Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

"'Waste' is the correct term"

Well, let me start off by saying I am one of the lucky ones that rented this first. I had Tony Hawk's on N64 and then on my XBOX I had THPS 3, it was the first game I got on my XBOX and I loved it. Then I didn't play another one until THUG (I didn't have any need, THPS 3 is still great!) and I did like this one too, not as much as the Pro Skaters, but still, it was a good title Project 8 didn't work on my XBOX :( too many scratches on a rental, but then I hired out THAW. Everything changed.

Graphics: 4/10

The graphics are that of an average XBOX game, no where near the standards of X360, especially if they want to compete with the graphics of GoW, Halo 3 and Fable 2. Now I know that these are the top graphic games for our system, but THAW has graphics not even in the next-gen spectrum. I expected a realistic game this time and I was sorely let down.

I was also not a big fan of the whole cartoon thing.

Sounds 3/10

The sound was pretty good , if a little over the top, but I still liked it. With sound, I am grouping it with dialogue, voice acting and music, thus the low score. I will admit, the voice acting was above average, but the dialogue was pathetically bad. I know a lot of skaters and the kind of people in this game, and if I ever heard one of them call anyone a 'noob' or even acknowledged it was a word, I would faint. I admit, I use the word, I am one of those type of people, a hardcore gamer; but no skater I have ever known has even heard of the term.

The music was pretty bad. I admit, I love rock so the hip hop and punk tracks were turned off straight away for me, but then proceeding down the list, I turned off many of the "rock" tracks as they were as "rocky" as The Veronicas. I did leave maybe 2 or 3 tracks on, but I didn't see the point. With no custom soundtrack option, I was left with nothing. I could have put on the music from my hard drive through my gamer profile, but then it would have drowned out the story line too.

Gameplay 4/10

The game felt less like a game and more like a few hours worth of tutorial. Everyone was teaching you something or telling you which tricks to pull off.

My biggest gripe with gameplay was the character selection. You choose out of 6 starting characters and all you get to change is between limited hair and clothes. THPS 3 had much much more customization. The reason I hate THAW's character creation so much was because, well, there was none! Sure, you can do it for the other modes, but even in THUG you got to customize your character and choose his or her tricks. Oh, did I mention the inability to play as a female main character? So I was stuck with a character with hair styles I didn't want, clothes that looked terrible and none of my own tricks. Even in the old Pro Skater games you could play the 'story' with your create-a-skater.

The gameplay is very repetitive and the missions are either too easy, too hard or too stupid. I mean *MINOR SPOILER* I think it takes more than someone droping down onto a car to light it on fire and blow it up *END SPOILER*

Plot 3/10

The plot is basically collect things to build a skate park. I think I prefered the "your in a pro-comp and to unlock the next part of the comp, do these objectives". The old games also game you many many more places to skate.

The characters don't have any depth too them, it's pretty much what you see is what you get. First impressions count because they are the only impression you get.

Overall 3/10

Overall it was a terrible game and I am glad I only hired it. If you want a good skating game, stick to THPS's and THUG.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/30/07