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> Results: Tony Hawk American Wasteland
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Want to know if you've got what it takes to break into the hardcore skate scene in Southern California? Think you can hang with some of the original Z-Boys? You got a wicked sticker-slap to manual to handstand to nollie? Then you are definitely reading the right review of a great game. Have no idea what I'm talking about but love the finger destroying Tony Hawk series? Then you're still in the right place! Tony Hawk's American Wasteland drops you into the middle of a skater kid's climb to glory, respect and the best skate park in the civilized world. Or if that doesn't float your boat, you can try out the new Wasteland moves on some of your favorite Tony Hawk Pro Skater Levels in Classic Mode. Still haven't found a park you like to skate at? Fine, make your own in the Create a Park Mode!
Story mode follows in the tradition of things like MTV's Jack***, and Tony Hawk's Underground. You're a skate punk and in typical skate punk style, you're welcomed to town with a right hook to the jaw. Once you gain a little bit of a reputation with your new skate buddies, you go wreak your vengeance on the punk that robbed you...with a skateboard to the head! From there you're introduced to Iggy, a local skate legend who is thought to be long gone. Then it's off to trash the city & bring the remains back to the skate park. At this point, you've ripped down several radio towers, a dinosaur head, dropped a freeway sign into traffic, destroyed a movie premiere and have made a general nuisance of yourself.  Throughout story mode you will find various shops to change your clothes, hair, and skateboard look. You'll spend your money in the Random Dude encounters and helping out the local graffiti artist. The Random Dudes resemble winos but always have a few bucks to spare for some flashy moves. Muton, the graffiti artist, will also help you out with a little cash if you help him paint the town. . New to the Tony Hawk series is the BMX option, hop on a bike and learn another control scheme. Mostly, the BMX is a little quicker than the skateboards, but is a little more difficult to get down. Well duh, this is a skating game after all. The BMX missions boil down to doing the tricks that guest star Matt Hoffman calls out to you similar to the Random Dude missions. Classic mode is just what it sounds like; revisit some old Tony Hawk Pro Skater locations with your new bag of tricks to try out some new lines. This one lets you revisit Minneapolis, Santa Cruz, the second warehouse level from Tony Hawk Pro Skater, the Mall level, and new for me is Kyoto, and The Ruins. Same old levels, but new abilities mean new lines. I've been enjoying that warehouse a lot more than you'd expect. Unfortunately, the BMX is not there, nor is the skater you made for story mode, but now you can play two-player cooperative mode on the classic levels, for double the stunts and double the points. The game heavily promotes customization. Boards, Skaters, your own parks, now even your own tricks. I've managed to stay for the most part away from the Create-A- features of American Wasteland, because once in there it's all bets off as to when I'll be finished building and tweaking parks, and I needed to see what else is in the game first. I played with the trick editor, because it was a mission requirement in story mode. While I was not impressed with the create a trick mode, you can come up with some nifty things, such as making the "900" only a half second long, making it really easy to do a double 900, or a 900 Air walk & Benihana as one special move. Trick editor, while a cool new idea, was a little tricky to get all the timing and details down so my skater didn't just spaz out in the air for a couple of seconds. Create-A-Skater is ridiculous fun. You can do all sorts of zany stuff in there. Ever wonder if the Blue man Group could skate? Make your own member and send him off riding. If you have the Eye Toy for PS2 you can take a snapshot of yourself to upload. So if you wish to be Darth-Skater, be sure to put your mask on first.  Couple of quick complaints about otherwise a great game. Story mode is short, Classic mode is short, and didn't exactly have an all star line up for the old locations. I would have liked to have played Kona instead of Minneapolis, but such is life. Some of the voiceovers don't match up with the subtitles either and it seems in the last chapter of the story, the hilarious animations of the aftermath disappear, I would have liked to see some of the casino stuff go crashing around. Create-A-Park, while still my favorite feature of the Tony Hawk games, still has most of the same old parts there. I do like the new clipboard feature, which works like copy and paste on a word processing program. 
While Tony Hawk's American Wasteland got rid of the T.H.U.G. acronym, the thuggish trouble making is still very much there. You go around doing tricks off of various items which end up breaking into bits and pieces to take back to Iggy's Skate Ranch. Along the way, you draw a little too much attention and Iggy gets picked up by the cops. One of the first pieces for the Skate Ranch actually eats someone. Pretty much everything you do in story mode will land you either in traction, in jail, or in a coffin. Language isn't too bad, blood only shows when you fall or hit somebody with your board and that can be turned off in the options.
Regarding the crude/sexual humor, it's no worse that what kids hear in the locker room at school. Classic mode is the safer way to go if you've got kids that insist on getting all the Tony Hawk games and you're willing to oblige. If you've let them play Underground, they would be okay playing American Wasteland as this one's a little tamer than Underground. Online play opens up a whole new issue on this though, because there will be colorful names for skaters, tricks and parks, all of which can be downloaded from the Tony Hawk game site, and saved for future use. Not to mention the colorful exchanges if they engage in online play. The T rating from the ESRB is right on so it's a 14+ on the GamerDad scale. This review edited by Dave Long Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "Tony Hawk" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Tony Hawk American Wasteland |
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