title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Uniformed police officers often wear body armor, typically in the form of a lightweight Level IIA, II or IIIA vest that can be worn under service shirts. SWAT teams typically wear heavier Level III or IV tactical armored vests, often with steel or ceramic trauma plates, comparable to those worn by U.S. military personnel engaged in ground operations. Officers trained in bomb disposal wear specialized heavy protective armor designed to protect them from the effects of an explosion when working around live ordnance. Local police foundations have initiated programs to provide law enforcement agencies with higher level vests that provide greater protection and vests for police K-9s as well.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Multiple states have pending body-worn camera legislation that requires its law enforcement to be equipped with body-worn cameras when the officers are on duty. Some of these states include California, Washington, and Illinois, among others. Body-worn cameras are video recording devices around three inches long that cost between $129-$900. There are different body-worn camera models, but a standard body-worn camera includes an on and off switch that enables the image capturing technology to record and store data in the cloud.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Body-worn cameras have become standard due to the rise of complaints about police brutality across the nation. Supporters argue that the use of a body-worn camera allows evidence to be viewed from an unbiased perspective. Corporations are currently working on body-worn camera models that will resolve the technology's limitations such as better audio capturing technology and battery life, to name a few.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: In recent years police have recruited unmanned surveillance devices such as small throwable robotics and flying drones to conduct reconnaissance in dangerous locations. These devices can be used to identify the presence of a hostage, locate and/or identify subjects, and reveal the layout of a room. The devices do all this by transmitting real-time audio and video to the pilot, giving police an advantage when they cannot directly see a suspect or enter a location where they are needed. Some other uses for this device may be bomb detection, as well as searching suspicious vehicles.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Flying drones are also being enlisted to help police in dangerous situations such as a barricaded suspect or a hostage situation. These drones increase safety by providing information that can be used in mapping and planning. These devices equipped with cameras allow officers to get a bird's eye view of a scene in an emergency, allowing responders to safely get much closer to a scene than they could if they went in on foot.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Most American police departments are dispatched from a centralized communications center, using VHF, UHF, or, more recently, digitally trunked radio transceivers mounted in their vehicles, with individual officers carrying portable handsets or ear-worn headsets for communication when away from their vehicles. American police cars are also increasingly equipped with mobile data terminals (MDTs) or portable computers linked by radio to a network allowing them access to state department of motor vehicles information, criminal records, and other important information.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Most police communications are now conducted within a regional pool of area telecommunicators or dispatchers using 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 telephone taxation. A large number of police agencies have pooled their 9-1-1 tax resources for Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) to streamline dispatching and reporting. CAD systems are usually linked to MDTs (see above).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: A variety of national, regional, state, and local information systems are available to law enforcement agencies in the U.S., with different purposes and types of information. One example is the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS), an interstate justice and public safety network owned by the states supporting inquiry into state systems for criminal history, driver's license and motor vehicle registration, as well as supporting inquiry into federal systems, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Law Enforcement Support Center, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) National Drug Pointer Index (NDPIX), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aircraft Registry and the Government of Canada's Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: NLETS operates primarily through a secure private network through which each state has an interface to the network that all agencies within the state operate through. The federal and international components operate very similarly. Users include all U.S. states and territories, some federal agencies, and certain international agencies. The primary operational site for the network is housed in Arizona, with a secure backup site located in the East Central U.S.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Through the NLETS network, law enforcement and criminal justice agencies can access a wide range of information, from standard driver license and vehicle queries to criminal history and Interpol information. Operations consist of nearly 1.5 billion transactions a year to over one million PC, mobile, and handheld devices in the U.S. and Canada at 45,000 user agencies, and to 1.3 million individual users.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Police departments share arrest information with third-party news organizations that archive names of citizens and legal allegations in a "police blotter". However, even if the allegations are dismissed in court, a citizen may not petition the third-party for removal.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: In 2008, federal police agencies employed approximately 120,000 full-time law enforcement officers, authorized to make arrests and carry firearms in the United States.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: The 2008 Bureau of Justice Statistics' Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA), found there were 17,985 state and local law enforcement agencies employing at least one full-time officer or the equivalent in part-time officers.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: In 2008, state and local law enforcement agencies employed more than 1.1 million people on a full-time basis, including about 765,000 sworn personnel (defined as those with general arrest powers). Agencies also employed approximately 100,000 part-time employees, including 44,000 sworn officers.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: From 2004 to 2008, overall full-time employment by state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide increased by about 57,000 (or 5.3%). Sworn personnel increased by about 33,000 (4.6%), and nonsworn employees by about 24,000 (6.9%). From 2004 to 2008, the number of full-time sworn personnel per 100,000 U.S. residents increased from 250 to 251. From 1992 to 2008, the growth rate for support personnel was more than double that of sworn personnel.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Local police departments were the largest employer of sworn personnel, accounting for 60% of the total. Sheriffs' offices were next, accounting for 24%. About half (49%) of all agencies employed fewer than 10 full-time officers. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of sworn personnel worked for agencies that employed 100 or more officers.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: In 2019, the FBI estimated that approximately 1,003,270 law enforcement were employed nationwide and distributed across more than 13,250 agencies. Of those, 697,195 were sworn officers, with 306,075 civilian employees. According to FBI UCR's the total number of agencies (including federal agencies) in the United States dropped from 19,071 to 18,794 (excluding 277 federal agencies).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Law enforcement has historically been a male-dominated profession. There are approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies at federal, state, and local level, with more than 1.1 million employees. There are around 12,000 local law enforcement agencies, the most numerous of the three types. In a 2013 survey, the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics found that 72.8% of local police officers were white. Black or African American were 12.2% (the black population in the United States is roughly 13%) and Latino or Hispanic are 11.6%. Women made up 17% of full-time sworn officers. Women, Asian, and Hispanic officers are significantly under-represented in police forces. Many law enforcement agencies are attempting to hire a diversity of recruits to better represent their communities.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Fifteen of the 50 largest local police departments employed fewer full-time sworn personnel in 2008 than in 2004. The largest declines were in Detroit (36%), Memphis (23%), New Orleans (13%), and San Francisco (10%).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Ten of the 50 largest local police departments reported double-digit increases in sworn personnel from 2004 to 2008. The largest increases were in Phoenix (19%), Prince George's County (Maryland) (17%), Dallas (15%), and Fort Worth (14%).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Salary varies widely for police officers, with most being among the top third of wage-earners, age 25 or older, nationwide. The median annual wage for criminal investigators was $86,940 and $65,540 for patrol officers, in May 2020. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $38,420, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $146,000.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: The main cause of death to law enforcement officers are roadway related incidents. This includes both crashes and struck-by incidents. Between the years of 2011 and 2020, there were a total of 1,387 officer line-of-duty deaths excluding COVID-19 related deaths. Of these deaths, 286 officers died because of crashes or 21% of total deaths. In addition, 114 officers died because of struck-by incidents or 8% of total deaths.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Between 2005 and 2019, over 200 law enforcement officers died because of struck-by incidents. These deaths account for 24% of motor vehicle-related officer deaths. This can occur in many situations, but commonly occurs at traffic stops when officers are in or near roadways.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: According to 2017 FBI figures and stated above, the majority of officer deaths on the job were the result of accidents rather than homicides. Civilians faced a homicide rate of 5.6 per 100,000, while police faced a homicide rate of 3 per 100,000.


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Throughout 2021, 262 officers have died from various medical conditions, the two leading causes were contracting COVID-19 (242) and heart attack (17), with 1 death associated with responding to the September 11 attacks. As of December, 2021, line-of-duty officer deaths totaled 126 (felonious and accidental).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: The Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP) has tracked approximately 25,432 officers who have died in the line of duty in the United States since 1776. A memorial is also hosted in Washington, DC, by the National Law Enforcement Officers Museum of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF).


title: Law enforcement in the United States

text: Since January 1, 2022, authorized agencies are able to submit suicide information for their officers, based on the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act, enacted by the United States Congress in June 2020.


title: Chastity belt

text: A chastity belt is a locking item of clothing designed to prevent sexual intercourse or masturbation. Such belts were historically designed for women, ostensibly for the purpose of chastity, to protect women from rape or to dissuade women and their potential sexual partners from sexual temptation. Modern versions of the chastity belt are predominantly, but not exclusively, used in the BDSM community, and chastity belts are now designed for male wearers in addition to female wearers.


title: Chastity belt

text: According to modern myths, the chastity belt was used as an anti-temptation device during the Crusades. When the knight left for the Holy Lands on the Crusades, his Lady would wear a chastity belt to preserve her faithfulness to him. However, there is no credible evidence that chastity belts existed before the 15th century (over a century after the last Middle Eastern Crusade), and their main period of apparent use falls within the Renaissance rather than the Middle Ages. Research into the history of the chastity belt suggests that they were not used until the 16th century, and then only rather rarely; they first became widely available in the form of 19th-century anti-masturbation medical devices.


title: Chastity belt

text: Renaissance chastity belts were said to have had padded linings (to prevent large areas of metal from coming into direct prolonged contact with the skin), and these had to be changed fairly frequently, so that such belts were not practical for uninterrupted long-term wear. Uninterrupted long-term wear could have caused genitourinary infection, abrasive wounds, sepsis and eventual death.


