Customization
Customization once again plays a big part in the Tony Hawk experience and you have just as many options as in THUG2. The biggest difference here is that you can take your custom skaters, tricks, and graffiti tags online and show them off. The creation modes are just as powerful as in THUG2 so you can make some really nice stuff if you put some effort into it.Online Play
The biggest and best change to Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, and the best reason for buying it is that we can finally play it on Xbox Live. Up to eight players can join a game and a number of different game types including capture the flag, graffiti, goal attack, trick attack, and more. The only downside is that games are controlled by the host player (whoever started the original game) and you will occasionally find people that would rather sit around and do nothing rather than start competitive games. Once you do find a good group of people to play with, the online play is simply outstanding. It brings together players of all sorts of different styles and skill levels and is just a whole lot of fun to play. One thing I really enjoy is that thanks to the crazy number of lines in the levels you can pull off some really insane stuff and use lines that other players can’t even find which makes graffiti games particularly enjoyable. Overall, if you like the Tony Hawk games, the experience is 100x better when you take it online so in spite of some flaws with THAW, if you have Xbox Live I highly recommend it for a purchase because you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is a very good looking game. It seems like more attention was paid to making the characters (both skaters and pedestrians) look better and it really shows. The levels aren’t really any different visually from previous games, but the game is very sharp looking overall. Once again, the animation is just about perfect.
The sound is also quite good in THAW. The sounds of skating have always been great in these games and THAW is no different. There is a lot of spoken dialogue and the voice actors all do a really great job. Always important in Tony Hawk games is the soundtrack and the music chosen for this game is right up there among the best the series has seen. You can also use a custom soundtrack if you want, which is nice.
Bottom Line
Overall, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is a bit of a disappointment because it doesn’t really deliver on some things that have been hyped for months now. The biggest of which is that the game most definitely is not one big free roaming level. Also, you only get to play in one level at a time online rather than the whole interconnected city like in story mode, which is a letdown but is understandable. The gameplay is as solid as it has ever been, but you can only do the same stuff so many times so the novelty of THPS is starting to wear a bit thin. Take a year off, Neversoft, and really wow us with something. All that said, however, THAW is still worth owing and playing for one reason and that is online play. For the first time, we can play online via Xbox Live it is a very fun and enjoyable experience. If you can’t play online, there really isn’t anything here you haven’t seen before. If you are a Tony Hawk fan with Xbox Live, I highly recommend Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland because you’ll definitely get your money’s worth just by playing online.
