Another excellent game from the well-known Tony Hawk series.
Neversoft pumps out another entry in the Tony Hawk franchise. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is the seventh game and third major overhaul to the Tony Hawk franchise that began its life as the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. Neversoft reinvigorated the franchise a few years ago with Tony Hawk's Underground and has done so again with American Wasteland. The game doesn't drastically change the core gameplay of the series, but does innovate by including a living, breathing recreation of Los Angeles as one huge skatepark.
In the game's story mode, you begin as a chap from the Midwest who was tired of living there and wanted to move to Los Angeles, where skating began. In preparation for the trip, the character purchased a good bit of skating gear that gets stolen as soon as your character steps foot in Los Angeles. You'll quickly be told where you can get more gear, and have to make your way throughout L.A. as you make the city your own. The story is fairly standard stuff overall but is told well. Neversoft has always included some sort of story for the Tony Hawk games, but this is the first one that feels natural.
In terms of gameplay, the story mode has you pulling off a number of basic moves to get goals. Other goals involve getting a piece of the city to bring back to the skate ranch where a large portion of the story mode takes place. Your friends want to decorate the skate park and thus you'll need to pick up these items. The goals are never particularly difficult since the game quite explicitly points you in the right direction. Often the game will place you right in front of your target location removing a lot of the challenge for seasoned players.
Aside from story mode, THAW includes a classic mode. This is a throwback to the first few Tony Hawk games where you're given a two-minute timer and ten goals to complete in a level. The goals include the typical skate letters and tapes from the first few games. You'll find a number of classic levels from the early Tony Hawk games, and a few of the levels that graced the PSP version of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (which are new to consoles). The classic mode isn't particularly difficult since you can unlock all the different levels in a few hours but it is a nice addition nonetheless.
One of the major innovations for the game is that includes an entire Los Angeles for you to play in. You'll find places like Downtown, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Hollywood among the locations. Other locations include a casino, an oil rig and an indoor skatepark. All of the areas are pretty good skate locations allowing for ample opportunities to string together the long combos the series is known for. Since the game includes the entire city, you're able to get to the Los Angeles location without a loading screen. The game skirts around the issue but handles it pretty well. It isn't entirely a Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas style free for all. Instead, the game requires you to skate through certain locations to get to the next area, effectively loading it while you get there. Additionally, you can take a bus but once again the game loads as the bus trip takes place. Nonetheless, the map is massive and a pleasure to skate in.
The core gameplay hasn't been changed too much. The game includes some new tricks, most notable the bert slide but none of them really change the game like the revert or manual did a few years back. Neversoft added BMX bikes to the mix, which is the biggest gameplay change this year. The control scheme is decidedly thorough, showing that this wasn't just an afterthought. The bikes behave very well, and are very fun to control.
The game includes both offline and online multiplayer. The online mode includes series staples like goal attack, graffiti, combo mambo, and capture the flag. One of the more exciting modes is firefight mode, where you are able to shoot fireballs from the skateboard. The other typical create modes are found in THAW. You can still create skaters, skate parks, tricks, and graffiti and deck graphics. The PlayStation 2 version of the game allows you to map a custom face to the character.
The game's visuals are pretty good. The different areas look very distinct and are huge. The Los Angeles theme works very well for the game, accurately creating the feel that you're skating in this huge city when in reality it is just a bunch of really well connected areas. The skater models are solid like always, with excellent animation as is the usual for the series.
The game's soundtrack is varied like always including stuff like Motley Crüe - "Live Wire" and Public Enemy – "Burn Hollywood Burn" to recent hits like My Chemical Romance - "Astro Zombies," Fall Out Boy - "Start Today," Taking Back Sunday – "Suburban Home / I Like Food," and Green Day - "Holiday" and Bloc Party - "Like Eating Glass". The sound effects are excellent, accurately portraying the sounds of skating as is usual for the series. The voice acting is pretty good especially from the pro skaters who sound more enthusiastic than they have in previous years.
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is a very solid game overall. The tweaks to the core gameplay, the addition of the BMX moves, and the inclusion of a massive city to skate around in are definitely appreciated. Neversoft is constantly improving the game, though it is questionable how they're going to improve on it next time around. They have been receiving the same question for several years now and they always meet the expectations though.