title: Chastity belt

text: Gregory the Great, Alcuin of York, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Nicholas Gorranus all made passing references to "chastity belts" within their exhortatory and public discourses, but meant this in a figurative or metaphorical sense within their historical context.


title: Chastity belt

text: The first detailed actual mention of what could be interpreted as "chastity belts" in the West is in Konrad Kyeser von Eichstätt's "Bellifortis" (1405), which describes the military technology of the era. The book includes a drawing that is accompanied by the Latin text: "Est florentinarum hoc bracile dominarum ferreum et durum ab antea sic reseratum." ("These are hard iron breeches of Florentine women which are closed at the front.") The belt in this drawing is described by Dingwall as "both clumsy and heavy", having "little in common with the later models which served the same use". The "Bellifortis" account is not supported by any additional concrete evidence or corroborating documents. Polidoro argues that Kyeser's references are meant to be humorous or ironic, and that Dingwall's accounts of the use of chastity belts by a few rich men in the 16th and 17th centuries to ensure the faithfulness of their often much younger wives should be treated critically, because of the absence of actual artefacts of this nature from the historical period in question, and his lack of access to more detailed contemporary historical records.


title: Chastity belt

text: In 1889, a leather-and-iron belt was found by Anton Pachinger—a German collector of antiquities—in Linz, Austria, in a grave on a skeleton of a young woman. The woman was reportedly buried in the 16th century. Pachinger, however, could not find any record of the woman's burial in the town archives. The belt itself, along with most of the rest of Pachinger's collection, has been lost.


title: Chastity belt

text: Two belts have been exhibited at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. The first, a simple velvet-covered hoop and plate of iron, was supposedly worn by Catherine de' Medici. The other—said to have been worn by Anne of Austria—is a hinged pair of plates held about the waist by metal straps, featuring intricately etched figures of Adam and Eve. There are other such belts at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and the British Museum in London. Most have been removed from public display to avoid any further embarrassment because the authenticity of these belts as medieval devices has since been called into question. Many contemporary historians accept that these alleged "artifacts" date from the 19th century, and are thus inauthentic.


title: Chastity belt

text: From the 18th century until the 1930s, masturbation was widely regarded as harmful in Western medicine. Numerous mentions can be found in medical journals of the time of the use of chastity belt-like devices to prevent masturbation in female children and adolescents, as well as women. Many designs for anti-masturbation devices were filed in the US Patent Office until the early 1930s, when masturbation was no longer deemed to be the cause of mental health problems.


title: Chastity belt

text: Furthermore, some 19th-century working women may have used chastity belts for protective reasons, as a "rape shield" to obstruct sexual assault from predatory bosses or male colleagues; the belts were not worn for a long time uninterruptedly, however, since sanitary and hygiene reasons prevented this before the modern invention of stainless-steel belts.


title: Chastity belt

text: Chastity belts are sometimes used in BDSM play in consensual relationships. They are a means for the wearer to surrender control over their sexual behavior either for sexual play, or as a long-term method of preventing infidelity or masturbation. They range from simple leather or plastic toys commonly sold by adult stores to expensive high-security stainless steel devices made by a handful of specialist firms, including My-Steel, Neosteel, and Latowski in Germany, and Carrara Designs in Belgium. The internet has significantly increased the number of people using chastity devices, with internet advertisements and amateur erotic content sites often serving as the means of discovery of chastity devices and their use. Similarly, the internet has allowed consumers to acquire devices easier, faster, anonymously, and from a wider range of manufacturers and retailers. Simultaneously, the internet has provided a private avenue for subcultures dedicated to their usage, fostering the culture and allowing individuals with interests in chastity to connect with one another, both on the internet and in-person.


title: Chastity belt

text: Although there exists a historical association of chastity belts with women, worldwide purchasing demand for male chastity belts is reportedly far higher than purchasing demand for female chastity devices. As a consequence, the male chastity devices market offers more options and diversity compared to what is available for female chastity devices. Among male chastity devices, "cock-and-ball" trap devices are the most popular, followed by typically more secure full belt (around-the-waist) style devices.


title: Chastity belt

text: In 1981, while California State Senator John G. Schmitz was leading hearings on outlawing abortion, Gloria Allred presented him with a chastity belt. Schmitz retaliated in a press release, calling her a "slick butch lawyeress." She sued him for libel, and eventually secured a settlement of $20,000 and an apology.


title: Chastity belt

text: In 1998, racial riots against the ethnic Chinese in West Java prompted the production and sale of "anti-rape corsets". These were Florentine-type belts of imitation leather-covered plastic, fastened with a combination lock. The belts had a solid crotch strap without holes, and were intended only for brief outings.


title: Chastity belt

text: In April 2002, the Uwe Koetter Jewellers company of Cape Town, South Africa, completed and delivered a diamond and pearl-encrusted chastity belt made of gold to a British customer. The belt reportedly cost R160,000 and was a wedding gift from a husband-to-be for his bride to wear at their wedding.


title: Chastity belt

text: On February 6, 2004, "USA Today" reported that at Athens airport in Greece, a woman's steel chastity belt had triggered a security alarm at the metal detector. The woman explained that her husband had forced her to wear the device to prevent an extramarital affair while she was on vacation in Greece. She was allowed to continue her flight to London on the pilot's authority. The incident was said to have happened just before Christmas in 2003.


title: Chastity belt

text: In November 2006, photographs of Lucio Valentini's hand-wrought iron chastity belts were published in newspapers including the Seoul Times, and CRI Online. Although Valentini's company, MedioEvo, claims that their chastity belts' designs are from the Middle Ages on their website, a company spokesperson acknowledged that there is no proof that devices such as these were actually used.


title: Chastity belt

text: In 2007, the Asian Human Rights Commission reported that women were being forced to wear chastity belts in the Indian state of Rajasthan.


title: Chastity belt

text: In 2008, masseuses in Batu, Indonesia were required to wear belts with a lock and key during working hours, to prevent prostitution.


title: Chastity belt

text: On February 8, 2010, AOL News reported that Dexter Blanch, a dog breeder from Louisiana, introduced a chastity belt for dogs, called PABS (Pet Anti-Breeding System). It is made of polypropylene and uses an eight-buckle locking system and a washable mesh pad to prevent intercourse in female dogs. Dr. Kathleen Makolinski, director of veterinary outreach at the ASPCA, commented that "For the majority of animals, spaying and neutering remains the most beneficial option". While this may be true for dogs being helped by rescues and humane societies, the American Kennel Club subsequently changed its policy regarding pediatric spaying or neutering. Following the research published by UC Davis, the American Kennel Club (AKC) now says that the owner of large breed dogs will have a healthier, longer lived dog if the pet owner would wait until the dog is of appropriate age before spaying or neutering.


title: Chastity belt

text: On September 19, 2012, "China People's Daily" reported that a man in his 50s, naked except for a homemade chastity belt, appeared with a pair of banners in Changchun World Sculpture Park in Jilin province in China, seeking a wife. He stated that he wore the chastity belt to symbolize fidelity to his future wife.


title: Kidnapping

text: In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the perpetrator may use a weapon to force the victim into a vehicle, but it is still kidnapping if the victim is enticed to enter the vehicle willingly (e.g. in the belief that it is a taxicab).


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping may be done to demand for ransom in exchange for releasing the victim, or for other illegal purposes. Kidnapping can be accompanied by bodily injury which elevates the crime to aggravated kidnapping.


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping of children is usually done by one parent or others. The kidnapping of adults is often for ransom or to force someone to withdraw money from an ATM, but may also be for sexual assault. Children have also been kidnapped for the commission of sexual assault.


title: Kidnapping

text: In the past, and presently in some parts of the world (such as southern Sudan), kidnapping is a common means used to obtain slaves and money through ransom. In less recent times, kidnapping in the form of shanghaiing (or "pressganging") men were used to supply merchant ships in the 19th century with sailors, whom the law considered unfree labour.


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping has been identified as one source by which terrorist organizations have been known to obtain funding. The Perri, Lichtenwald and MacKenzie article identified "tiger" kidnapping as a specific method used by either the Real Irish Republican Army or Continuity Irish Republican Army, in which a kidnapped family member is used to force someone to steal from their employer.


