Tony Hawk's American Sk8land

"Don't skip this one"

I will have to admit, the only Tony Hawk game I ever owned before this was Tony Hawk 2 for the GBA, simply because it was a launch game and it looked good. I mean, sure I have played most of them (who hasn't?), but I never thought they were really worth me purchasing.

That thinking is what caused me to skip this game in the mad rush to buy “Mario Kart DS”. Even though they were both released on the same day, I just assumed that “American Sk8land” was just not worth my time and money.

Well, I was dead wrong.

I recently decided to pick this game up now that it has gotten pretty cheap, and I can honestly say that if I had played this game beforehand, I might have gotten this over Mario Kart when they were released.

There is just so much that impresses me with this title. The complete product is very well put together, with obvious attention to even the smallest detail.

The gameplay here is more like the classic Tony Hawk titles than the newer “THUG” games in the series. If you are a fan of the older games, then you are definitely going to enjoy this one. I think everyone reading this is probably well aware of what you do in a Tony Hawk game, so I won't go into detail about it here. Suffice to say, don't worry about this one lacking in the gameplay department.

Graphically, the game makes use of a cell shading technique to push out some very detailed 3D graphics at a very steady framerate. Despite what the developers claim about this being an artistic decision, the fact of the matter is that the DS supports cell shading in hardware, rather than it having to be done in software. This lets the developers offset the load on the system's CPU and push the machine farther than it could have gone if they were using traditional methods.

I was also impressed with the sound and music in this game. As with the console Tony Hawk games, Sk8land features real licensed music from a number of punk and underground bands. While there are obviously less tracks here than on it's console counterparts (Sk8land features around 30 total minutes of music), what is there sounds great. The audio quality is more than adequate, and the tracks themselves are all pretty decent.

Another great feature is the ability to record short voice clips and use them in-game when you do various activities, such as falling from your board. I was really surprised at how well the recorded audio meshes in with the rest of the sound effects and music going on while you are playing the game. It took me a few tries, but I eventually recorded clips that sound completely natural in the game (well, other than for the actual words being spoken).

Finally, perhaps the best feature of this game is it's online capabilities. Sk8land was the first third party game to make use of the “Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection”, and in a lot of ways, it exceeds even what even Nintendo themselves have managed to do with the network to this day.

This game supports downloadable content in the form of new level goals and artwork. I was particularly impressed by the artwork system. You make an account on the Sk8land website, and from there you can browse artwork submitted by players. You then can add their board designs and graffiti to your collection, to be downloaded to your DS the next time you login with the game.

In addition to being able to upload created artwork to the website for the world to see, you can also upload replays of your best runs, so that everyone can see how well (or poorly) you did.

While the online capabilities of this game were the most impressive thing to me, they are also the source of the only two complaints I can really come up with against this title.

The first problem is that the game only supports 2 players. While this is not actually a limitation to the “Wi-Fi Connection” part of the game, since you can only do 2 players in a local match anyway, it would really have been nice to see it get bumped up to 4 players.

Second, the method to link your game with the Sk8land website is needlessly complicated. While the NintendoWiFi.com website instantly knows which games you have and displays your individual statistics, for whatever reason, you need to make a totally separate account on a different website to make use of the artwork system in Sk8land. What's worse, the Sk8land website can't even identify your game via the WFC ID, and requires you to input a username and password that appears on one of the menu screens in the game. The username and password are completely gibberish, and having to manually type them in just makes it seem like they didn't really think the system through, or at least didn't have the time to complete the system as they had intended.

But really, these are just minor complaints with a very well done production. While it's online functionality could have been a bit better developed, it is still one of the best setups you are going to find on the DS. If nothing else, this game is just more proof that Vicarious Visions is one of the most underrated developers of their time.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/06