Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is the seventh game in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. It doesn't bear that moniker, but it has very similar controls and gameplay to the earlier games, and is developed by the same team, so I'll stick to it. The THPS games are some of my all time favorite of the early 3D era, as I played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 extensively during middle and high school (THPS 2 is also excellent, but I never owned it, so I don't have the same attachment to it). The earlier games in the series were filled with a delightful amount of charm, huge areas in which to skate, infectious punk/rock/rap soundtracks, and most importantly, an insanely fun control scheme. The maps from those three games are indelibly etched in my brain, and upon starting up a replay of any of them, I know exactly the areas to which to go to rack up the highest score, how to find the secret tapes and decks, etc. So I was feeling another run through a Tony Hawk game, and decided to play one of the ones in my collection that I hadn't touched yet. As a note, I have never played Tony Hawk's Underground or Tony Hawk's Underground 2, so many of the changes that I note may have been introduced in those games, and I never knew.
This game is primarily notable for having one interconnected area in which to skate, rather than the older approach of having various levels which you could select from. The story mode, which comprises the vast majority of the game, features you getting on a bus to Los Angeles and trying to make it as a member of the skating community. You meet various people who give you challenges to establish that you can, indeed, skate, you earn their respect, and get involved in trying to prevent a sinister plot (seriously). While cheesy, the story works for the most part, and leans into the chaotic "us against them" skating culture that the other games in the series embrace as well. The story will lead you from area to area as you go, uncovering more of the plot as well as new areas in which to skate.
In theory, the "one big area" idea is pretty cool! In practice, however, it is very lame. Rather than having one true big area, you just have levels connected by bland hallways that just cover for the fact that instead of watching a loading screen, you can skate in a straight line for a minute to get to a new level. Call me a grumpy cynic, but I'd rather load for 8 seconds than skate straight for 60. Additionally, if they had taken a THPS 4 approach and had all challenges in a level available from the start, with you having the option to move back and forth between challenges at will, this would have been a FANTASTIC inclusion! In practice, however, you have two or three challenges available in each area, and completing these will unlock one or more. By trying to make it open, but also have a coherent story, they actually made this game feel the most linear and constrictive of all of the games in a series which has always thrived on freedom and creativity.
The levels themselves lack a lot of the charm of the levels from the first four games. Maybe this is pure nostalgia speaking, but I'll always remember levels like the Foundry from THPS, the Airport from THPS 3, or several excellent levels from THPS 4. I don't think any of these will be imprinted on my brain for a while, and a bunch seem positively barren and boring, like the Casino level.
The skating itself is excellent, again. The controls are tight and they don't destroy any of what works. Some of the new moves, like the Natas Spin, are really cool and add a ton to the game. Others, like the sticker slap, are dull and I found little to no use for them aside from clearing the challenges in which you have to perform them. Other additions to the game were even worse, including the option to get off of your skateboard and run (lame) and ride a BMX game (positively awful). THPS games have always been the best when they focused on level design and challenge, and less on gimmicks. Some of the new options in later games, like manualing and reverting, added hugely to the game. But now it feels like they're adding features for the sake of adding features, which is a good way to wind up with a messy game.
The challenges in the story mode were pretty lame. A lot of them felt like tutorials simply reminding you how to perform the nearly endless number of possible mechanics, and were typically over in about 10 seconds if you knew what you were doing. The game shines in situations where you have challenging and creative situations to enjoy, but these are mostly replaced by "do x over/on y" challenges, lining you up behind y, and ripping them off quickly.
The game's sense of humor was also a little less playful and a lot more malevolent this time around. Apparently this trend began in Tony Hawk's Underground, but it was a bit shocking to me. The game replaces ollie-ing the Magic Bum and hitting people with snowballs with intentionally causing huge car wrecks and destroying the top few floors of buildings. A note to the developers, this is not pranking, this is terrorism and attempted murder.
Maybe I'm just being a Stiffly Stifferson
The music is good again, with a bunch of standout tracks that I really enjoyed. Showing their continued good taste, they included a track from Mastodon's Leviathan, also known as the greatest metal album of all time.
The shining light of the game which saves it from an overwhelmingly negative review is the inclusion of a classic mode, which lets you reskate a selection of levels from old games with the old 2 minute time limit. There were levels from THPS, THPS 2, and others that I didn't recognize, but this was a really nice inclusion to be able to skate old levels with all the most recent additions to the game.
All in all, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is a mixed bag. I found myself enjoying it, but basically purely for the tried and true mechanics that make any Tony Hawk's game fun. But it just missed out on some of the charm and polish of the older entries, and ultimately the highlight of the game was just replaying some of the classic levels again. This is a good one for true fans of the series, but go jump in with the nearly perfect THPS 3 or 4 if you've never played one before. I'll give it a 7.0/10.
Next up is another clearout of an old denizen of the dreaded backlog. I should have this one cleared in fairly short order, so check back in soon!
-TRO
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