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> Results: Tony Hawk's American Sk8land
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I'm having a physically difficult time writing this review. You see, I have an affliction, a bad case of something that was first discovered in gamers almost seven years ago ﾖ Tony Hawk Thumb. I soldier on through the pain of blistered fingers and swollen knuckles, because I have to tell you that the gameplay that made Tony Hawk's Pro Skater such a huge success in 1999 is finally back and better than ever.
Tony Hawk is a professional skateboarder who has lent his name and likeness to a series of games that have the player frantically pushing buttons and twisting their controller to pull off creatively-named tricks and stunts. String tricks togetherﾗby grinding your board on railings or jumping off handy rampsﾗand you have a combo. Bigger combos mean bigger points. This is the essence of Tony Hawk, but more recent games have added missions and storylines, and unfortunately moved away from the basic skateboarding action of the originals. Whether by choice or because of technical limitations on the DS, Sk8land drops this superfluous stuff and keeps the focus on the skating.  There is a story mode but it's very light and only really used to transition between levels. You're a Midwestern skater with talent but no exposure, and when Hawk spots you at a show, he suggests you move out west to show your stuff in the California scene. Once there, you meet up with aspiring comic book artist Mindy, and together with Tony you end up trying to renovate a skate park in an old warehouse. To do that you need to raise cash by fulfilling requests from random people on the street and by performing tricks for various skateboarding legends like Rodney Mullen, Daewon Song, and Bob Burnquist. You travel through various locations, from Hollywood and Beverly Hills to Alcatraz and East LA, each with their own distinctive set of rails, gaps and makeshift ramps. It's all tailored to the DS' capabilities. To keep everything fully 3D but avoid looking murky on the small screen, the developers used a cartoon-like style, with flatter shading and black outlines around objects. In motion, the look is effective, with the outlining making it easy to see what's going on at all times. Controls are about as good as on the big consoles. The lack of extra shoulder buttons is made up for by an interesting use of the touchscreen. When you rack up enough of a combo, icons appear on the bottom screen that you can press to launch into extra special tricks, or enable slow-motion mode. It's a little imprecise, but it does add something special for the DS. The bottom screen also serves as a map, so you should never get lost in the large levels. The touchscreen is also used heavily for character customization, because you can actually draw out your own graffiti and deck designs with a quite capable little paint program. The DS' microphone even allows you to record your own custom sound snippets. The story mode is short and not too difficult, but as only a few missions need to be completed on each level (at least in Rookie mode) you could go back and replay doing different missions for variety. In addition, there's a Classic mode that takes you back to the original Tony Hawk games. Pick a level and you're shown various goals (collect the C O M B O letters in one combo, beat a certain score, and so on), and given a short period of time to do the best you can. This Classic mode gives you almost infinite replayability, as long as your fingers can take it. There is something incredibly addictive about trying to beat your last score. Because the various characters in the Story mode introduce you to new tricks gradually, that mode is like training for long hours of Classic play.  Then there's multiplayer. You can play locally with up to four friends, or compete globally on Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection with what is probably the most complete online setup of any DS game so far. Aside from playing head-to-head with other players online, competing for best score, best combo, or closest score to a predetermined number, there is an extensive community aspect. Hi-scores for Classic mode are shared so you can check your ranking (or if you're like me, cry about your scores in the low millions while the leaders have 87 million). Great run replays can be uploaded for others to see. You can even download new goals for each level. Vicarious Visions has stated that they'll release new content every month for as long as Activision supports the game. All this is accessible via the DS, but every copy of Sk8land has a special code (in addition to the usual Friend code of DS online games) that allows you access to the Sk8land website. Here you can view the same information but also form "skate crews" and assign new custom artworkﾗthat other people have createdﾗto your player profile, then download that to use on the DS. The obvious effort shown in the online component underlines the fact that this game has not just been thrown together to cash in on the success of the console versions. It's a solid title in its own right. It avoids the obnoxiousness of its big console brethren and provides pure extreme sports fun in a package that any DS owner should enjoy. 
While American Sk8land loosely follows the same plot as the latest big console version, American Wasteland, it has none of the trouble-causing of that title. As far as content goes, Sk8land is more appropriate for all ages, from the cartoon styling to the (admittedly cheesy) dialog. You do get up to a little mischief, but care is taken to make sure you're not portrayed as a criminal. For example, one graffiti mission has you spraying walls, but you have permission from the owner.
Reading skill is definitely needed to progress through the story mode. Even with "kid mode" enabled (making the controls easier), I have a hard time seeing younger children enjoying the game. It's for those reasons that Sk8land isn't for the under 10s. As always, caution should be exercised when allowing children to play online with strangers. While there is no in-game communication, expect to see some lewdly-named characters and crude custom artwork on display. This is best avoided by only allowing children to exchange Friend codes with their real-world friends, but there is no way to make the game enforce this. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! 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's American Sk8land |
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