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping has sometimes been used by the family and friends of a member of an alleged cult as a method to remove the member from the alleged cult and begin a deprogramming process. Deprogramming and exit counseling have been used with the purpose of getting alleged cult members to abandon their groups' beliefs. The danger presented by cult groups has been used by deprogrammers to justify using the extreme act of kidnapping to get alleged members to change their allegiance away from the group.


title: Kidnapping

text: In Australia, kidnapping is a criminal offence, as defined by either the State crimes act, or the Commonwealth Criminal Code. It is a serious indictable offence, and is punishable by up to 14 – 25 years imprisonment.


title: Kidnapping

text: that does not result in a homicide is a hybrid offence that comes with a maximum possible penalty of life imprisonment (18 months if tried summarily). A murder that results from kidnapping is classified as 1st-degree, with a sentence of life imprisonment that results from conviction (the mandatory penalty for murder under Canadian law).


title: Kidnapping

text: According to a 2022 study by political scientist Danielle Gilbert, armed groups in Colombia engage in ransom kidnappings as a way to maintain the armed groups' local systems of taxation. The groups resort to ransom kidnappings to punish tax evasion and incentivize inhabitants not to shirk.


title: Kidnapping

text: Article 282 prohibits hostaging (and 'kidnapping' is a kind of 'hostaging'). Part 1 of Article 282 allows sentencing kidnappers to maximum imprisonment of 8 years or a fine of the fifth category. Part 2 allows maximum imprisonment of 9 years or a fine of the fifth category if there are serious injuries. Part 3 allows maximum imprisonment of 12 years or a fine of the fifth category if the victim has been killed. Part 4 allows sentencing people that collaborate with kidnapping (such as proposing or make available a location where the victim hostaged). Part 1, 2 and 3 will apply also to them.


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. Lord Brandon said in 1984 "R v D":


title: Kidnapping

text: In all cases of kidnapping of children, where it is alleged that a child has been kidnapped, it is the absence of the consent of that child which is material. This is the case regardless of the age of the child. A very small child will not have the understanding or intelligence to consent. This means that absence of consent will be a necessary inference from the age of the child. It is a question of fact for the jury whether an older child has sufficient understanding and intelligence to consent. Lord Brandon said: "I should not expect a jury to find at all frequently that a child under fourteen had sufficient understanding and intelligence to give its consent." If the child (being capable of doing so) did consent to being taken or carried away, the fact that the person having custody or care and control of that child did not consent to that child being taken or carried away is immaterial. If, on the other hand, the child did not consent, the consent of the person having custody or care and control of the child may support a defence of lawful excuse. It is known as Gillick competence.


title: Kidnapping

text: Regarding restriction on prosecution, no prosecution may be instituted, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, for an offence of kidnapping if it was committed against a child under the age of sixteen and by a person connected with the child, within the meaning of section 1 of the Child Abduction Act 1984. Kidnapping is an indictable-only offence. Kidnapping is punishable with imprisonment or fine at the discretion of the court. There is no limit on the fine or the term of imprisonment that may be imposed provided the sentence is not inordinate.


title: Kidnapping

text: A parent should only be prosecuted for kidnapping their own child "in exceptional cases, where the conduct of the parent concerned is so bad that an ordinary right-thinking person would immediately and without hesitation regard it as criminal in nature".


title: Kidnapping

text: Law in the United States follows from English common law. Following the highly publicized 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, Congress passed the Federal Kidnapping Act, which authorized the FBI to investigate kidnapping at a time when the Bureau was expanding in size and authority. The fact that a kidnapped victim may have been taken across state lines brings the crime within the ambit of federal criminal law.


title: Kidnapping

text: Most states recognize different types of kidnapping and punish according to such factors as the location, duration, method, manner and purpose of the offense. There are several deterrents to kidnapping in the United States of America. Among these are:


title: Kidnapping

text: One notorious failed example of kidnap for ransom was the 1976 Chowchilla bus kidnapping, in which 26 children were abducted with the intention of bringing in a $5 million ransom. The children and driver escaped from an underground van without the aid of law enforcement. According to the Department of Justice, kidnapping makes up 2% of all reported violent crimes against juveniles.


title: Kidnapping

text: From the 1990s on, the New York divorce coercion gang was involved in the kidnapping and torture of Jewish husbands in New York City and New Jersey for the purpose of forcing them to grant "gittin" (religious divorces) to their wives. They were finally apprehended on October 9, 2013, in connection with a foiled kidnapping plot.


title: Kidnapping

text: According to a "2003 Domestic Violence Report in Colorado", out of a survey of 189 incidents, most people (usually white females) are taken from their homes or residence by a present or former spouse or significant other. They are usually taken by force, not by weapon, and usually the victims are not injured when they are freed.


title: Kidnapping

text: In 2009, Phoenix, Arizona reported over 300 cases of kidnapping, although subsequent investigation found that the Phoenix police falsified data. If true, this would have been the highest rate of any U.S. city and second in the world only to Mexico City. A rise in kidnappings in the southwestern United States in general has been attributed to misclassification by local police, lack of a unified standard, desire for Federal grants, or the Mexican Drug War.


title: Kidnapping

text: In 2010, the United States was ranked sixth in the world (by absolute numbers, not per capita) for kidnapping for ransom, according to the available statistics (after Colombia, Italy, Lebanon, Peru, and the Philippines).


title: Kidnapping

text: In 2009, the "Los Angeles Times" named Phoenix, Arizona, as America's kidnapping capital, reporting that every year hundreds of ransom kidnappings occur there, virtually all within the underworld associated with human and drug smuggling from Mexico, and often done as a way of collecting unpaid debts. However, a later audit by the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General found only 59 federally reportable kidnappings in 2008, compared to the over 300 claimed on grant applications.


title: Kidnapping

text: During the year 1999 in the United States, 203,900 children were reported as the victims of family abductions and 58,200 of non-family abductions. However, only 115 were the result of "stereotypical" kidnaps (by someone unknown or of slight acquaintance to the child, held permanently or for ransom).


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping for ransom is a common occurrence in various parts of the world today, and certain cities and countries are often described as the "Kidnapping Capital of the World". In 2018 the UN found Pakistan and England had the highest amount of kidnappings while New Zealand had the highest rate among the 70 countries for which data is available. As of 2007, that title belonged to Iraq with possibly 1,500 foreigners kidnapped. In 2004, it was Mexico, and in 2001, it was Colombia. Statistics are harder to come by. Reports suggest a world total of 12,500–25,500 per year with 3,600 per year in Colombia and 3,000 per year in Mexico around the year 2000. However, by 2016, the number of kidnappings in Colombia had declined to 205 and it continues to decline. Mexican numbers are hard to confirm because of fears of police involvement in kidnapping. "Kidnapping seems to flourish particularly in fragile states and conflict countries, as politically motivated militias, organized crime and the drugs mafia fill the vacuum left by government".


title: Kidnapping

text: Kidnapping on the high seas in connection with piracy has been increasing. It was reported that 661 crewmembers were taken hostage and 12 kidnapped in the first nine months of 2009. The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre recorded that 141 crew members were taken hostage and 83 were kidnapped in 2018.


title: God in Judaism

text: God in Judaism has been conceived in a variety of ways. Traditionally, Judaism holds that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the national god of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah. Jews traditionally believe in a monotheistic conception of God (God is only one), which is both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the material universe).


title: God in Judaism

text: God is conceived as unique and perfect, free from all faults, deficiencies, and defects, and further held to be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and completely infinite in all of his attributes, who has no partner or equal, being the sole creator of everything in existence. In Judaism, God is never portrayed in any image. The Torah specifically forbade ascribing partners to share his singular sovereignty, as he is considered to be the absolute one without a second, indivisible, and incomparable being, who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to him. Thus, God is unlike anything in or of the world as to be beyond all forms of human thought and expression. The names of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton () and Elohim. Other names of God in traditional Judaism include El-Elyon, El Shaddai, and Shekhinah.


title: God in Judaism

text: According to the rationalistic Jewish theology articulated by the Medieval Jewish philosopher and jurist Moses Maimonides, which later came to dominate much of official and traditional Jewish thought, God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the creator deity—the cause and preserver of all existence. Maimonides affirmed Avicenna's conception of God as the Supreme Being, both omnipresent and incorporeal, necessarily existing for the creation of the universe while rejecting Aristotle's conception of God as the unmoved mover, along with several of the latter's views such as denial of God as creator and affirmation of the eternity of the world. Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent and able to intervene in the world, while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is an impersonal force or ideal rather than a supernatural being concerned with the universe.


title: God in Judaism

text: The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton (). Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as "HaShem", literally "the Name". In prayer, the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai, meaning "My Lord". This is referred to primarily in the Torah: "Hear O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One" (). The Tetragrammaton is not attested other than among the Israelites and seems not to have any plausible etymology. Current scholarly consensus generally reconstructs the name's original pronunciation as "Yahweh". In the traditional interpretations of Judaism, God is always referred to with masculine grammatical articles only.


title: God in Judaism

text: In Judaism, Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the essence of God).


title: God in Judaism

text: In the philosophy of Maimonides and other Jewish-rationalistic philosophers, there is little which can be known about the Godhead, other than its existence, and even this can only be asserted equivocally.


title: God in Judaism

text: In Kabbalistic thought, the term "Godhead" usually refers to the concept of "Ein Sof " (אין סוף), which is the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations ("sephirot"). The "knowability" of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs (1973) puts it, "Of God as God is in Godself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, and no thought can reach there".


title: God in Judaism

text: In modern articulations of traditional Judaism, God has been speculated to be the eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient creator of the universe, as well as the source for one's standards of morality, guiding humanity through ethical principles.


title: God in Judaism

text: Maimonides describes God in this fashion: "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought into being all existence. All the beings of the heavens, the earth, and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of His being."


