comes from the fact that Shaba somehow managed to incorporate just about every last bit of the THUG2 console experience in the portable version with near-perfect visuals and level layouts, and then went ahead and introduced more content in some arcane practice of coding alchemy.

To put this in perspective, that's every single level from the console versions (that's all of the levels from Story Mode plus all of the ones from Classic Mode), plus all the hidden characters, plus all the level-specific characters, both with their own goals, plus every single one of the music tracks in the game's mammoth 56 song track list, plus the same face mapping technology to put your real face in the game (just load an 8 bit 128x128 .jpg onto your MemoryStick and slide it into your PSP to line things up), plus the new moves, PLUS the four new levels and perfectly seamless Wi-Fi play.

The only thing dropped during the whole conversion was the create-a-park mode, which is understandable given the PSP's smaller screen, but we still would have dug trading custom parks wirelessly.

The Wi-Fi multiplayer was an absolute blast, and no matter how many times we boot up an ad-hoc network and start playing with people a couple feet away from us with no problems, it just gets us all giddy inside. All of the console versions' online multiplayer modes were present, including series newcomers Scavenger Hunt and Elimiskate. The same pause of a couple of seconds while players joined and synced up from the console versions bogged things down a bit, and as each player was added to a level the framerate began to take a noticeable hit, but the fact that you can play with multiple friends wirelessly without any problems in a PSP launch title more than makes up for any shortcomings.

If it seems like we're getting worked up over what's more or less a straight port with some bonuses (hey, we appreciate the new stuff too, but let's face facts here), it's because there has never been a handheld port that came anywhere near the console versions. Aside from some basic texture optimization (and with the PSP's screen, it's hard to even pick that out) and tweaks to shadows, this is a pixel-perfect port of what sucked you in just a few months ago.

Literally dozens -- if not hundreds -- of hours of content can now be carried around in your pocket and fired up at a moment's notice, and if ever there was a game that's likely to be found in another nearby PSP while on the train or bus, this is it. We'll have the final verdict on the translation in just a few weeks, but in the mean time, feel free to dig on all the media we managed to snag.