Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

"It's alright..."

T.H.A.W. is a decent game. The story is great. A wannabe skate-punk meets a gal named Mindy and they go skate. You basically just play through this story, while at the same time, completing a large skatepark (American Wasteland).

As far as gameplay goes, this is basically an upgraded version of THUG 2. You lose the wall jump ability in exchange for a wall-walk ability and can nail major points even off your board. You can use new bank-transfers and bert-slides to rack up even more points too. Unfortunately, however, you can only play story mode as a dude (and you only have 5 to choose from). In Classic mode (3 new levels and 3 classics from THPS and all are exclusive to classic mode) you can play as a chick, but your outfit selection is limited AND, in an effort to discourage eating disorders, all female characters must be about 20 pounds overweight...too bad...

The you can run straight through from the first level to the last, no loading, or you can take a bus (or car). You can even combo through the entire world if you really want. There are also so many extra goals to keep you busy for quite a while. But you can only upgrade your stats so much in one day, and you have to live by a clock. LAME. Overall, the game restricts you too much in story mode, so you really can't buff yourself up all at once. Special BMX, graffitti, and other goals also adorn the various levels, so you can always have ample cash on hand.

There's no more tomato throwing or goal creation, and the park creator sucks. The soundtrack is also really lame. Usually I download at least 3 songs from these games. I didn't download any. Most of the best skaters have also been stripped. There's no more Geoff Rowley, Andrew Reynolds, Chad Muska, or Bucky Lasek. This leaves Burnquist, Mullen, Mike V, and Tony to do all the SERIOUS work. What work? There's ONE competition in this game. JUST ONE!

So you can't play as Chad Muska, the music sucks, you can't become pro, and there's no hot chicks (Except for Kelly and Mindy). Where's the fun? But it still gets worse! Bam has only scene, there's no secret levels, and no really cool new tricks. You also start story mode with almost NOTHING! That's right. You can't manual, spine transfer, or do special tricks until later in the game. Coupled with the fact that you spend the entire game in one city and some of the goals are a real drag, you have a pretty sad game...and not that it matters as you prolly won't make it that far, but the last goal is so easy, it makes THUG 2's last goal look like a trip through Hell.

Buy it, beat it, sell it. You just want the satisfaction of beating the first BAD Tony Hawk game. Have fun. See you after 15 hours of cra and about 4 hours of skating.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/24/09

Game Release: Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (US, 10/18/05)