Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Other products by ACTIVISION

Product Features

• Travel throughout the vast urban terrain of Los Angeles - Skate or bike Hollywood, East L.A. and other landmark areas without restrictions or repetition
• More tricks and expanded controls - New on the board tricks like Bert slides, Natas spins handstands, and one-footed grinds and manuals; Off the board tricks include wall runs, wall flips, and charged jumps
• Choose to ride BMX bikes throughout the entire game, with all-new physics, a BMX-specific control system and several BMX-specific goals
• Enter and explore dozens of shops in-game to customize your gear and look - Check out skate shops, barbershops, tattoo parlors, and clothing stores as you accomplish goals and earn cash

Product Details

• Our recommended age: 12 - 20 years
• Manufacturer recommended age: 0 months and up
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009Z3HMY
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: September 8, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,399 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

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  Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Adventure

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2

Product Description
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland gives you the total freedom you need, to make LA your personal skate and bike park. For the first time, you'll skate or bike in a rich, expansive open environment. The sky's the limit as you progress through the Wasteland. No level, no load times -- just never-ending action. You'll never skate the same line twice!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Haven't we done this before?, October 21, 2005

By	GamerGirl (California) - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

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.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe The Best Tony Hawk Game, But It Has Lots Of Flaws, November 13, 2005

By	Alex "47" (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American Funland, February 8, 2006

By	Fewfeet "BBGames" (UK) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

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.

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