Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

"Here's the rambling, in-depth breakdown for those who don't mind reading."

***Firstly, a warning--this is the "long review," for those who don't mind reading a bit more to really find out about the game before buying it.***

Way back in the THPS2 days, PlanetTonyHawk had a poll asking what features should be added to future games in the series and the resulting list was sent to Neversoft I believe. My first and foremost suggestion was to implement a sort of "coming up" mode in which you could work your way up from the bottom and earn tricks/abilities (this was before every sports game in existence tried to do it, mind you). Finally, it seemed, my dreams were answered with the advent of the first THUG title. But alas, things were not what they seemed. The hollow, dislikable characters and nonsensical plotlines of the THUG games simply made me shake my head in disgust. And then came American Wasteland--I prayed for an end to the horrors of the THUG series and a return to the series' roots. Did Neversoft finally perfect the elusive story mode? Let's read on.

So, first I'll tackle the storyline. It's not quite as annoying as THUG 2 (thankfully, Bam Margera is absent from the cutscenes) but most likely, it will still grate on your nerves. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (THAW for short) is supposedly set in the 80's. Unfortunately, Neversoft fails somewhat to maintain this illusion of the decade. The game falls victim to the sponsorship bug, with posters and such everywhere from companies that didn't exist/were nowhere nearly as big in the 80's. And as someone who lived through the times, I'd say they didn't do too great of a job with the pristine city and pedestrian clothing straight out of the 90's. Don't get me wrong here--I'm not begging for a Miami Vice-style cliche; but the LA portrayed in this game might as well be a snapshot of today. The acting still leaves something to be desired, but it's a step up from THUG2. It's not so much that I hate stupid antics in a skateboarding game, but the series seems to be taking the nonsensical elements too far. THPS4 had a pretty good balance of minigame-type stuff with a strong main game to back it up. There has to be a way to do a story here that's realistic, yet fun without being obnoxious--back to the drawing board, guys.

The graphics are looking great. Whereas THUG2 went for an outlandish cartoonish style, THAW falls back upon the more realistic standards set by the likes of THPS4. The addition of several new visual effects such as light bloom really punch up the environments, and the character models look much better (with the exception of Rodney Mullen, who looks strangely deformed). There is virtually no pop-in in any of the game's environments, and texture work is generally clean and bright. One of the game's new features allows you to change your shoes, hairstyle, and clothing at any store scattered about LA. The choices aren't exactly true to the 80's theme, unfortunately, but that's the price to pay for sponsorship I suppose. Character customization is just as robust as any other Tony Hawk game, though in my opinion the create-a-skater faces seem to get uglier with each iteration. I wish they would just leave the old faces in and add new ones to the pile.

One of the biggest surprises for me graphically was that they completely redid the animations, and it's about time. We've been seeing the same animations since THPS3, just with new tricks added each time. Everything looks smoother and more natural in this new set. Instead of the highly unrealistic, calculated movements of past titles, the characters flail about, struggling to land tricks just as in real life. When you go in nollie, your character may show a bit of a struggle in his animation if you attempt a flip trick. You can now control your powerslides to some degree. It's nice little touches like these that really make the game worth it.

The soundtrack has some nice gems in it; but in an attempt to please everyone, there is a smattering of modern tracks in there. Not that I don't like the artists featured, I just feel that an all-80's soundtrack would have worked great. Voiceacting, as I touched upon before, is lackluster but not as irritating as previous games. The sound effects have been overhauled as well; the ubiquitous pop noise will likely be the most noticeable change. They sound, for the most part, much better. Also, I'm not sure if this was already added in a previous game or if it's new here, but when in a tunnel or similar area, the sounds of your tricks echo nicely.

The gameplay has much more to offer, which may be a good or bad thing to others. To me, it's a godsend--there are just more ways to chain combos. Not to mention, it's becoming a very advanced skateboarding simulator--we're nearly at the point where you can do anything in this game that you could in real life. One of the new additions is boned ollies (a higher ollie, basically), which you trigger by holding down x after an ollie. It doesn't need to be released to land it, and in midair it keeps racking up points as if it were a grab. Nice stuff. Other additions include bert slides, pivots, doing tricks to tail, and grind stalls. Grind stalls are particularly nice looking on vert; we can finally do any stall we can think of. They are a bit odd on the physics engine when performing them on street, but this series was never quite known for it's realism. The amount on things you can do on foot has been much expanded as well. You now can perform crazy wallruns and such, whack pedestrians with your board, tag anywhere (even the ground if you're not near a wall) or even throwing away your board (you can spawn a new one with square, or run up to your discarded one and do a neat board-pick-up midair trick). For newcomers to the series, this may all be overwhelming, hence the "bad thing" I mentioned. But devotees of the series will have an absolute field day with most of these features--I know I did. The truly hardcore will even notice small additions to each facet of the trick system, such as a slightly expanded freestyle mode, new ways to perform tricks (I haven't even found them all yet--every so often I'll do something and be like what was that?) and new names for certain things (like kissed the rail -> rail bonks).

The bike, which is another new one for the series, is sort of a mixed bag. At first, I thought it was just a gimmick that couldn't do much, but after finishing the tutorial missions I came to realize it's moveset is nearly as deep as your board's, only far more unwieldy. It uses both sticks to operate, which is a nice innovation, but for the most part I stayed away from the bikes. They wipe out a lot more easily and tricks are harder to string together.

The stages aren't great--there are good lines to be had here and there, but it still feels somewhat prepackaged. Gone are the days of hunting for the perfect line, among deviously placed obstacles that seem like they will never be comboable. The city isn't actually one huge stage, but is broken up into smaller areas, ie Downtown, Hollywood, etc. When you transition between them, there is no load time, but I still get the feeling that there's a break. I suppose I've been spoiled by the free-roaming gameplay of GTA. It's a good start though, I can't wait to see what the next entry in the series brings.

In the end, I really wanted to love this game. But I've got to face the fact that this is aimed at a very specific target--previous THPS players who are ready to step up to the challenge. However, the story mode DOES progress nice and slow, so hope is not lost for newbies to the series. It introduces new tricks slowly and with a tutorial each time, but the question is, will new players take the time to remember the virtual encyclopedia of knowledge the game throws at them? If you love the series, this game is more than worth it in my opinion. The gameplay just begs to be savored, and if you're truly devoted, no amount of cliched, contrived storyline will be able to keep you away. Kudos, Neversoft--we're travelling up a slow, upward slope towards the perfect skateboarding game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/05