Tony Hawk's American Sk8land

"The Land of the Free"

Ever since Tony Hawk's Underground 2 was released for the PlayStation 2 years ago, I have been a major fan of the Tony Hawk games. Before the release of the Nintendo DS, I refused to play a portable Tony Hawk game because I feared it would totally ruin the franchise for me, I mean, how could you pull off a skateboarding game on the Game Boy Advance? Thankfully, Tony Hawk's American Sk8land for the DS brings the portable Tony Hawk games to full 3D and reiterates some of the classic elements of the series, though it does not do everything as right as it should have done.

Character customization is pathetic. I don't even know why they included this feature when it's so pinned down. One of the better parts of the character customization is the ability to create your own symbols via the touch-screen and the stylus, though this feature is not revolutionary in anyway and is virtually useless in-game (the symbol also appears when you stamp a wall).

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land is a very fun game, though it does have some flaws that do bring down the experience some and takes it down a couple notches from the console Tony Hawk games, which I've so far not been displeased with at all. Where American Sk8land goes wrong is that it just doesn't have that Tony Hawk silliness that the other games have, and nearly all the missions you have to do in order to progress to the next level are extremely mundane and feel like tutorials. Seriously, the missions just basically teach you a new move, you do it, and ta-da, you have more money. Some may be confused that I said there are actually levels in this game, since the recent Tony Hawk titles have traded that linearity for a more free-roam environment, but Sk8land has a combination of free-roam and levels. Once you unlock the next level, you can directly travel between that level and the level before (and some other levels that you have unlocked later).

The main point of the game is to get money by completing tasks for the people standing around the levels in order to earn some money, which you spend at the warehouse on new parts to create the best skate park possible. Yeah, that's right, that's basically the only thing you can do with the money you earn. And instead of including a create-a-park feature, Sk8land decides to just count the warehouse as this mode, which is a major disappointment and I am thoroughly disgusted by this. What made Project 8 not the perfect game that it could've been was the lack of the create-a-park feature, and the lack of this mode also brings Sk8land down a notch. I just cannot understand why the developers won't include this feature in Tony Hawk anymore, but hopefully the next game will have it.

Of course, there would be no point in making a Nintendo DS game (in my point of view) that does not take advantage of either the touch-screen or the microphone. Sk8land does take advantage of the touch-screen by allowing you to touch color-coded moves displayed on the bottom-screen that count as special moves. This makes racking up big combos a lot easier and I enjoyed this feature very much, as it does not force you to remember an impossibly long string of buttons to press. You can also go into slow-motion by using the touch-screen by clicking a metal ball that appears to the left once you have your special bar filled, but I honestly did not use this feature at all—it just wasn't necessary.

Freak-outs are more common in Sk8land due to the fact that the game takes away one of the features that has since become a staple for Tony Hawk games, and that is the ability to get off of your board and travel around the environment on foot. This means that if you mess up on a ramp or something and you need to get off your board quick, you won't be able to, resulting in a wreck and a freak-out. The freak-outs in Sk8land take advantage of the DS's unique touch-screen features by touching three constantly moving bars, and if you touch the bars when they are at their fullest, you'll have a bigger freak-out and earn more points. Sadly, there are no freak-out animations besides your skater just jumping up and down on the board, which makes the freak-outs seem like an awkward feature that was added last minute just to squeeze a little more of the DS's abilities out.

Another feature that is taken away is the ability to spray-paint, which would have been the most obvious feature to include on a DS Tony Hawk game! Seriously, it would be a lot more fun to use the stylus and the touch-screen to spray paint whatever you wanted to throughout the environments, but for some reason this feature is also not included as extensively as it is in the console versions (except in Project 8, wow, it seems like the best features from the games are being taken out with every installment isn't it?). I'm not saying that you can't spray-paint at all in the game, but you can only spray-paint at certain areas, marked with a big green X. No, I'm not even kidding.

Classic mode is once again available and it is one of the more addicting aspects of the title. I don't know what it is about that classic Tony Hawk formula, but it never wears out, no matter how many times you get frustrated with it. I rather wish the developers had just made the story mode a classic mode, it would have made the game a lot better and probably would have even bumped up the score a bit.

The major fault of Sk8land is that there is only wireless multiplayer, no download-play. Sadly, one of the major pulls of the title, the Wi-Fi, is also dead because the online community seems to have vanished. Nintendo really needs to fix its online service and make all the multiplayer games have download-play…it would just make the games a lot more entertaining.

Cheater! By completing classic mode multiple times you can unlock cheats that are actually rather interesting. This is honestly where the meat of the game is found. Another feature that gamers, and especially Tony Hawk fans, will drool over is the ability to save your runs in classic mode to show off to your friends. Trust me, it is gratifying in the highest degree.

Out of all of the games on the DS, Tony Hawk's American Sk8land probably pulls off the 3D graphics the best. The graphics are impressive and almost never grainy, which is hard to say about other 3D games released for the handheld. The character models are horrible, however, which is very depressing, especially considering that the game really isn't that long (you can beat it in less than five hours very, very easily). Instead of cut-scenes, the story is played out in comic book style, which is very irritating.

Just like with pretty much every other Tony Hawk title, the soundtrack is amazing. Sure, there really aren't that many songs on the list, but the songs that are on the list are recognizable and enjoyable. Notably, “California Uber Alles” is probably the best song on the list and you may even find yourself turning off all the other songs just to listen to this song repeatedly. During cut-scenes, the voice-acting is of cheap cartoon-quality, and even at full-blast it is sometimes hard to understand what the characters are saying.

Like I mentioned before, the way the story is presented greatly butchers it. There is rarely anything interesting going on and there is no way that you'll ever be able to really care about the characters much at all. As I was playing the game, I was wondering why the developers even attempted to have a story for the game if they weren't going to try to flesh it out at all.

Since the multiplayer is weak and the online community is dead, Sk8land's possible replay-value is greatly brought down. Still, the game should keep you busy for a few hours and that is something that you should be very grateful for. Classic mode is always a pull, and you may even have fun just doing random moves throughout the levels. I wouldn't doubt it.

I know this review has been overall pretty negative, so you're probably wondering why I awarded the game such a high score. No, I am not a fan-boy of any video game series (I believe I proved that when I awarded Final Fantasy XII a score five even though the Final Fantasy series is one of my favorite video game series ever), it is just simply the fun factor. Where Sk8land falls short in terms of enticing features, it makes up for with sheer addictiveness and good old simple fun. I recommend this game to any Tony Hawk fan. It is a great addition to any gamer's library of Nintendo DS titles.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/02/07

Game Release: Tony Hawk's American Sk8land (US, 11/16/05)