Customer Reviews

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tony Hawk and co. have delivered a new game every year for seven years straight now, and every year I get sucked into it. This year's game is no exception, but I am beginning to wish that these guys would skip a year and spend the extra time making a better game.

The big deal about this game was that the entire game is supposed to be contained in one massive level modelled after the city of Los Angeles. This is true to some extent, except you start with only a small area and then unlock other small areas. In order to get from one area to another, you have to skate across transition zones, all of which are so choppy that it doesn't take a genius to realize that you're basically skating through a glorified loading screen. So in the end, this one massive level really just turns out to be a bunch of small levels strung together, and some of the smallest levels in recent Tony Hawk history, I might add.

For those who enjoyed classic mode, with the two minute timer and traditional challenges, it's back. However, all but one of the levels in this mode are from previous games. Some of the levels are even making their third appearance in a Tony Hawk game.

There are a few new moves in the game, but I have not found any of them to be incredibly useful. You are also able to ride a BMX bike in story mode, which is fun for a little while, but I started to lose interest fairly quickly.

One of my biggest annoyances with story mode was that you are only able to perform tricks after you finish the "mission" that teaches you those tricks. This means that you cannot manual, revert, spine transfer, or natas spin until someone teaches you how to do it, even though you've been doing these moves for years now. Do we really need a tutorial design to the story mode after seven years? Or was it so hard to come up with interesting challenges that they needed to incorporate training into the missions?

My advice to the Tony Hawk crew is to take a break. I love having a new game every year, but I certainly wouldn't mind waiting an extra year if it means we can see larger and more creative levels and interesting challenges again. The formula is getting stale - adding a few new gimmicks here and there is just not doing the trick.

First off; I can tell you this game was rushed, but anyways I can't tell you whether I liked more aspects to this game or disliked more. i got the game yesterday, and beat the story mode on easy yesterday as well, and it was for the most part really easy ( except two missions on Santa Monica ) and it lasted quite awhile; longer than other story modes on other Tony Hawk games. Anyways here we go with my Pros, Cons, and other notes from me to you on my opinion about THAW. Here we go.

You start as a low class skater who needs to get his rep up ( yeah yeah you've heard it before. ) And you make a friend, Mindy, who soon takes you to her friend's skate ranch. ( Iggy,Murphy,Boone..etc. ) After proving yourself, you get to skate in the park and you go all around california looking for pieces to get for the park; that's basically it.

The game is actually fairly repetetive because you'll feel yourself doing similar things over and over again... doing combos on rails, doing tricks shouted out to you, and so forth. Almost every mission you do in this game after you get to the skate ranch is collect pieces that you destroy from buildings and so on.

The level design is once again very well done. THAW has ( 8 levels I believe? ) That are all in some way a little different, and you expand the level each time you play by destroying something to get for your ranch, or to get to the next city.

The 'No-Load' times thing was probably a big thing for a lot of people, and there are basically no load times. None between levels, but you can tell when the game actually does load betweem each city. When you are in a 'tunnel' to the next city, you will notice a huge graphical change ( bad bad graphics ) the game will pause for a split second when you are in there, and you can hear your disc moving awkwardly like it normally does when a game loads. The little 'tunnels' are really bland, but hey I'd rather skate down it then sit through a load time.

This game is generally easy (I'm only on easy, though but I can't imagine it getting too much harder; it didn't in past games.) And the story in story mode is pretty lame at times, but it has its moments as well.

Another thing a lot of people may of heard of was the fact that there would be BMX bikes in THAW. There certainly is; and although many people that have played THAW may have said the BMX addition was a waste of time. It was NOT. The BMX controls make you feel like you are actually riding a bike somewhat and you use both analog sticks. You may think there are only a few tricks you can do on the bike, but actually you can do quite a bit. The only downfall about the bikes it how you can't trick it out or anything.

Pro's and con's:

PROS: Big levels, No load times, Good soundtrack, BMX BIKES!, Better customization, Better online.
CONS: No load times, but you can tell when it's loading, relatively short story mode, lame story mode for the most part, strange graphical errors, a lot of glitches.

The Stack:

Graphics: 7.5/10. The graphics at first when I was looking at the game I though "What the hell is this? These graphics are horrible!" But after awhile of playing, they seemed to get a bit better it seemed to me. There are a lot of graphical errors, such as strange blurs, a lot of glitches, and awkward movements. They could definitely be tweaked. In one mission where you are in the skate ranch and there's that crane, if you climb up the ladder all the way to the top and look down on your park, it looks absolutely amazing.

