Pros: Fun for any Tony Hawk fan, controls are fluid and similar to previous titles
Cons: HD isn't that good, very short Story and Classic Mode, same as regular console game.
The bottom line: Bottom Line-Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is worth a Rental, but do not purchase this game.
Tony Hawk and Neversoft have had a long standing relationship putting out 7 Tony Hawk titles. This has created one of the biggest fan bases for an “extreme sports” title on the market today. The latest installment of this series is Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland (THAW) which was released on the PC and all major consoles (including the Xbox 360).

~The Story~

It is no secret that the most recent installments of this series have devoted much of the developers’ time to a compelling story instead of focusing on general game-play. It can be argued that the Tony Hawk series has some of the most fluid game-play that can be found on the market to date, so I find it hard to take any credit away from Neversoft for focusing on this area. THAW offers a very compelling storyline which rivals that of the previous two Tony Hawk titles.

In THAW you are a renegade skater from the Midwest who is sick and tired of getting burned because of your love to skate. Because of this, you find yourself heading to Los Angeles where skating began and is still king. Without taking too much away from the story itself (as it is one of the best parts of this game), you start out by getting jumped by some LA thugs who steal all of your gear. From this point on you begin your career in LA by getting a new look, some new gear and learning tons of new (and old) tricks. Even standard Tony Hawk series tricks (i.e. the manual) are not available to you until you learn them in LA.

After making it through what seems to be quite a lengthy tutorial (which is actually about 10% of the story mode), you begin to make friends with a group of crazy, renegade skaters (much like yourself, go figure). The rest of the story mode revolves around completing various objectives that are reminiscent of previous Tony Hawk titles to obtain money or items that will be used to “trick out” your posse’s skate ranch in hopes of making it big. I will talk a little bit more about these objectives in the Game-Play section of this review.

Throughout the story you will meet a literal plethora of different characters (new and old) including some of the biggest names in skating (Bam Margera, Tony Hawk, etc.). Most of these characters will help you along your quest, but some of them simply revolve around side missions that do little to help your standing in the game.

~The Game-Play~

As previously stated, recently game-play has not been a major focus in the Tony Hawk series by Neversoft. The developers clearly believe that they have gotten the game-play mechanics correct in the past and that they do not need to change much to make these games good. Well, they are partially correct.

As far as controls are concerned, the game-play is second to none (especially on the Xbox 360). Any Tony Hawk fan who has played this game on several different consoles will tell you that the best console to play this series on was the Playstation 2 due to the double “bumpers” at the front of the controller. The Xbox 360 also has the dual bumper feature on their controllers making game-play (especially landing several tricks in the air) a breeze. The controls for THAW are as follows:

Start Pause/Menu
A Jump (Ollie)
A (Held) Crouch
X (While in air) Grab Tricks
X Slap
B (While in air) Flip Tricks
Y Grind (When in air)
Right Analog Stick Camera Movement
Left Analog Stick Movement
Directional Pad Movement
R2/L2 Revert
L1+R1 Switch from walking/boarding

Many Tony Hawk fans will realize that aside from the addition of the Left Bumper and Right Bumper (L1/R1 respectively) these controls are generally the same as the rest of the Tony Hawk series making THAW very easy to adapt to.

The Story Mode game-play is some of the easiest that I have encountered in a Tony Hawk game to date. Objectives to complete are extremely straight forward, many of which placing you right where you need to be to complete the objective right from the start. The map system (which can be enabled through the in game menus) makes it very simple to find what you need to accomplish and where you need to go. With little left to the imagination or in-game skill in finding and completing these objectives, the Story Mode actually loses a little flavor and even a new Tony Hawk fan will find the Story Mode easy to complete.

THAW also offers a smattering of different types of game-play including the ever popular Classic Mode, Head-to-Head and Xbox Live areas. The classic mode offers straight objectives to be completed in 3 minutes or less (which can be restarted as many times as you want) and features the newest Tony Hawk maps, as well as some of the most popular maps from previous games. Overall, the Classic Mode is just as simple as the Story Mode and can be completed in a very minimal amount of time. The Head-to-Head mode is the same as previous versions allowing you to setup a custom game type and play against a friend. The Xbox Live service in THAW is generally good allowing you to play some of the best THAW players throughout the world in every game type involved in this game (High Score, Biggest Trick, etc.). Unless you are a huge fan of the Tony Hawk series, you will (most likely), find the Xbox Live service with this game to be pretty basic in the approach. In other words, the Xbox Live service in THAW does not add much to the game at all.

~Overall Impressions~

We are now in the High Definition era and I do expect a lot out of these so-called “Next Generation” games. While a noticeable difference can be seen between the regular console versions of THAW and the Xbox 360 version, many of these differences come in the form of a Higher Definition realization of the plethora of graphical flaws. From the walls and city looking very bland, to the icon and characters looking choppy, you’ll find yourself wondering if your HD Television is on the fritz. Now don’t get me wrong, the game-play is quite fluid in the controls and the game does look good, but it is disheartening to see how quickly Neversoft must have ported this game from the normal consoles over to the Xbox 360.

Also, fans of THAW need to note that there is nothing new to this story of this game that cannot be played on the Xbox, Playstation 2 or GameCube versions. Aside from some of the general Xbox Live services that come standard with all Xbox 360 games, you will notice little to no differences in the game than what you could get cheaper on one of the previous consoles.

Overall, being a Tony Hawk fan I was pretty disappointed in the latest installment of this series. While I stand by Neversoft’s decision not to tinker with the controls of this game, I do hold them to much higher standards in making the Store Mode (or any other modes for that matter) much more engrossing and challenging. I truly believe that even if you are a fan of the Tony Hawk series, you should RENT this game. Heed my warning and do not spend $59.99 for a new Xbox 360 copy of this title!

~Rating~

5.9 out of 10