title: God in Judaism

text: Jews often describe God as omniscient, although some prominent medieval Jewish philosophers held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts. Gersonides, for example, argued that God knows the choices open to each individual, but that God does not know the choices that an individual will make. Abraham ibn Daud believed that God was not omniscient or omnipotent with respect to human action.


title: God in Judaism

text: Jews often describe God as omnipotent, and see that idea as rooted in the Hebrew Bible. Some modern Jewish theologians have argued that God is not omnipotent, however, and have found many biblical and classical sources to support this view. The traditional view is that God has the power to intervene in the world.


title: God in Judaism

text: Maimonides infers from this verse that the Holy One is omnipresent and therefore incorporeal, for "a corporeal being is incapable of being in two places simultaneously."


title: God in Judaism

text: "To whom will ye liken me, that I should be equal?" (Isa. 40,25) Maimonides infers from this verse that, "had He been corporeal, He would be like other bodies".


title: God in Judaism

text: Although God is referred to in the Tanakh with masculine imagery and grammatical forms, traditional Jewish philosophy does not attribute gender to God. Although Jewish aggadic literature and Jewish mysticism do on occasion refer to God using gendered language, for poetic or other reasons, this language was never understood by Jews to imply that God is gender-specific.


title: God in Judaism

text: Some modern Jewish thinkers take care to articulate God outside of the gender binary, a concept seen as not applicable to God.


title: God in Judaism

text: Kabbalistic tradition holds that emanations from the divine consist of ten aspects, called "sefirot".


title: God in Judaism

text: The Torah ascribes some human features to God, however, other Jewish religious works describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic, meaning it lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides, reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in an historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful, and possibly heretical.


title: God in Judaism

text: Most of classical Judaism views God as a personal god, meaning that humans can have a relationship with God and vice versa. Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon wrote that "God as conceived by Judaism is not only the First Cause, the Creative Power, and the World Reason, but also the living and loving Father of Men. He is not only cosmic but also personal...Jewish monotheism thinks of God in terms of definite character or personality, while pantheism is content with a view of God as impersonal." This is shown in the Jewish liturgy, such as in the Adon Olam hymn, which includes a "confident affirmation" that "He is my God, my living God...Who hears and answers." Edward Kessler writes that Hebrew Bible "portrays an encounter with a God who cares passionately and who addresses humanity in the quiet moments of its existence." British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that God "is not distant in time or detached, but passionately engaged and present".


title: God in Judaism

text: The "predicate "personal" as applied to God" does not necessarily mean that God is corporeal or anthropomorphic, views that Jewish sages sometimes rejected; rather, "personality" refers not to physicality, but to "inner essence, psychical, rational, and moral". However, other traditional Jewish texts, for example, the Shi'ur Qomah of the Heichalot literature, describe the measurements of limbs and body parts of God.


title: God in Judaism

text: Jews believe that "God can be experienced" but also that "God cannot be understood", because "God is utterly unlike humankind" (as shown in God's response to Moses when Moses asked for God's name: "I Am that I Am"). Anthropomorphic statements about God "are understood as linguistic metaphors, otherwise it would be impossible to talk about God at all".


title: God in Judaism

text: According to some speculations in traditional Judaism, people's actions do not have the ability to affect God positively or negatively. The Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible states: "Gaze at the heavens and see, and view the skies, which are higher than you. If you sinned, how do you harm God, and if your transgressions are many, what do you do to God? If you are righteous, what do you give God? Or what does God take from your hand? Your wickedness [affects] a person like yourself, and your righteousness a child of humanity." However, a corpus of traditional Kabbalistic texts describe theurgic practices that manipulate the supernal realms, and Practical Kabbalah (Hebrew: קבלה מעשית) texts instruct adepts in the use of white magic.


title: God in Judaism

text: A notion that God is in need of human beings has been propounded by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Because God is in search of people, God is accessible and available through time and place to whoever seeks God, leading to a spiritual intensity for the individual as well. This accessibility leads to a God who is present, involved, near, intimate, and concerned for and vulnerable to what happens in this world.


title: God in Judaism

text: Although the dominant strain in Judaism is that God is personal, modern Jewish thinkers claim that there is an "alternate stream of tradition exemplified by ... Maimonides", who, along with several other Jewish philosophers, rejected the idea of a personal God.


title: God in Judaism

text: Modern Jewish thinkers who have rejected the idea of a personal God have sometimes affirmed that God is nature, the ethical ideal, or a force or process in the world.


title: God in Judaism

text: Baruch Spinoza offers a pantheist view of God. In his thought, God is everything and everything is God. Thus, there can be conceived no substance but God. In this model, one can speak of God and nature interchangeably. Although Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, Spinoza's concept of God was revived by later Jews, especially Israeli secular Zionists.


title: God in Judaism

text: Hermann Cohen rejected Spinoza's idea that God can be found in nature, but agreed that God was not a personal being. Rather, he saw God as an ideal, an archetype of morality. Not only can God not be identified with nature, but God is also incomparable to anything in the world. This is because God is "One", unique and unlike anything else. One loves and worships God through living ethically and obeying His moral law: "love of God is love of morality."


title: God in Judaism

text: Similarly, for Emmanuel Levinas, God is ethics, so one is brought closer to God when justice is rendered to the Other. This means that one experiences the presence of God through one's relation to other people. To know God is to know what must be done, so it does not make sense to speak of God as what God is, but rather what God commands.


title: God in Judaism

text: For Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, God is not a person, but rather a force within the universe that is experienced; in fact, anytime something worthwhile is experienced, that is God. God is the sum of all natural processes that allow people to be self-fulfilling, the power that makes for salvation. Thus, Kaplan's God is abstract, not carnate, and intangible. It is important to note that, in this model, God exists within this universe; for Kaplan, there is nothing supernatural or otherworldly. One loves this God by seeking out truth and goodness. Kaplan does not view God as a person but acknowledges that using personal God-language can help people feel connected to their heritage and can act as "an affirmation that life has value".


title: God in Judaism

text: Likewise, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, views God as a process. To aid in this transition in language, he uses the term "godding", which encapsulates God as a process, as "the" process that the universe is doing, has been doing, and will continue to do. This term means that God is emerging, growing, adapting, and evolving with creation. Despite this, conventional God-language is still useful in nurturing spiritual experiences and can be a tool to relate to the infinite, although it should not be confused with the real thing.


title: God in Judaism

text: According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Americans who identify as Jewish by religion are twice as likely to favor ideas of God as "an impersonal force" over the idea that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship".


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: The Box is a 2009 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly. It is based on the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson, which was previously adapted into an episode of "The Twilight Zone". The film stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as a couple who receive a box from a mysterious man (played by Frank Langella) who offers them one million dollars if they press the button sealed within the dome on top of the box, but tells them that, once the button has been pushed, someone they do not know will die.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: In December 1976, financially desperate NASA engineer Arthur Lewis and his wife Norma find a package on their doorstep, containing a wooden box with a large red button. The mysterious and disfigured Mr. Steward arrives to deliver the key to unlock the button, and tells Norma that if the button is pushed, she will receive $1 million in cash, but someone she does not know will die. He gives her $100 for allowing him to enter the house and voice his deal, and leaves.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Norma and Arthur argue over Steward's offer, complicated by the news that their son Walter's private school, where Norma teaches, will no longer provide a discount for his tuition. They open the box to discover it is 'just a bunch of wood', and Arthur chastises Norma for her fear, but no decision is made before they go to sleep.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: They discuss the matter further in the morning, and after work, Arthur reveals that the hundred dollar bill is real. After further discussion, Norma impulsively pushes the button, whispering 'It's just a box'. It is revealed that someone is shot, and the gunman ran from the scene with a briefcase. Mr. Steward arrives and presents Arthur and Norma with the $1 million, assuring them that someone did indeed die as a result of their actions, and that the same offer will be presented to someone else they do not know. Arthur attempts to return the money, but Steward declines, stating that he can do nothing because "the button has been pressed".


