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Haven't we done this before?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 51 / 58
Date: October 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Tony Hawk and co. have delivered a new game every year for seven years straight now, and every year I get sucked into it. This year's game is no exception, but I am beginning to wish that these guys would skip a year and spend the extra time making a better game.

The big deal about this game was that the entire game is supposed to be contained in one massive level modelled after the city of Los Angeles. This is true to some extent, except you start with only a small area and then unlock other small areas. In order to get from one area to another, you have to skate across transition zones, all of which are so choppy that it doesn't take a genius to realize that you're basically skating through a glorified loading screen. So in the end, this one massive level really just turns out to be a bunch of small levels strung together, and some of the smallest levels in recent Tony Hawk history, I might add.

For those who enjoyed classic mode, with the two minute timer and traditional challenges, it's back. However, all but one of the levels in this mode are from previous games. Some of the levels are even making their third appearance in a Tony Hawk game.

There are a few new moves in the game, but I have not found any of them to be incredibly useful. You are also able to ride a BMX bike in story mode, which is fun for a little while, but I started to lose interest fairly quickly.

One of my biggest annoyances with story mode was that you are only able to perform tricks after you finish the "mission" that teaches you those tricks. This means that you cannot manual, revert, spine transfer, or natas spin until someone teaches you how to do it, even though you've been doing these moves for years now. Do we really need a tutorial design to the story mode after seven years? Or was it so hard to come up with interesting challenges that they needed to incorporate training into the missions?

My advice to the Tony Hawk crew is to take a break. I love having a new game every year, but I certainly wouldn't mind waiting an extra year if it means we can see larger and more creative levels and interesting challenges again. The formula is getting stale - adding a few new gimmicks here and there is just not doing the trick.

Maybe The Best Tony Hawk Game, But It Has Lots Of Flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 25 / 29
Date: November 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off; I can tell you this game was rushed, but anyways I can't tell you whether I liked more aspects to this game or disliked more. i got the game yesterday, and beat the story mode on easy yesterday as well, and it was for the most part really easy ( except two missions on Santa Monica ) and it lasted quite awhile; longer than other story modes on other Tony Hawk games. Anyways here we go with my Pros, Cons, and other notes from me to you on my opinion about THAW. Here we go.

You start as a low class skater who needs to get his rep up ( yeah yeah you've heard it before. ) And you make a friend, Mindy, who soon takes you to her friend's skate ranch. ( Iggy,Murphy,Boone..etc. ) After proving yourself, you get to skate in the park and you go all around california looking for pieces to get for the park; that's basically it.

The game is actually fairly repetetive because you'll feel yourself doing similar things over and over again... doing combos on rails, doing tricks shouted out to you, and so forth. Almost every mission you do in this game after you get to the skate ranch is collect pieces that you destroy from buildings and so on.

The level design is once again very well done. THAW has ( 8 levels I believe? ) That are all in some way a little different, and you expand the level each time you play by destroying something to get for your ranch, or to get to the next city.

The 'No-Load' times thing was probably a big thing for a lot of people, and there are basically no load times. None between levels, but you can tell when the game actually does load betweem each city. When you are in a 'tunnel' to the next city, you will notice a huge graphical change ( bad bad graphics ) the game will pause for a split second when you are in there, and you can hear your disc moving awkwardly like it normally does when a game loads. The little 'tunnels' are really bland, but hey I'd rather skate down it then sit through a load time.

This game is generally easy (I'm only on easy, though but I can't imagine it getting too much harder; it didn't in past games.) And the story in story mode is pretty lame at times, but it has its moments as well.

Another thing a lot of people may of heard of was the fact that there would be BMX bikes in THAW. There certainly is; and although many people that have played THAW may have said the BMX addition was a waste of time. It was NOT. The BMX controls make you feel like you are actually riding a bike somewhat and you use both analog sticks. You may think there are only a few tricks you can do on the bike, but actually you can do quite a bit. The only downfall about the bikes it how you can't trick it out or anything.

Pro's and con's:

PROS: Big levels, No load times, Good soundtrack, BMX BIKES!, Better customization, Better online.
CONS: No load times, but you can tell when it's loading, relatively short story mode, lame story mode for the most part, strange graphical errors, a lot of glitches.

The Stack:

Graphics: 7.5/10. The graphics at first when I was looking at the game I though "What the hell is this? These graphics are horrible!" But after awhile of playing, they seemed to get a bit better it seemed to me. There are a lot of graphical errors, such as strange blurs, a lot of glitches, and awkward movements. They could definitely be tweaked. In one mission where you are in the skate ranch and there's that crane, if you climb up the ladder all the way to the top and look down on your park, it looks absolutely amazing.

Controls: 8/10. The controls in this game and camera angles at sometimes are extremely frustrating. If you try to get off your skateboard, you may find yourself doing a bert slide or something like that, and when time counts, it gets annoying. Other than that they aren't bad.

Sound: 9/10. A pretty boomin' soundtrack for sure; Fallout Boy, Dead Kennedies, My Chemical Romance, Greenday, and other great bands make for an excellent soundtrack. The voice acting is great as well. The sound is probably one of the higher points of the game.

Fun: 8/10. Classic Mode is not nearly as good as before for some reason, and the game doesn't last long, but while it lasts it's fantastic, and if you have a friend; there is now Classic Co-Op, and since THPS 4, online play that is better than ever. If you're a THPS/THUG fan, definitely buy this, it won't dissapoint, even if it won't last as long as you had hoped.

