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| | Title:
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
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System:
Xbox
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Genre:
Extreme Sports
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Publisher:
Activision
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Developer:
Neversoft Entertainment
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Release:
10/18/2005
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Online:
Yes
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ESRB:
Teen (T)
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The gaming industry was hit big, in a good way, from a successful little franchise with skateboarding’s no.1 boarder, Tony Hawk. The games, for better or worse, take leaps and bounds in directions that some genres seem nothing but fearful to explore. While the Tony Hawk Underground pair seemed a bit too ridiculous for it’s own good, it was nevertheless, fearless in it’s execution of gaming interactivity. The stunts and “bumps” varied in their extremity for fun and playability. This time around, the Tony Hawk series is paving into familiar gaming territory that no gamer is unfamiliar with...The territory of Grand Theft Auto.
Skateboarding world
Unlike any Tony Hawk game in the past, players will be dumped into a world without stages, levels, barriers, or the prior restrictions that other extreme sports games suffered from. American Wasteland is paging through the file of freedom. Giving players, for the very first time in a Tony Hawk game, the raw ability to explore and evolve as a boarder, in an immersive free-roaming city environment with practically no load times present. Amazing huh? This marks a serious step in a direction for all free-roamers to come. The environments that are available, are names and landmarks of real-life locations: Hollywood, East L.A., Downtown and Santa Monica. Their mirror to real-life has been dubbed down to be tailored more-so toward the tastes of extreme sports’ gamers.
Losers find a pathway to superstardom
Players will start the game as an aspiring boarder fresh off the bus from Losersville. Okay, maybe not Losersville, but you certainly didn’t come to Hollywood as a tourist. Instead, you get beat to a pulp by the unbecoming locals. Nevertheless there is someone looking out for you, but it doesn’t mean you’ve earned anyone’s respect. That is where hard work, inspired prosperity, and a heck of a lot of skateboarding fun come into play. Players will have to work hard to earn props from the local veteran boarders, etc. Players will also have to skate the living tarmac off the roads to earn enough dough to buy all sorts of accessories, skateboards, parts, clothing and more for their fully customizable character.
If you build it, they will skate...
If you think this game is a riot now, there’s more to it than just character customizing and free-roaming city environments. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland features real life skating legends and pros that players will be able to encounter in the game, as well as a special legend building custom, skate park. Aside from impressing the top guys and competing in progressive events or tournaments, players will have the optional task of helping out in the process of building that custom skate park. This is done by acquiring goods or items via skating. Knocking over or cracking down on given environmental objects allows players to acquire or rack up the needed supplies for building certain aspects of the skate park. Hence, as a free-roaming skate game, this adds a definite dash of replayable depth to a game of its kind.
Riding boards are like riding bikes
Manning the skateboard all the time will be fun for certain. But making the big distance traveling plans from one place to another in the monstrously large environments, might require a bit more than just the board. That’s why Neversoft has insured the upkeep of gaming freedom and fun by including the ability to go at it BMX style. During certain points within the game, players will be able to utilize the BMX feature, that isn’t great for just traveling, but also for pulling off some wicked extreme-sports style tricks. Certain tasks within the game will even give you the option to complete them with the intent of using your trusty bike. This gives players even more content to feed on incase they manage to tire of their boarding abilities.
Tricks, traps and handstands
Speaking of boarding abilities, what’s a Tony Hawk game without all the complicated twists, spins, turns, ollies, grabs, kick-flips and handstands? Well, it wouldn’t be a Tony Hawk game, so that’s why this game does have all of the aforementioned and then some. Such as the new Bert and Nastas slides and handstands. Improved wall-flips, spins and grinding are also tossed into the mix. But don’t expect to pull off all these fancy moves and killer maneuvers without gritting your character’s teeth into a face full of concrete. Unless of course, you’re already well skilled with the mechanics of the Tony Hawk’s skateboarding physics. Otherwise there will be a learning curve in which to adjust your skills. As this game (like other Tony Hawk games), follows a setting of required technique when pulling off many of the tricks. For instance, grinding actually requires players to skillfully balance on or across the object, while air stunts require a serious amount of timing if you want to avoid your boarder with their feet constantly in the air and their butt stuck to the pavement.
Careful, I know the art of the Smashing Board!
In a city as dangerous and beautiful as L.A., it’s best to be receptive of the latter and skillfully prepared for the former. When the going gets tough gamers will be faced with the option to use their board for whacks and smacks in the form of a wheeled-weapon. But boards aren’t the only thing dangerous in this game. Featured in the on-line multiplayer Xbox Live, players will have various modes to tout their skills about. From standard competition modes with tricks or skills determining the winner, to deathmatch style gameplay: Where players will be able to wield destructive fireballs that they can hurl at one another until there is only one boarder left standing. A two-player co-op is also on hand, with players being able to skate about in the available levels. There’s even stats tracking in a Live Aware feature for those playing on-line; ensuring that players will be able to track and tell who’s really owning up with massive skills.
With the added custom soundtrack and expansive downloadable content, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is certainly still one of the most original and versatile games hitting the market today. Fans (or non-fans) won’t have long to wait for the Xbox version to hit shelves, with it’s scheduled October 18th release and a November release for it’s Xbox 360 counterpart.
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Cloud890
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