Controls: 8/10. The controls in this game and camera angles at sometimes are extremely frustrating. If you try to get off your skateboard, you may find yourself doing a bert slide or something like that, and when time counts, it gets annoying. Other than that they aren't bad.

Sound: 9/10. A pretty boomin' soundtrack for sure; Fallout Boy, Dead Kennedies, My Chemical Romance, Greenday, and other great bands make for an excellent soundtrack. The voice acting is great as well. The sound is probably one of the higher points of the game.

Fun: 8/10. Classic Mode is not nearly as good as before for some reason, and the game doesn't last long, but while it lasts it's fantastic, and if you have a friend; there is now Classic Co-Op, and since THPS 4, online play that is better than ever. If you're a THPS/THUG fan, definitely buy this, it won't dissapoint, even if it won't last as long as you had hoped.

I got this game for christmas and i completed it about a week later which is quite a while considering it usually takes me a day or two to complete a game. Anyway although i've had it since christmas i'm still deeply immensed in the game having recently unlocked Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day!
I love the soundtrack on this game.(only because it contains Green Day!)
The only bad thing would have to be that on freeskate you cant go around all of LA like in the main story ,you have to change the 'area' to go to a diffferent part of town. One other bad thing would be park editor , not much has been done to improve this. COME ON NEVERSOFT WE WANT A DECENT PARK EDITOR FOR A CHANGE!
Over all this game is alot of fun and my favorite Tony Hawk game soooo far. A pleasant experience which should be enjoyed by all.

i love the tony hawk games and just recently added this to my hawk collection. it is a little different then the last one. in this game you can also ride a BMX bike,which is fun. the game style is different. you do have to "learn" the tricks from someone as you progress.i think that any tony hawk fan should buy this game.

My kids love this game, if they could they would play all day. They dont have to wait for it to download, it is just a click and there you are playing. You see they have a time limit of 30 min. to play there playstation so every minute counts, thats why they love playing this game.

The first complaint about this game is that skating seems to have taken a back seat to BMXing and er... walking around a bit. It seems like you spend more time off the board doing idiotic things like spraypainting a wall than you do on the board doing combos.

Secondly, where are the female skaters? The 'hero' is an uncharismatic, generic guy. No choice to be female in story mode.

Thirdly, the schoolboy laughs are just wearing very thin. Here's a tip, Tony, 'impressing hot chicks with your movez' does not a story make.

This really isn't a very good game. The THUG games were better and the THPS games better still. In fact, I'd say forget it all, go out and buy Aggressive Inline. That was a much underrated game!

For almost a decade now, Tony Hawk licensed video games have been flooding the market with varying degrees of quality. The previous Tony Hawk Underground games were fun, and chances are if you liked those, you'll dig Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. The reason why is that not much has changed since the last time around. The game is basically identical to Tony Hawk Underground 2 with the exception of the there being no loading during skating sessions. This is nice, and it's about time that this was addressed, was besides that, there's really nothing new here. The game's storyline is lame, but it can be amusing now and then with the inclusion of BMX bikes to go with the skating. The graphics are decent enough, but nothing special, while the soundtrack continues the series' tradition of a good selection of varied tunes. The controls are easy as ever as well, and the game is easy to pick up for beginners. However, if you're a veteran of the series, there's nothing new here, and you're better off hoping that Activision gets their act together and actually decides to put some effort into their next Tony Hawk game for something really special.

The new BMX feature is what really made me buy this game. They have really finally put the best skaters in this game. It includes Bam Margera, Mike Vallely, Tony Hawk, Tony Alva, Daewon Song, and Stevie Williams. There are also some other pros. Bottem line, BUY THIS GAME!

I didnt like it..Here's why---

Graphics 2/10 --not good at all,Generic..Nothing more I can really say about it.

Gameplay 0/10--I felt very weird about the whole thing,Felt very Generic,Clunky.

Sound 10/10--best thing about the game,the best soundtrack out of any game I have ever played.

Bottom line 3/10--The soundtrack saves it from getting a 1..Just move on from this and be glade they don't make these anymore.

I purchased this game as a Christmas present for my 8 yr old son, and it turns out that his 13 yr old brother, as well as a few of their friends enjoy playing it also. They all absolutely love playing it!