Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

[Javier]

May 17, 2005 - The Tony Hawk franchise is an impressive series for numerous reasons. The once small, un-noticed development team previously only recognized for its incorporation of Bruce Willis into an action game vaulted to the heights of popularity with its Tony Hawk Pro Skater series in 1999. Then, each following year, it began bringing us new ones. Seven years later -- Neversoft hasn't flinched. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is the seventh game in seven years, and by any stretch of the imagination, that's an achievement worth noting, especially in compared to the rest of the games in this category, which have literally dried up and gone away.



Remaining the most long-lasting and easily the best skateboarding series on the planet, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland returns the series to its roots yet simultaneously expands it with several new features. First, the game will appear on multiple systems: Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox 360. While the PlayStation 2 series has always been online, Neversoft has finally taken it to Xbox Live. Yes! Xbox players can glory in the all-night goodness that is Tony Hawk online, challenging their friends, talking crap, and goofing around while connected. That's a real coupe for Xbox fans, but that's just the beginning.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland was envisioned as a streaming, non-stop playable city. You travel back to the city of Los Angeles in the 1980s -- at the height of its punkdom -- and explore a completely level-free, non-stop experience. You can literally play the game for 10 or even 20 hours without stopping without a single-load time. OK, there is one load time, the one that loads up the first level. But that's it. Everything else is seamless, menu-free skating. The city is massive. You'll see and experience the Hollywood strip, theaters, bars, strip clubs, and even the LA River. You can get on a bus and cross town in a split-second, or enter subways to instantaneously transport you to other parts of town.

As your progress through the city of LA -- Hollywood, East LA, and Downtown are the first levels we saw -- you'll encounter multi-stage missions, in which funny, goofy, and otherwise hilarious characters push the story forward. Yes, there is a story this time around. Taking its cue from the Tony Hawk's Underground series, which Neversoft sees as different than Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, you can play through the game as a no-nothing skater from the Midwest who wants to make it big in LA. On your way, you'll meet characters such as Mindy who acts as a guide in your huge new playground.

 
Unlike in the Underground series where you constantly switched modes, American Wasteland incorporates everything -- the custom aspects of your career -- into the one teeming city. You'll change clothes, cut your hair, and customize yourself with the sophistication of the previous games, only now everything is built into the one city. Want to change your hair? Go to the barber shop. Clothes? Hit up the clothes store. And so on. Once you're in the city, you won't have to leave.

What if you're an old-school Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 fan, and you can't stand the stories, or one more second of Bam Margera? No worries. You can play Classic mode, which gleans levels from previous Tony Hawk Pro Skater titles, and which doesn't include any American Wasteland levels. Each level will be completely dressed up to match this generation of consoles. You can engage in two-player games, you can create a mode, or hit up your buddies online. You can also play in two-player, split-screen co-op mode in which you work to achieve point goals together.

Of course, you'll also experience new moves. The Bank Drop is a variation on the Acid Drop, there are Vert Wall plants, new stalls, Vert Slides, and totally revamped walking controls. You can now run straight up walls. Yes, run up walls. But the reason is interesting. With higher buildings and more polygonal structure around, running up a wall works into to the seamless city concept beautifully. Run up a wall, switch to your skateboard and create unending combos as you explore your new LA playground.



Having looked at the funny but not altogether loveable vehicles from the past two games, Neversoft did something entirely different in this iteration. The second and only vehicle other than a skateboard is a BMX bike. There is a new mechanism for riding BMX bikes uses the left and right analog sticks. Left shifts weight and right is for spinning -- backspin, tailwhip, decade, etc. -- and it makes exploring the city a familiar and yet unfamiliar trip.

Neversoft liked the destructible buildings and level altering events from the last game, so American Wasteland works them into this game to open up new levels. You won't be able to instantly travel all over LA at first. You'll have to earn it. The contextual, multi-part mission structure (again, getting away from the static notion of "goals") works into the open city concept perfectly. Neversoft showed a grim and slightly disturbing NPC (that looks an awful lot like Michael Douglas in the movie Falling Down), who tells you to skate through some union workers' work to break up their construction site. Once you achieve two different objectives, he unveils a rocket launcher and quickly devastates the area. Kinda crazy, we agree. The result, however, is a nice new opening to East LA via the subway. Just like in previous games, this tunnel sends you instantly to the new part of town with no loads.

Because the city is so big, you get a map, which aids your progression and ability to see different objectives. As you skate you'll come upon all sorts of challenges, including sponsored ones. If you accept these, you'll have to perform all of them, but they serve as an additional way of upping stats (which work like they did in THUG). Neversoft also has switched the way pros appear; like in the first THUG, they guide and assist you, but they aren't playable. Neversoft wouldn't reveal which pros it will use this year, confirming that only the birdman himself will appear. Neversoft did hint that they might tap into a younger group of skaters that hang in the LA area to give it an authentic feel.

from    http://cube.ign.com/articles/615/615102p2.html