Been there, done that

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: February 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

For almost a decade now, Tony Hawk licensed video games have been flooding the market with varying degrees of quality. The previous Tony Hawk Underground games were fun, and chances are if you liked those, you'll dig Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. The reason why is that not much has changed since the last time around. The game is basically identical to Tony Hawk Underground 2 with the exception of the there being no loading during skating sessions. This is nice, and it's about time that this was addressed, was besides that, there's really nothing new here. The game's storyline is lame, but it can be amusing now and then with the inclusion of BMX bikes to go with the skating. The graphics are decent enough, but nothing special, while the soundtrack continues the series' tradition of a good selection of varied tunes. The controls are easy as ever as well, and the game is easy to pick up for beginners. However, if you're a veteran of the series, there's nothing new here, and you're better off hoping that Activision gets their act together and actually decides to put some effort into their next Tony Hawk game for something really special.

I love the series but can't recommend this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have 3 previous Tony Hawk games that I adore, but American Wasteland has so many bugs and glitches that should have been worked out in development. Instead, the game seems like it was rushed into production at the expense of the Tony Hawk reputation. If you love the series, as I do, rent this game before you waste your money on it. You'll see what I'm talking about. Some of the glitches will prevent you from advancing any further in the game! Who needs to pay so much money for that kind of frustration?

THUG: Tony Hawk's Unreal Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

With the introduction of yet another installment of the ever-so-popular Tony Hawk's series, Activision and Neversoft have done another great job at convincing the public that skateboarding is all about grafiti, drugs, and destroying things.

To start, let me state once and for all that I am not a skateboarder, and to me the game is very fun and entertaining. However, I am reviewing this game from the stand point that most people think that skateboarding and Tony Hawk in general is about breaking the rules and/or showing no regard to laws and guidelines.

The idea of the game is right: one huge free-roaming level (Los Angeles)to skate / tear up, much like the Midnight Club series and NFSU2. I don't think, however, that the game should be touted and advertised as having "no load times." Of course, every disc-based game must have a load time, so the misleading tag line that the game has "no load times" is not true at all.

I personally don't own the game, I have played it, so my "review" cannot describe the full game in depth. One of the convenient new elements of THUG:AW is the ability to control the complete rotation of your character by tilting the left analog stick in air in the direction of your choice. This allows flips and stalls to be done with much more ease as you can actually rotate fully around.

The game is largely based upon what you look like and how you fit in to certain societies. For example, to be excepted into a ganster environment, you must change your character to match the appropriate guidelines required to be in that social group. The ability to get a haircut is kind of off the point of skateboarding, but it allows for a level of customization that is normally excluded from many games.

So large is this new THUG sequel, that the graphics suffer--at least for the Playstation 2 version. Some of the areas in the game are sketchy because of the overall largeness of the game.

One of the most touted abilities in this game is that you can now ride BMX in addition to skateboarding, or you can ride BMX throughout the whole game. I happen to like the way the game has set up a well organized control list for the bike. Though, once again I am wondering why the ability to ride BMX is in a skateboarding game. The tricks list for the BMX bike is so long that you might consider soley riding BMX throughout the whole game

Well that's my rewiew... I am recieving the game shortly *from Amazon* and will post my thoughts as I complete more of it.

Really not very good and this is why...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The first complaint about this game is that skating seems to have taken a back seat to BMXing and er... walking around a bit. It seems like you spend more time off the board doing idiotic things like spraypainting a wall than you do on the board doing combos.

Secondly, where are the female skaters? The 'hero' is an uncharismatic, generic guy. No choice to be female in story mode.

Thirdly, the schoolboy laughs are just wearing very thin. Here's a tip, Tony, 'impressing hot chicks with your movez' does not a story make.

This really isn't a very good game. The THUG games were better and the THPS games better still. In fact, I'd say forget it all, go out and buy Aggressive Inline. That was a much underrated game!

AWESOME!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: October 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is one of the best in the THPS/THUG series. I love the new BMX bike feature that molds mat hoffmans pro BMX with this game. The bike controls are totally innovative using both joysticks. This game is just one big level(as you probably already know,) and there are NO loading times so you won't be waiting. The story mode is really good to. They have actual characters besides pros!! You move to los angeles from the midwest to continue your skating dream yet when you get off the bus.... your stuff gets jacked by some punk. You then meet Mindy who shows you around and teaches you new tricks (yes you learn tricks other than special). Then you start snagging things for the skate ranch. Skate ranch is basically some guys dream park. You collect things from a roof of a house, to a dinosaur head, to even a limosine. New features are bert slides (the layback slide thingy that they do in lords of dogtown), grind stalls (its exactly how it sounds), and wall runs/ wallflips etc. You can even whack people with your board, throw your board at people, and just drop your board and run. This will please any fan of the tony hawk series so i suggest you buy it!!

Bad examples and images for teens

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: December 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was shocked by this game. We rented it to decided if we wanted to purchase it first. The game actually rewards the beating of homeless people--points are awarded for taking your skateboard and beating defenseless homeless people. Uggg. We will not purchase it or any other Hawk games like it. Can't the game just be about skateboarding?

Deja Vu

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: November 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Pros- The free roaming is quite good, The bert slide is a fun addition, Slightly improved graphics, Classic Mode, (If you've played the other 6 (like me), you're gonna buy it simply because it's more challenges to do)

Cons- No edit tricks option in story mode, NO EDIT TRICKS OPTION IN STORY MODE, A bit same old, The embarrassingly bad Jackass- style humour, Still no replays, Having to go to shops to get stat challenges, Long bland corridors connecting the areas slightly diminishes the "whole city with no loading times" effect, Easier than previous games on Sick Mode, oh yeah and NO EDIT TRICKS OPTION IN STORY MODE- what a ridiculous oversight

never ending fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My kids love this game, if they could they would play all day. They dont have to wait for it to download, it is just a click and there you are playing. You see they have a time limit of 30 min. to play there playstation so every minute counts, thats why they love playing this game.

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