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The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 24/02/2008 13:34:46Updated by Joel Dixon at 04/03/2008 17:03:18
Back in high school a couple of friends and I hired a game that was getting a little bit of hype amongst the kiddies - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for my PlayStation. Still to this day, I can remember how I felt when I started skating the first level - the Warehouse. The game did look awesome - but the real joy came from replicating the feeling of turning up at an unfamiliar place, and seeing what you could skate on. This is something my friends and I did frequently during our early high school days (on rollerblades), but in Tony Hawk - I could actually complete better tricks than "the jump".
The first level in the original Tony Hawk game
As I rolled through the levels like The School (another very familiar setting) and The Mall (I admit I did have a fantasy of blading through an empty Eastland) collecting the coveted tapes and uncovering amusing gap names I knew this was a special game. I am now a proud owner of every game in the Tony Hawk's series and while I definitely feel the quality of the series had peaked by the third installment - I still buy and enjoy each of the games, just to try out the new levels, if nothing else.
The last Tony Hawk game I bought for my PlayStation 2 was Tony Hawk's Underground 2 quite a few years ago - and it was fortunate that the next in the series, American Wasteland, was available for the Xbox 360 at the bargain price of $15.
Why pink?
As this is the fifth Tony Hawk game, game play changes were hardly genre re-defining. The big change was what they took out of this game - loading screens. There was, however, loading tunnels - 30 seconds of sparsely populated tunnels connecting each different section together. Even though the change was essentially turning the loading screen into a user-controlled animation, I must admit that it did help the flow of the game.
Continuing the trend that was introduced in Tony Hawk's Underground, American Wasteland's main content was uncovered in a "story mode" that tried to add a narrative to the game. I've never been a fan of "story mode" as it generally results in a lot of busy-task goals, and crap loads of unnecessary skating from point A to B. In my opinion the story mode succeeds only in making the game more disjointed.
The chick you try to doink in the story mode (the one without pigtails)
Some of the new story mode levels are pretty cool (such as a finished Skate Park) as are some of the NPCs that are introduced - but on the whole I was unimpressed. A very small feature of story mode is the ability to get off your board and hop onto a bike to ride around. This was one of the better inclusions of the game in my opinion, especially since the BMX controls were much better than the controls of Activision's Mat Hoffman series of games. It feels great to pull off a flare or tailwhip with this style of controls!
No tuffs on this bike, unfortunately
Once I finally slogged my way though the story mode I gave classic mode a shot - and was happy again. The sense of nostalgia overwhelmed me as soon as I begun the first classic level. You see - all of the classic levels are remakes of levels from earlier games in the series (like my beloved Mall level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater). I'm sure some people view this as a cop out - but I was happy as it's been so long since I've played these levels, and they take on new life with the inclusion of moves such as the manual and revert.
I guess the other new feature that would have wowed people when this game was released was the ability to play against others online with Xbox Live. I played a few games online over Live - and it was definitely fun - but there really isn't many other games playing this game now days. Still - the online experience was quite well implemented - considering the time this game was released.
Achievements in this game weren't too bad, but pretty basic. Once completing story mode and classic mode most of the achievements were dolled out, leaving only 10 points to skate each level over Live (with or without another person) and 100 points to "complete" the game (basically get all of the gaps). Once again, considering the release date of this title, the achievements weren't too poorly implemented.
Overall - American Wasteland is pretty much as you would expect for yet another game in the Tony Hawk series. A fun game, some new levels and the ability to play over Live (while the game is still popular).
2.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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