Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland (16+)
Verdict: Jack of all trades master of one
Platform: Xbox, PS2, GC, PC.
Rating: 3/5
When a games’ marketing campaign is fixed solely on it having no loading screens you know something’s wrong. Taking Grand Theft Auto as their cue they’ve tried to mimic it’s city sized level design and create a seamless (no loading screens!) giant skate park where you can go anywhere you want, pulling tricks and combos off it’s generous architecture. What they haven’t mimicked however is GTA’s ability to create the illusion of a living breathing city. In this case you’re presented with a very thin veneer - a large skate park designed to look like a city but without any of the life and character. It’s cold and drab and the loading screens have been
replaced by glitchy tunnel sections between areas, allowing the level to stream in - a thinly disguised alternative that further erodes any suspension of disbelief. This is what so many games get wrong when copying GTA - it’s not just size that matters.
They’ve also gone for content over quality this time, eschewing the purity of the original games and creating a bloated package of mediocre game design and me-too content but none of it managing to really supplement the core of the game that remains almost the same since the start of the series - the skating.
It’s here where the game still shines through though - the skating is as good as ever with plentiful tricks new and old to keep the pro-skater contented and fans of the series occupied for hours as they attempt more and more ambitious combos.
Here’s the crux - if you’re a fan, despite the half-hearted GTA copying and content spamming you’ll enjoy this game and appreciate the subtle changes and additions to the skating. If you’ve never played before you’d be advised to seek out an earlier version - it expects you to know what you’re doing, to be able to jump headlong in without a second thought - weak tutorials,
twitchy controls and difficulty spikes barring the way to the uninitiated.
Kudos for them including Prefuse 73 and Dead Kennedys on the same soundtrack though.