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: The police treat the murder as a domestic homicide, and it is discovered that the husband of the woman who was shot is a colleague of Arthur's. NASA chief Martin Teague and Norm Cahill, Arthur's boss, discuss Cahill's missing colleague, Arlington Steward. The chief tells Cahill that Steward became "something else" after being killed by lightning, shortly after NASA received the first photograph transmitted by the Viking 1 Mars lander in July 1976.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Arthur and Norma become plagued by seemingly supernatural happenings and are visited by others who fell victim to the box, pressing the button and suffering the same fate as the Lewis family. It is revealed that Steward has been collaborating with a group of benefactors, using the box to decide whether the human race is worth preserving.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: After several paranormal incursions, Steward returns to the Lewis home and informs them that Walter, earlier kidnapped by unknown assailants, is locked in the family's bathroom upstairs and has been stricken blind and deaf. Steward laments that he had hoped the family would not succumb to the temptation of the money, and delivers a final ultimatum: They may keep the money and live out their lives with their disabled son, or Arthur can kill Norma, thereby restoring Walter's sight and hearing, with the million dollars placed in a high-interest account available to him when he turns 18. Steward refuses Norma's proposal to kill herself. Arthur contemplates killing Steward, but Steward warns him he will be charged with the murder, his son's condition will remain, and the family will be left with nothing. Steward departs, and Arthur realizes the choice to push the button has placed the family in purgatory. Norma, wanting her son to live his life without disability, asks Arthur to kill her, and after a long goodbye, he reluctantly agrees but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Another couple is offered the same box. They also decide to press the button; at the same time, Arthur shoots Norma while embracing her, and Walter is healed from his condition. It is implied that this mysterious offer will continue among other couples in the future.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Director Richard Kelly wrote a script based on the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by author Richard Matheson, which had previously been turned into a "Twilight Zone" episode of the same name. The project had a budget of over $30 million provided by Media Rights Capital. Kelly described his intent for the film, "My hope is to make a film that is incredibly suspenseful and broadly commercial, while still retaining my artistic sensibility." Actress Cameron Diaz was cast in the lead role in June 2007.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Most of the filming took place in the Boston, Massachusetts area, with scenes shot in downtown Boston, South Boston, Waltham, Ipswich, Winthrop, Milton, Medfield, Quincy, Kingston, and North Andover, as well as other localities. Some filming took place on the Milton Academy campus and at Boston Public Library. A large indoor set was built inside a former Lucent Technologies building in North Andover to recreate a NASA laboratory. The production crew also journeyed to NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to shoot a number of scenes for the film. Richard Kelly's father had worked at NASA Langley in the 1970s and 80s.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Filming also took place in Richmond, Virginia, including overhead shots of the city, including 95 South passing the train station. Many background extras were reused in different scenes, and people with period-correct 60s and 70s cars were encouraged to participate. Arlington Steward's car, in particular, is a Buick Electra, although characters in the movie refer to it as Lincoln Town Car (an entirely different car model, which was not yet in production at the time the movie is set).


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Actor Frank Langella was cast in October 2007, and production began on the film the following month. Prior to production, actor James Marsden was cast a lead role opposite Diaz. Production concluded by February 2008. It was the second time Marsden and Langella worked together, the first being "Superman Returns" and re-teaming again in "Robot & Frank".


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: In December 2008, it was announced that Win Butler and Regine Chassagne of Canadian band Arcade Fire, and Owen Pallett provided an original score for the film. Butler, Chassagne, and Pallett helped Kelly during the editing process by advising his decisions. Butler, Chassagne, and Pallett had planned on releasing the soundtrack after Arcade Fire's third album release in August 2010, but as of 2021, the soundtrack is still unavailable.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: The film was first released in Australia on October 29, 2009. While it was originally scheduled to be released in the U.S. on October 30, 2009, on July 31, 2009, it was announced the release date would be delayed to November 6, 2009.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: The film opened with $7,571,417 in 2,635 theaters at an average of $2,873 per theater. It ranked number 6 at the box office coming in behind the newly released "Disney's A Christmas Carol", "The Men Who Stare at Goats", and "The Fourth Kind". The film went on to gross $15,051,977 domestically and $32,924,206 worldwide.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 44% of 153 critics have given the film a positive review, and the average rating is 5.1 out of 10. The site's consensus is that "Imaginative but often preposterous, "The Box" features some thrills but largely feels too piecemeal." Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a score of 47 based on 24 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore on opening day gave the film an F, for which CinemaScore President Ed Mintz blamed the film's ending and was quoted as saying "People really thought this was a stinker." , it is one of only 22 films to receive such a rating.


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three out of four stars and wrote: "This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful." Jordan Mintzer of "Variety" wrote: "Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains." Keith Uhlich of "Time Out New York" named "The Box" the ninth-best film of 2009, calling it "a defiantly personal project that solidifies writer-director Richard Kelly's talent, even as it surely pushes him further toward the filmmaking fringe."


title: The Box (2009 film)

text: The film was nominated at the 8th Visual Effects Society Awards in the category of Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture but lost to "Sherlock Holmes".


title: Octave

text: In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music," the use of which is "common in most musical systems." The interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave.


title: Octave

text: In Western music notation, notes separated by an octave (or multiple octaves) have the same name and are of the same pitch class.


title: Octave

text: To emphasize that it is one of the perfect intervals (including unison, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth), the octave is designated P8. Other interval qualities are also possible, though rare. The octave above or below an indicated note is sometimes abbreviated "8" or "8" (), "8 bassa" (, sometimes also "8"), or simply "8" for the octave in the direction indicated by placing this mark above or below the staff.


title: Octave

text: For example, if one note has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note one octave above is at 880 Hz, and the note one octave below is at 220 Hz. The ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is therefore 2:1. Further octaves of a note occur at formula_1 times the frequency of that note (where "n" is an integer), such as 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. and the reciprocal of that series. For example, 55 Hz and 440 Hz are one and two octaves away from 110 Hz because they are (or formula_2) and 4 (or formula_3) times the frequency, respectively.


title: Octave

text: Most musical scales are written so that they begin and end on notes that are an octave apart. For example, the C major scale is typically written (shown below), the initial and final C's being an octave apart.


title: Octave

text: Because of octave equivalence, notes in a chord that are one or more octaves apart are said to be "doubled" (even if there are "more" than two notes in different octaves) in the chord. The word is also used to describe melodies played in parallel in more than multiple octaves.


title: Octave

text: While octaves commonly refer to the perfect octave (P8), the interval of an octave in music theory encompasses chromatic alterations within the pitch class, meaning that G to G (13 semitones higher) is an Augmented octave (A8), and G to G (11 semitones higher) is a diminished octave (d8). The use of such intervals is rare, as there is frequently a preferable enharmonically-equivalent notation available (minor ninth and major seventh respectively), but these categories of octaves must be acknowledged in any full understanding of the role and meaning of octaves more generally in music.


title: Octave

text: Octaves are identified with various naming systems. Among the most common are the scientific, Helmholtz, organ pipe, and MIDI note systems. In scientific pitch notation, a specific octave is indicated by a numerical subscript number after note name. In this notation, middle C is C, because of the note's position as the fourth C key on a standard 88-key piano keyboard, while the C an octave higher is C.


title: Octave

text: The notation "8" or "8" is sometimes seen in sheet music, meaning "play this an octave higher than written" ("all' ottava": "at the octave" or "all' 8"). "8" or "8" stands for "ottava", the Italian word for octave (or "eighth"); the octave above may be specified as "ottava alta" or "ottava sopra"). Sometimes "8" is used to tell the musician to play a passage an octave "lower" (when placed under rather than over the staff), though the similar notation "8" ("ottava bassa" or "ottava sotto") is also used. Similarly, "15" ("quindicesima") means "play two octaves higher than written" and "15" ("quindicesima bassa") means "play two octaves lower than written."


title: Octave

text: The abbreviations "col 8", "coll' 8", and "c. 8" stand for "coll'ottava", meaning "with the octave", i.e. to play the notes in the passage together with the notes in the notated octaves. Any of these directions can be cancelled with the word "loco", but often a dashed line or bracket indicates the extent of the music affected.


title: Octave

text: After the unison, the octave is the simplest interval in music. The human ear tends to hear both notes as being essentially "the same", due to closely related harmonics. Notes separated by an octave "ring" together, adding a pleasing sound to music. The interval is so natural to humans that when men and women are asked to sing in unison, they typically sing in octave.


title: Octave

text: For this reason, notes an octave apart are given the same note name in the Western system of music notation—the name of a note an octave above A is also A. This is called "octave equivalence", the assumption that pitches one or more octaves apart are musically equivalent in many ways, leading to the convention "that scales are uniquely defined by specifying the intervals within an octave". The conceptualization of pitch as having two dimensions, pitch height (absolute frequency) and pitch class (relative position within the octave), inherently include octave circularity. Thus all Cs (or all 1s, if C = 0), any number of octaves apart, are part of the same pitch class.


title: Octave

text: Octave equivalence is a part of most advanced musical cultures, but is far from universal in "primitive" and early music. The languages in which the oldest extant written documents on tuning are written, Sumerian and Akkadian, have no known word for "octave". However, it is believed that a set of cuneiform tablets that collectively describe the tuning of a nine-stringed instrument, believed to be a Babylonian lyre, describe tunings for seven of the strings, with indications to tune the remaining two strings an octave from two of the seven tuned strings. Leon Crickmore recently proposed that "The octave may not have been thought of as a unit in its own right, but rather by analogy like the first day of a new seven-day week".


