Tony Hawk's American Wasteland review

Welcome to Tony Hawk's American Wasteland also known as Tony Hawks 7. For a franchise to last this long you would expect some air of quality to surround it and thankfully most of the TH games have been of a respectable quality. Sadly during the last few Underground years the franchise kind of lost it way.

It did not have the same awe and one-more-time feeling that graced the PSone console around half a decade ago. Now Neversoft has ventured to the American Wasteland’s (Los Angeles to you and me) to try and get Tony out of the little rut he has skated himself into and you will be happy to know they succeeded, well kinda.

Be Naughty! Do A Melon Grab!

First things first, let’s talk about where you will probably be spending the considerable amount of your time in the game, the story mode. In this mode you are placed in the shoes of a no name skater who has made his way to Los Angeles to skate to make a living for himself. It a sad turn of events you get mugged the second you step of the bus when you arrive in LA. Thankfully a girl called Mindy comes to your rescue and from this moment on the mini game beings. This story is not going to win many awards but it is a rather good setup considering the stuff that was forced down our necks in the other recent games in the series.

If you have played any other game in this series you will know that when you start out you will be a pretty weak skater only able to do the most basic of tricks but in less than a hour you should be throwing out some highly advance stuff like there is no tomorrow. You can also find and mess about with BMX bikes in the game and although they don’t amount to much there are a few goals the game. In terms of control the BMX bikes are a surprisingly different breed than your skateboard and it is nice to see that the developer has taken the time to map out some unique tricks and controls for when you choose to go on two wheels.

What Ya Want Me To Do?

As I said the game sets you mission or goals to accomplish. Some of the missions are interesting but the vast amount of them are pretty uninspired and rather basic. If you have played any of the recent games in the series you will probably have seen something similar before such as grinding on particular objects to knock them down. The sad fact is that due to the Tony Hawk series of games be available for so long the stuff that used to be fun now just seems boring. However If this is your first TH game you should have a blast of a time.

Should you get bored of the story mode then you can also pop into the game's classic mode for a bit more fun. Anyone who has played the old PlayStation incarnations should find a lot of fun in this mode as it brings back loads of the olds stuff loved for the older game such as tape collecting, letter collecting and of course the two minute timer. The title also brings back some of the old levels for yesteryear which no seems kind of basic when you compare in to the city of LA in the story mode.

Whoa Dude! No Loading!

If you have caught any of the adverts on TV you will have noticed one of the game biggest selling points is the no loading aspect. In fact, Activision has seen fit to crash poor old Tony into an invisible wall to drive this point home to us. Disappointingly this no loading feature is not exactly how you would expect it.

The city is wide open for you to skate in and you wont see any loading screens but to get to each area will have to skate through loading hallways. These hallways act has hidden loading sections which lets you continue to play the game as the next section loads without you knowing. It is a nice idea but probably not exactly what you were expecting after they hyped this aspect of the game so much.

THAW Is Cooler Than Cool

Graphically the game looks fantastic and is easily the best looking Hawk game yet, there is lots of attention to detail happing on each level with many of the pedestrian looking quite better the previous titles, animation is also improved with moves flowing together a bit better then before. The same goes for cutscene’s and they are a strong improvement over other games in the series. Lastly the levels are much bigger than before with each area offing loads of trick opportunities around every turn. In terms of audio there is not much to be said about them but soundtrack has a very love or hate feeling to it.

Perfect Landing?

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is a return to form for a series that was beginning to loose its way. The title is in no means perfect and still has a few niggles that could be ironed out in the series’ eight incarnation. If you were a fan of the Pro Skater versions of the of Tony Hawk you should now be grinning from ear to ear as there is a air of familiarity and nostalgia harking back to those games as you skate throughout the streets of LA while playing THAW.