|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
TONY HAWK'S AMERICAN WASTELAND XBOX 360 REVIEW |
|
| |
The Tony
Hawk series has the reputation for creating
top-of-the-line skating entertainment that
pushes thIs extreme sport the max. The latest
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland tries to continue
that tradition onto the Xbox 360 console. While
it has an amazing story mode, it just doesn’t
have that spark that it used to have. In all
fairness, this is still your best pick when it
comes to this skateboarding, but the overall
experience is more like “been there, done that”.
The game features the usual modes you would
expect: story, classic, and multiplayer. In
story mode, you’ll begin as a weak skater trying
to make something for himself. You’ll learn the
basics of skating pretty easy, but for the
special tricks, these could take some time.
Some of the traditional moves such as reverts,
manuals, and wall climbing aren’t available
right away like it has in the past. These moves
you will need to learn. Aside from the fancy
tricks that you have come to know in this
series, a new trick has been added called the
Bert Slide. This is done in surfing-like
maneuver. With this trick, you can use the board
you’re riding on to hit or swing at innocent
bystanders. It doesn’t really execute any damage
to people passing by, but it’s fun to see what
it can do besides skating it. In Tony Hawk’s
American Wasteland, skating is not the only
action on hand but you'll also be able to ride
BMX bikes. When you get into the BMX mode, your
challenges are relatively simple. They involve
mostly of trying to earn money as much as you
can, which you will need in various segments of
the story mode. But don’t expect the BMX aspect
to be anything like the skating mechanics found
in this game.
The controls for riding a bike are totally
different than riding a skateboard, but they are
all amazingly good! The left joystick stirs your
movement, the right stick executes the tricks,
and holding one of the buttons allows you to
pedal. There are many tricks you can achieve
with the bike but our personal favorite is doing
the backflip. Besides the story mode, you’ll
also get to enjoy the original masterpiece of
the game duly known as the classic mode. In this
mode, your goals are pretty much the same as in
the first three installments of the Tony Hawk
series: Collect all the “skate” letters, find
the secret tapes, and finish these tasks under
two minutes. Most of the classic levels are here
but the amazing part of these memorable stages
is that your goals have been redesigned so that
not only you have a different outlook of where
to find the hidden items but also you have a
fresh view of the place to run. Completing the
goals in classic mode will, of course, unlock
new levels that can be used towards multiplayer.
It may take some time but fortunately, the
process of accomplishing each task is not as
hard as it used to be. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
PRODUCT
OVERALL RATING: 8.5 OUT OF 10 |
|
| |
While the
story mode and classic mode are amusing in its
own right, we get the most fun playing out of
the online multiplayer. The modes available
online are impressive. You have an exciting line
of competition that range from graffiti, to goal
attack, to combo mambo, to the traditional
capture-the-flag. There’s even a firefight mode,
which let players shoot fireballs from their
skateboard. Playing this mode can easily turn
the situation into a shooting spree! The best
part of American Wasteland’s online experience
is showing off your mad skills in creating those
killer combos that seem to go on forever. The
competition here is fierce but you can’t help
but be satisfied knowing that you earn some
respect from other virtual skaters. The one
aspect that we are disappointed about the
multiplayer experience is not having the ability
to use our own custom-made characters online.
Speaking of custom characters, the game features
relatively the same create-a-player options that
you’ve become accustomed to in the past.
You can still design parks, create graffiti
tags, change tricks in your repertoire, and
more. The PS2 version allows to map your face to
your created skater. If you want, you can even
download other people’s work or upload your own
creation. The new levels in this year’s Tony
Hawk’s American Wasteland are generally large.
You’ll be traveling through the great areas of
Los Angeles including Santa Monica, Beverly
Hills, Hollywood, Downtown, and East LA. The
developer has apparently tried to design each
stage in a massive scale so players would have
room to skate around. But there’s one problem,
traveling very fast while the game is loading
between parts of a city causes some frame rate
issues.
The general gameplay of Tony Hawk’s American
Wasteland has been the same throughout the
series. Nothing really spectacular to write home
about and we can’t complain either. The controls
are responsive and the animation is very smooth.
Graphically, the game looks better than ever!
The texture on character models is outstanding,
the virtual skyline of the LA area is
incredible, and the comic-art cutscenes are nice
and funky. In the audio department, it's
apparent that much of the sounds from American
Wasteland are ported over from the last two
previous titles. The sound effects are still
quite good thanks to a few enhancements here and
there. The music is still pumping and it
consists of punk rock, hip hop, and a few other
genres. The dialogues for the game are
well-written for the most part, and the
individuals behind voice acting do a good job of
bringing much of the drama of the skating
underworld to life.
Overall, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is still
a pretty good game. It offers you all the great
things that made the series so popular but it’s
dwindling down on that unique spark. Needless to
say, American Wasteland has its addicting
moments once when you get into the groove of
racking up massive combos, especially when
you're competing online. What’s more is that the
tricks are somewhat easier to perform, which
makes you feel that you can almost do anything!
For Tony Hawk fans, this is a no-brainer. Anyone
who hasn’t played a Tony Hawk game should check
this one out, too! It’s a fun game that will
have you racking up points for hours, but don't
expect any dramatic changes to the gameplay. If
you're looking forward to some great online
competition for this type of sport, the Xbox 360
is a great platform to start. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