title: Octave

text: Monkeys experience octave equivalence, and its biological basis apparently is an octave mapping of neurons in the auditory thalamus of the mammalian brain. Studies have also shown the perception of octave equivalence in rats, human infants, and musicians but not starlings, 4–9 year old children, or nonmusicians.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: Tony Hawk's is a skateboarding video game series published by Activision and endorsed by the American professional skateboarder of the same name. The series was primarily developed for home consoles by Neversoft from launch to 2007, until Activision transferred the franchise to Robomodo in 2008, who developed the franchise until 2015 when Activision and Hawk's license expired, leaving the future of the series uncertain.<ref name="VR/Expired"></ref> In 2020, the series returned under Activision with a remake of the original two games in the series, with development handled by Vicarious Visions. The series has spawned a total of 20 games.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: Starting out with the initial "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" in 1999, the series proved to be one of the most popular and best-selling video game franchises of the early 2000s. Three more "Pro Skater" games were released from 2000 to 2002, after which the developers took a more story-oriented approach with the releases of "Underground", "Underground 2" and "American Wasteland" from 2002 to 2005. "Project 8" in 2006 and "Proving Ground" in 2007 were the last games in the series developed by Neversoft. After that, developer Robomodo took the franchise in a different direction by developing the peripheral supported spin-offs "" and "", released in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Both were commercial and critical failures. Robomodo tried unsuccessfully to revive the series with the back to the roots-oriented releases of "Pro Skater HD" and "Pro Skater 5" in 2012 and 2015. The series spawned several other spin-offs, such as "Downhill Jam" in 2006, "Motion" in 2008, and "Shred Session" in 2014, along with several ports and re-releases.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: Neversoft's first five "Tony Hawk's" received critical acclaim for their unique gameplay, varied soundtracks, and expansion over their predecessors. "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2" and "Pro Skater 3" are critically ranked among the best games released for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, respectively. However, later entries started getting less favorable reviews, culminating in the games developed by Robomodo being critically panned, with "Ride" and "Pro Skater 5" being named "Worst Games of the Year" by several outlets. After this, Activision let the licensing deal expire while holding all publishing rights. Fans continued to support the legacy of the series through an online multiplayer fangame called "THUG Pro", which uses "Underground 2"s engine in an all-encompassing collection of levels from the series.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: In December 2018, Tony Hawk announced the first game bearing the "Tony Hawk's" name not to be published by Activision; "Tony Hawk's Skate Jam", which was released for iOS and Android on December 13. A second high-definition remake of the first two games, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2", published by Activision and developed by Vicarious Visions (who previously developed ports of several "Tony Hawk's" games), was released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows on September 4, 2020.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: The "Tony Hawk's" series was originally developed as a classic arcade game. The goal of most modes of the game is to achieve a high score. To do this, the player has to successfully perform and combine aerials, flips, grinds, lips, and manuals, with successful executions adding to the player's score. The point value of the trick is based on time maintained, degrees rotated, number of tricks performed in sequence, performing tricks on specific landmarks on the map, and the number of times the tricks have been used. Successful tricks also add to the player's special meter, which, once full, allows for the execution of special tricks which are worth a great deal more than normal tricks. Bails (falling off the skateboard due to poor landing) cause no points to be awarded for the attempted trick and reset the special bar to empty. The controls of the game developed further the more the series progressed. While the original "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" featured a fairly limited set of moves, later entries allowed the player to switch between moves during the same grind or manual sequence, perform transfers, hold on to and drive various vehicles, walk on foot and scale walls, slowing time, or performing more advanced tricks by pressing buttons repeatedly, for example a double or triple kickflip instead of a normal one. Later entries, such as "American Wasteland", allowed the player to also use a BMX, whereas "Motion" and "" featured snowboarding.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: The first three "Pro Skater" games centered around an arcade mode, in which the player is tasked with achieving a high score, perform certain tasks and collect a number of objects in a limited amount of time. If the player completes enough of these objectives in one level, they unlock other levels and acquires currency, with which they can improve their character. Also, there are competition levels, in which the player does not have to collect any objects, but perform an excellent score with minimal bails in order to progress. Starting with "Pro Skater 2", it was also possible to create a custom character and design individual skateparks. Furthermore, all games until "Pro Skater 5" featured local multiplayer, while it was possible to compete in online multiplayer since "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3". From the first "Pro Skater" onward, it was possible to access all levels without having to perform tasks and without a time limit. This concept was later used in career mode from "Pro Skater 4" onwards. Non-player characters give tasks to the player, who could otherwise freely explore the levels without time constraints. Starting with "Underground", the series replaced the career mode with a proper story mode. In "Underground", "Project 8", and "Proving Ground", the story centered around the player character turning into a professional skateboarder. In "Underground 2", the only direct sequel in the series, on the other hand, the player embarks on a destruction tour around the world, orchestrated by Tony Hawk and Bam Margera. In "American Wasteland", which was the first entry to feature one consecutive open world instead of separate levels, the player character intends to rebuild an old skatepark in Los Angeles.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: After Activision moved the series from Neversoft to Robomodo, the developer significantly changed the general outlet and gameplay of the franchise. "" and its successor, "" introduced a peripheral skateboard which replaced the controller. Aiming to provide a realistic skateboarding experience, turning, leaning, hopping, and other actions on the peripheral device were directly translated into the movements of the in-game character via infrared sensors. However, this resulted in the abandonment of open levels, which were replaced by linear levels that had the character skate on pre-set paths. A similar attempt was made with the Nintendo DS game "Tony Hawk's Motion", which used a peripheral device that recognized the leaning of the DS system and had the skater move accordingly.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: The below table includes all playable professional skateboarders from the main series of games. It does not include playable characters such as Officer Dick, Darth Maul and Gene Simmons who are either fictional characters or based on real people who are not professional skateboarders.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: To capitalize on the growing popularity of skateboarding as a sport, Activision approached small developer Neversoft to develop a skateboarding game. According to an interview with one of the developers in 2018, Activision originally wanted a skateboard racing game similar to Sega's arcade game "Top Skater". However, after Neversoft showed them what their engine was capable of, the racing idea was abandoned in favor of a more free-flowing approach. Activision signed professional skateboarder Tony Hawk as the face of the skateboarding game "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater". The game had been in development before Hawk was signed as the face of the brand and his name and likeness were included late in development. Originally, Hawk signed a licensing contract valid until 2002, which was renewed until 2015, following the success of the "Pro Skater" series. Mitch Lasky, at that time senior vice president of Activision, stated in an interview with GameSpot that the game as well as the character were meant "to reflect Tony's signature style – an intense mix of acrobatics and hard-core technical skating". Hawk himself was involved in the development of the game and his in-game persona, remarking that "[he had] always wanted to help create a video game that represented the reality and excitement of professional skateboarding". Hawk, along with other skaters featured in the game, was animated for the game using motion capture and voiced his character.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: In early 1998, Activision approached small developer Neversoft to develop a skateboarding racing game, in order to capitalize on the growing popularity of the sport. The idea of a racing game was abandoned in development after Neversoft showed the adaptability of the control engine to various manoeuvers. Members of the team were fans of Sega's "Top Skater", which they played at a local arcade, and that served as a basic influence on the game's original concept. However, "Top Skater" had a racing element, which the team moved away from as they began studying real-life skaters. To make the gameplay seem as real as possible, company founder Joel Jewett had a halfpipe built in his backyard and started skateboarding with his coworkers. Also, motion capture was used to make the skateboarding moves seem as realistic as possible. To distance the franchise from other games, the developers opted for licensing modern rock songs, in contrast to the classic music usual for video games at that time. The first game was developed within a year by a 12-person team, and Tony Hawk was added as the face of the franchise only late in development. A month before the release of "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" for PlayStation in 1999, Hawk successfully performed a 900 at that year's X Games, which resulted in huge press coverage of the sport and helped boost sales. Also, the inclusion of the game on the "Jampack" demo for the PlayStation generated further hype, as players were overwhelmed by the at the time unique gameplay. The huge success of the game prompted Neversoft to vastly expand its production staff in order to be able to release "Tony Hawk's" games on a yearly basis. Neversoft held true to that ambition and released "Pro Skater 2" and "Pro Skater 3" in 2000 and 2001. Both games retained mostly the same gameplay as their predecessor, along with some improvements. The two games were the most critically acclaimed games for their respective consoles and still rank among the highest rated games of all time. Furthermore, "Pro Skater 3" was the first PlayStation 2 game to feature online gameplay. Also, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x", a compilation of the first two games, was released for Xbox in 2001, as the console had not featured the previous entries before. 2002 saw the release of "Pro Skater 4", by which time the franchise was among the best-selling video game franchises in the world. This was reflected in the manpower Activision and Neversoft invested in the franchise, as the employees working on the game had risen from 12 for the first entry to 150 and there were significantly more skaters featured, who all received considerable royalties.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: With the 2003 release of the fifth entry in the series, "Underground", the developers used storytelling and exploration to distance their product from the plotless, task-based format of previous "Tony Hawk's" games, which led Neversoft president Joel Jewett to describe "Underground" as an adventure game. It follows the player character and their treacherous friend, Eric Sparrow, on their quest to become professional skateboarders. The game was created with a theme of individuality: it stars an amateur skater in a true story mode, whereas each previous "Tony Hawk's" game had starred professional skaters and had lacked a plot. One reason for only allowing the player to use a custom character was that certain criminal acts completed in the plot would not reflect well on real-world skaters. Previous games in the series had included character-creation features as well, but Neversoft expanded customization in "Underground" by implementing face-scanning for the PlayStation 2 version. Regarding the customization options, especially the park editor, producer Stacey Drellishak stated that Neversoft was "trying to create the most customizable game ever". Levels in the console versions of "Underground" were significantly larger than those of earlier "Tony Hawk's" games. Neversoft expanded each level until it ceased to run correctly, then shrunk it slightly. Most of the levels were modeled closely after real-world locations; the designers traveled to locales representative of each city in the game and took photographs and videos as reference. Neversoft wanted the player to become familiar with the basic game mechanics quickly and to notice "Underground"s differences from previous "Tony Hawk's" games, who all stuck to roughly the same pattern, immediately. To accomplish this, they introduced the player to foot travel and the ability to climb along ledges in the first few missions of the game. While Neversoft wanted to keep "Underground" realistic and relatable for the most part, they added driving missions as an enjoyable diversion and to push the boundaries of freedom in skateboarding games. However, these missions were intended not to take away from the main experience of skateboarding. Because "Pro Skater 4" had received criticism for its difficulty, Neversoft added four difficulty settings to "Underground"s story mode.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: "Tony Hawk's Underground 2", released a year after its predecessor, was the only direct sequel in the series. While it still featured a story mode, it took a stark departure from "Underground" and focused on a "World Destruction Tour" orchestrated by Tony Hawk and Bam Margera. As such, the game tried to capitalize on the immense popularity of "Jackass" and its related media by also focusing on destruction and self-depreciating pranks. One later review referred to the game being "more of a "Jackass" game than the ". This was reflected by the "Jackass" stars Jason "Wee-Man" Acuña, Stephen "Steve-O" Glover, Margera and his father Phil featuring heavily in the game. Due to some fans being displeased with the absence of the goal-oriented approach of the "Pro Skater" era, a "Classic Mode" showcasing the old gameplay was included from this entry onwards. The PlayStation Portable exclusive "" contained different levels and a slightly different story and was released during spring 2005. Former developer Chris Rausch recalled that at the time of "Underground" and "Underground 2", the control sheme of the series had reached its limit and Activision instructed Neversoft to develop each new entry around one single new gimmick, such as a story mode or vehicle controls in the "Underground" subseries, or the open world of "American Wasteland".


