	Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
	Developer: Neversoft Publisher: Activision Release Date: Out Now Players: 1-2, 2-8 network play	Words By:
My word! Did you realise that the Tony Hawk’s series is now at number 7?! I certainly didn’t, but you can see just how far it’s come. From its very humble, and in my opinion, ground breaking start on the PS1, we've now come to this: American Wasteland. I have a confession to make. I loved the THPS series, from number one, up until about number 4. In fact, I’m more than happy to claim that THPS 2 is in my all time top ten games. I tried to like TH Underground (THUG) 1 & 2, but simply couldn’t for a number of reasons: namely Bam Margera (Have you ever wanted to slap someone you've never met, *THAT* much?), and the lame vehicle sections. These games just didn’t have the feel of the older games any more. For all that they tried to add, you couldn’t help feeling they were a bit bogged down, and not going anywhere fast. That is really where American Wasteland (AW) turns things around. AW has taken all the elements from the earlier games, refined the story mode, and left all the other parts that didn’t really fit where they belong; as optional time fillers and bonus games. The story this time revolves around a young hopeful (you), you’ve literally gotten off the bus in LA to make your name as a skate legend, only to have your dreams shot down in flames as you get mugged as soon as your feet touch the sun-baked, star studded pavement. To your rescue comes Mindy, a sympathetic local who picks you up and points you in the right direction. From here, this is where regulars to the series will have a bit of a tough time. You have nothing, nothing at all, you can’t even bloody wall ride anymore! This is an odd feeling, as you'll initially think you've lost all your own skills, and wonder how you've become so crap since the last game! Fear not, as this is all part of the progression of the story. You've now essentially got to prove yourself to the local street skaters, who in return will help you out and teach you new tricks. This is an excellent way of easing new players (are there any left though?!) into the game, and veterans will soon have re-learned all they knew in no time at all. Even from the first "level", there’s loads to do and get your teeth in to. You can explore as you'd expect, while along the way bump into guys that can help you design graffiti tags, guys that will call out tricks and upon completion they'll give you cash bonuses. You can even get yourself a BMX! Yup, the Neversoft guys have gone and given this as an added bonus, but you can’t progress the game’s story with it. Shame! Different from earlier games, you no longer collect icons to improve your character; this is now handled by one of the many shops available in each area. You ride up to a skate shop before midnight each "day" and they will issue a set of new challenges specific to that shop. You have until midnight that day to complete them, and if you do, your stats will increase. It works well as the challenges are varied, and if you can’t do it, you can wait until the next day for it to change. One criticism of the story mode is that it can feel quite disjointed at times, and some of the instructions can be very vague leading to a bit of frustration and much restarting of tasks. Some of the tasks are also unbalanced in their difficulty. Where one may have you trying to reach a certain area with in a time limit, you'll all of a sudden need to find some superhuman tricking skills to complete it. It’s not a big flaw in the game by any means, but a little annoying at times. Another new feature to the game is the inclusion of "streaming" the levels. This allows the new areas you unlock as the game progresses to be all interlinked, and in theory, skated from one end to the other without stopping (I’d love to see someone combo from one end to the other!). Short cuts are available for the lazy in the form of bus rides and cars, but where’s the fun in that? The main story mode is not very long, and can be beaten in about 10 hours, but this gives a few unlocks and urges you on to a higher difficulty level. This isn’t all there is to the game though, as from the off, the Neversoft team have also included a "Classic" mode which showcases levels from older games for you to play as you did all those years ago! This isn’t as much of a throw away add-on as I thought it may have been. It was great fun playing those levels again, but of course this time I had completely new moves (i.e. getting off the board, spine transfers etc.) to find new ways around. The good old "Create - A - ..." mode is back as well. As well as the always excellent park creator, you've also got the Trick maker and now Graffiti Tag maker, to leave your mark all over the cities and parks of the American Wasteland. Add to this the online modes and you've got a great package for fans and newcomers alike. To sum up, this really is a return to form for Tony Hawk games as far as I’m concerned (and even the online play works well and seems to be well supported), but I wonder if many may have already been put off thinking it may be just another THUG-esque game. I hope not, as many old fans will be missing out on what I feel is without a doubt the best game in the series for a long time.

Best Bits
- It’s about the gameplay again.
- The old-skool feeling is back!
- Loads to do.
- Oh, and Bam is hardly in it at all!

Worst Bits
- Some unbalanced missions lead to frustration.


by: Riotus