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: In 2005, "American Wasteland" was released on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Xbox 360 (as an launch title) and later on PC. The game's story mode is set in the city of Los Angeles, where the player character is trying to renovate a run-down skatepark. While the game was advertised with featuring one huge comprehensive open world in story mode, the game's world actually comprised several levels, resembling different areas of Los Angeles, which were connected through loading tunnels to make them appear consecutive. Similar to "Underground 2", the game includes a classic mode separate from the story mode, which mostly recycles levels of the PSP-exclusive "Underground 2: Remix", released earlier that year. Furthermore, the game implemented BMX controls similar to the "Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX" games, which were also released by Activision. Also similar to its predecessor, the game was accompanied by "American Sk8land", a handheld game for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance consoles with slightly different story and levels.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: The promise of an open world skateboarding game was fulfilled with the next entry in the series, "Project 8", released in late 2006. While the PS2 and Xbox versions did not feature said open world, the seventh generation of video game consoles, such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 could support larger content. Once again, the game's story centered on the player character aspiring to become a professional skateboarder, this time by advancing through a rank system to become a part of Tony Hawk's new fictional skateboarding team, the namegiving "Project 8". Unlike in previous entries, the classic mode was embedded in the different areas of the open world. The game did not appear on Nintendo's then-new Wii console, which instead saw the release of the then-exclusive spin-off game "Downhill Jam", a downhill racing game featuring a mostly fictitious cast. The game was also released on PS2 half a year later.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: The next game in the main series, 2007's "Proving Ground" featured a largely similar concept to "Project 8", with an open world and the player able to choose three career paths as a skater. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. were established as the three open world areas, with each containing three skateable areas, which also featured an integrated classic mode. The game was the first and only entry of the series to compete with rival skateboarding series "Skate", which also featured an open world but with more advanced controls and a less arcade-style approach. "Skate" outsold "Proving Ground" on a 2:1 ratio, resembling its lackluster reception. With the franchise suffering from product fatigue and appearing to be past its prime, Activision decided to dedicate most of Neversoft's laborforce to the "Guitar Hero" and "Call of Duty" franchises. This development would more and more marginalize Neversoft, which was defunct and completely merged with Infinity Ward by 2014. The control of the "Tony Hawk's" franchise had passed on to Chicago studio Robomodo by 2008.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: To combat product fatigue and be able to compete with rival EA's "Skate" series, Activision decided to reboot the series with the new developer Robomodo. Due to this, no new entry in the main series was released in 2008. However, the Nintendo DS exclusive spin-off "Motion" already hinted at the new franchise's new direction, as it featured tilt and motion controls. Furthermore, the game featured the option to snowboard for the first time in the series' history.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: In 2009, Robomodo released their first entry in the series, "", which relied on a peripheral-supported controller shaped like a skateboard. The game did not rely on a plot or an open world any longer and featured a completely different control system, with the player railing down a predetermined route, trying to use the skateboard controller to perform tricks on predetermined obstacles. Activision promoted the game as the next step in the evolution of skateboarding video games, however, the game sold poorly and critical reception was negative, with most critics calling the game's $120 price outrageous and the controls non-functioning. GameTrailers named it "Most Disappointing Game of 2009", while GamesRadar named it "Worst Game of the Year". Despite the game's poor reception, a sequel called "" was released a year later. The game used the same mechanics and concept as its predecessor and reintroduced snowboarding, while aiming at a younger audience. Just like its predecessor, the game was a critical and commercial failure, selling merely 3000 copies in its first week of release in the US. A former developer of Neversoft stated that the idea of a peripheral-supported game came from Activision itself, who were eager to develop peripheral devices for every one of their franchises following the success of "Guitar Hero". In a 2012 interview, Hawk defended the idea of peripheral-supported games, stating that the original series had become "diluted" and unable to compete with "Skate", which made developing games with the then-popular peripheral devices necessary. Furthermore, he blamed biased critics and rushed development for the commercial failure of the games.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: Because all games in the series released since "American Wasteland" failed to achieve commercial success, Activision decided to put the franchise on hold. When Robomodo was tasked with developing a new game, it was decided to return to the franchise's roots and develop a port of the original "Pro Skater" series. "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD" was released in the summer of 2012 via download only and featured a collection of popular levels from "Pro Skater 1-3". Critical reception towards the game was mixed, as while critics felt that it captured the appeal of the original games, the content was described as sparse, while the game was said to not deliver updated gameplay mechanics and feel dated. In 2014, the endless runner "Shred Session" soft launched for mobile devices in a handful of territories but was later pulled from the market, postponed indefinitely and later shelved.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: After having only produced spin-offs and ports since inheriting the franchise in 2008, Activision announced in mid-2015 that a traditional entry in the series developed by Robomodo would release for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One later that year. To point out its return to the series' roots and heyday, it was named "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5". In an interview with GameSpot at E3 2015, Hawk said that Robomodo had consulted with some former Neversoft employees to ensure that the gameplay felt like the original "Pro Skater" games. Because the licensing deal between Activision and Tony Hawk was set to expire by the end of 2015, the game was hastily developed within a few months and released unfinished with little promotion. After initial footage received negative feedback by fans and commentators alike for its completely outdated graphics, Robomodo made a complete departure from the attempted realistic look to a cel-shaded style two months prior to the game's release. Even though Activision marketed this as a conscious stylistic decision unrelated to the feedback and solely owing to allow a consistent frame rate, the end results did not save the game from being panned by critics upon release in September 2015. Most critics noted that the graphics were inferior even to the games released on the PlayStation 2, while the gameplay barely resembled previous releases and the fact that the game was rendered almost unplayable by numerous bugs. Furthermore, the simplistic, bland environments and missions, as well as the complete absence of NPCs were noted, while some critics pointed out that better levels could have been designed with the Create-a-Park feature of previous games, whereas most levels were simply inferior copies of levels from the original games. The game was so rushed to release that it was unplayable without an 8GB day one patch, with only the tutorial and park creator being accessible. "Pro Skater 5" has the fourth-lowest average score of any PlayStation 4 game and the fifth-lowest average score of any Xbox One game and was named the "Worst Video Game of 2015" by "Entertainment Weekly". "Edge" described it as "an insult to its history, to its licensed skaters and sponsors, to modern hardware, and to anyone who plays it". By the end of the year, the license had run out and was not renewed. Robomodo went out of business soon thereafter for unknown reasons.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: The initial licensing deal between Hawk and Activision expired in December 2015. In January 2017, Hawk stated in an interview that he is in early talks to continue the franchise without Activision and that he was interested in using virtual reality for his next game. In November the same year, Hawk stated that while he would agree to support the future installments under the "Pro Skater" moniker, Activision owned all rights to the license and thus controlled whether future games would be made. Meanwhile, fans of Neversoft's original series continued to preserve its levels through "THUG Pro", an online multiplayer fangame made using "Underground 2"'s engine.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: On December 3, 2018, Hawk announced the first game bearing his name not to be published by Activision. The game is called "Tony Hawk's Skate Jam", and was released for iOS and Android on December 13, ten days after his announcement.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: In 2020, Vicarious Visions remastered the first two "Pro Skater" games for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One as "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2". It was released on September 4, once again published by Activision. All levels and skaters from the original games returned in the remaster, and improvements to the skater and park creation tools were added to allow these to be shared online in multiplayer modes. In addition to new songs, the majority of the music from the original games returned as well, with a few exceptions due to licensing issues. Hawk claimed, during a Twitch stream in June 2022, that remasters of "Pro Skater 3" and "4" were planned for development following the release of "1 + 2", but these were cancelled due to Vicarious Visions being merged with Blizzard.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" was critically acclaimed. IGN gave the N64 version of the game a 9.1 out of 10 praising the gameplay for "genius control, combo system and design" despite little criticism with sound stating "the punk tracks are dumbed down and looped". It also gave the PlayStation version an outstanding rating (9.4 out of 10) again praising the gameplay and the graphics stating it is "simple but amazing in terms of animations, physics, and size of levels". "Pro Skater 2" was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, greatly surpassing its predecessor. According to Metacritic, it holds a score of 98/100, making it one of the highest rated video games of all time across all consoles and platforms, on Metacritic, "Pro Skater 2" along with "Soulcalibur", and "Grand Theft Auto IV" are ranked second behind "". Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot praised the PlayStation version, awarding it 9.9/10, saying "as most major publishers' development efforts shift to any number of next-generation platforms, Tony Hawk 2 will likely stand as one of the last truly fantastic games to be released on the PlayStation". The PlayStation version of the game received a score of 10 out of 10 from the magazine "Game Informer", while the rest of the other versions for other consoles received lower scores. In Japan, "Famitsu" magazine scored the Game Boy Advance version of the game a 33 out of 40 and The PlayStation version of the game a 28 out of 40. In the final issue of the Official UK PlayStation Magazine, the game was chosen as the 7th best game of all time. "Game Informer" named it the fourth best game ever made in 2001. The staff praised the game for its growth over its predecessor and its impact on its genre. Similarly, the PS2 version of "Pro Skater 3" earned a rare perfect 10 score from GameSpot, one of only eleven games to ever receive said score. It was also awarded the best sports game award at E3 2001. IGN rated the game 9.7/10, stating that the game "should go down in history as one of the best twitch-fests on PS2. Yes, TH3 is that good. The perfect skating game remains just a tiny hair's breadth out of reach, but if you are not satisfied with your purchase of this game, head examinations are recommended". The game is currently the top rated PS2 game on the review aggregate website Metacritic, with an average score of 97/100, tying with "Grand Theft Auto III". Famitsu gave the game a 30/40. As for "Pro Skater 4", IGN gave the Xbox version a 9/10, stating that ""Tony Hawk 4" is by far the best skateboarding title around and head and shoulders above its 'me-too' competition". The PlayStation 2 version received the highest score from IGN, with a 9.3/10, commenting that though the graphics haven't changed from its predecessor, the maps are much larger than in "Pro Skater 3", along with praising the increased difficulty.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: "Underground" was released to critical acclaim: with scores for the PlayStation 2 at 90/100 on Metacritic. GameZone's Michael Knutson stated that "Underground" is "one of the best skating games around" and that players of every skill level would enjoy it. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell concurred: "As a 'pick-up-and-play' sort of game, "THUG" is endlessly rewarding once you get your head round the basics, and it's the best entry point for the series to date". The story was especially well received. Joe Rybicki of "Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine" celebrated that "for the first time I can remember, an extreme-sports game actually has a real story [with] honest-to-goodness characters". IGN's Douglas Perry called it "a kick, albeit relatively lightweight in nature". He especially praised the pervasive sense of humor in the narrative and in the portrayal of real-world skaters. Knutson called the story "unique" and stated: "I really like that Neversoft had the guts to try something this radical and ditch the formula that they know works so well". The alternate gameplay modes were received very well. Knutson lauded the game's high degree of customization; he summarized that "everything is expounded a hundred fold: from create-a-skater to create-a-park mode, it is simply amazing". He singled out the level editor as one of the deepest he had ever seen. GameSpy's Bryn Williams identified the level editor as an "extremely well-designed" feature that contributed to the overall "brilliance" of the full product. Leeper said that each customization mode is "intuitive and user-friendly", and both he and Rybicki especially enjoyed the trick-creation feature. Reviewers for "Famitsu" magazine praised the story mode, whose open world format they compared to the "Grand Theft Auto" series. Knutson and Perry enjoyed the multiplayer, particularly the online Firefight mode. Williams thought similarly and stated that "the most notable disappointment" of the game was the lack of online play for non-PlayStation 2 owners. Harris found the board customization of the Game Boy Advance version to be poorly implemented, though in-depth. Despite his praise for the customization modes, Leeper admitted that his greatest enjoyment still came from "seeking out great lines and beating my scores". While it still got fairly high reviews, critics criticized the story of "Underground 2" and some critics noted that the gameplay had not been significantly upgraded from "Underground". Silverman and Perry were unimpressed with the short selection of moves introduced in "Underground 2". GameSpot agreed, but concluded that "while not all of these changes are all that great, the core gameplay in THUG2 is still very strong". In contrast, Bramwell felt that the Sticker Slap and additional flip and grab tricks were meaningful, enjoyable additions. The addition of Classic mode, was praised by 1UP.com, who considered it superior to the Story mode in terms of levels, while adding that "gamers weaned on PS1 Hawks will shed a tear, while newer fans will get a lesson on how things started". "American Wasteland's" reception was largely similar to that of "Underground 2", with the exception that most critics were fond of the game's story. Chris Roper of IGN praised Neversoft's decision to "go back to its roots and make a game about skating" as opposed to "the chaos and destruction of the Underground games". Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot stated "the saving grace of the story mode is that the story it tells is actually pretty good. It follows the standard 'ragtag group of misfits' struggles to save the place they call home from evil real estate moguls' plot that drove such classic films as """. Adding that "along the way, the characters become a little endearing". Reviews for Neversoft's entries started to dip with the release of "Project 8". In the GameSpot review of the PlayStation 3 version, "Project 8" was criticized for its lack of online play on Sony systems and unstable frame rate, with critics noting that the series was becoming more and more stale. "Proving Ground" was met with mixed to positive reviews upon release. On Metacritic, both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions had an average score of 73/100 and 72/100, the PlayStation 2 version had an average score of 65/100, and the Wii version had an average score of 57/100. All of these scores are considered "mixed or average" by the site. The PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii versions were criticized for not having the same mechanics that are in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. The Nintendo DS version received generally favorable reviews from critics. On Metacritic it received an average score of 79/100 based on 21 reviews.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: As Robomodo began producing "Tony Hawk's" games, the reviews immediately dropped deep into negative. "Tony Hawk: Ride" received negative reviews from critics. The Metacritic average score of 47/100, 46/100, and 44/100 for the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 versions respectively indicates "generally unfavorable reviews". GameTrailers gave "Tony Hawk: Ride" a score 4.6 and named it Most Disappointing Game of 2009, while IGN gave the game a 5.0. Both G4TV and Giant Bomb rated it 1/5. GameSpot gave it a 3.5/10, with the only positive emblem the game received being that the peripheral was "sturdy". GamesRadar gave the game 4/10. They also named it the worst game of the year, using its skateboard peripheral as the trophy for the "Anti-Awards" feature. "Game Informer" gave it a 5.75, remarking that "as a skateboarder and as a gamer, "Tony Hawk: Ride" is a curious idea but a letdown in practice. The huge level of frustration is not worth the time it takes to master the awkward gameplay idiosyncrasies". Unlike its predecessors, "Pro Skater HD" was able to at least attain mixed reviews.


title: Tony Hawk's (series)

text: IGN's Nic Vargas gave the game a score of 8/10, praising its purist gameplay whilst lamenting the lack of certain modes such as park creator and split screen multiplayer. The reviewer from GameTrailers gave the game a score of 7.4 and stated that "Pro Skater HD" "isn't flawless, but... it at least gets off on the right foot". Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar felt that "old-school fans of the franchise will be disappointed by what the game lacks, and gamers who’ve never laid eyes on a PS1 will find the mechanics and level design sparse". Destructoid gave the game 4.5/10, stating that the execution isn't handled as well as the original games, as well as some of the design choices the developer made. G4TV gave the game a 4.5/5 and praised the console versions' online multiplayer and soundtrack. "Official Xbox Magazine" gave "Pro Skater HD" an 8/10. They praised the game's new big head mode. "Pro Skater 5" reverted to catastrophic reviews again and was bashed by critics upon release in September 2015. Most critics noted that the graphics were inferior even to the games released on the PlayStation 2, while the gameplay barely resembled previous releases and was rendered almost unplayable by numerous bugs. Furthermore, the simplistic, bland environments and missions and complete absence of NPCs were noted, and some critics pointed out that better levels could have been designed with the Create-a-Park feature of previous games, while most levels were simply inferior copies of levels from the original games. The game was so rushed to release that it was unplayable without an 8GB day one patch, with only the tutorial and park creator being accessible. "Pro Skater 5" has the fourth-lowest average score of any PlayStation 4 game and the fifth-lowest average score of any Xbox One game and was named the "Worst Video Game of 2015" by "Entertainment Weekly". "Edge" even went so far to call "Pro Skater 5" "an insult to its history, to its licensed skaters and sponsors, to modern hardware, and to anyone who plays it".