Here is a review by The IB, This game is on Tony Hawks American Wasteland, THAW was released on October 18th, 2005 and it is the final game in the whole “Underground / Wasteland” trilogy. This game has become my 3^rd most favorite Tony Hawk game in the entire series (only behind Pro Skater 2 and Underground 1). This game has featured a Story Mode where you can skate around in the entire city of Los Angeles without having to manually switch to a new location from the Level Select menu which means like it was advertised back in 2005; you don’t have to worry about wait for the level to loading, well, you still kind of have to, but the only difference is that you can be able to skate around in a loading tunnel in between locations at the mean time while the next location loads up; So, in a way, it still needs to load, it might sound like a little bit of false advertisement, but meh, no big deal. Aside the no loading, this game has also introduced a whole lot more stuff added into the Tony Hawk series and before the HD era begins with Project 8. Anyways, let’s start with this review.

Graphics..

The graphics are a little bit of an improvement from Underground 2 with a lot of newer graphical upgrades and seeing some of the levels return in this game, especially the levels returning from Pro Skater 1, they have seen a whole lot of graphical upgrades. I also see that this game has dramatically improved when it comes to the Frames per Second, so the graphic settings and the animations are great in this game. As for the character design in the game, they have also seen a good amount of updates as well with a lot more polygons added into the skaters and makes them a tiny bit more detailed in their looks in real life, well, this is a late PlayStation 2 game and you can expect a lot of differences with the quality of the graphics than when the PlayStation 2 was first released, and this is like a year before the PS3 debut, so you can expect to be the best that Activision / Neversoft has pulled out for a Tony Hawk game this late in the PS2’s lifetime.

For the Graphics, I will give it a perfect 10 out of 10. I see where they have made a whole lot of quality updates in the graphic department, although a few minor tweaks could be made, but not a whole lot, it still gets a “10” though.

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Sound/Music..

As for the Sound Effects, although not a whole lot has changed with the graphics, but I do got to agree with one thing though, I feel like Activision / Neversoft has did some minor tweaks with the effects, make them sound a whole lot better, and plus if you turn music off, imagine hearing all the urban sounds of Los Angeles, and you know on how sounds in Los Angeles are, they can change depending on where you are like high class locations of Hollywood, and Beverly Hills, the poverty stricken East Los Angeles, the beaches of Santa Monica, and a bunch of other sounds. But other than that, nothing else as changed from the series.

Ok, onto the music, this game does have a total of 63 songs, It doesn’t have a lot of songs unlike how much you compare to Underground 1, but it does have a little bit more than Underground 2 though. Just like in the 2 Underground reviews I made on how Underground 1 was more focused on Hip Hop and Underground 2 was focused on Rock, well, American Wasteland was more focused on the Punk genre, because if you look at the setting especially in Los Angeles, and how much it looks like it will fit more well with punkish music, this is mostly perfect for the game.

For the Sound Effects and the Music, I give it a 9 out of 10, I think personally, a few things could be fixed with the effects, but for the music, I think that does make up from the effects, but not by a lot though, but I still think it’s alright though, I give it a “9”, so it’s all good.

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Addiction Level..

As for the Addiction Level, it is a pretty addicting game, I feel like it’s at that level of addiction as Underground 1 and Pro Skater 2 happens to be, especially when it comes to exploring 9 different areas of Los Angeles without having to go to the level select menu to choose your level to go to, you can just skate your way over there and this is what makes people to play this game a whole bunch of times, and if you add the factor that you also add 6 - 8 more levels in the classic mode (depending on the version), you got a whole lot of levels for the player to experience with, plus with all the other feature brought back from Underground 2 like creating a skater and creating a park, a lot of others can be able to make on what they feel like on creating, and you have a wider selection of stuff to add into these games. But like I said in the past Underground games, since you can’t really play this game on the modern consoles like the PS3 and PS4, you’re out of luck, but at least Xbox 360 fans are a little lucky because they can play this game on the 360. But for PS2 owners, hope your PS3 doesn’t break or you can’t play this game.

For the Addiction Level, I will give this a perfect 10 out of 10, figure, you got 15 to 17 levels to explore in with 9 of those levels can be all merged into one giant level in Story Mode, so in a way, you got 6 - 8 different levels and a mega level to explore in, and all the customizing modes, these things will make for one addicting game, this gets a “10” for Addiction.

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The Storyline..

The Storyline of American Wasteland starts as a separate storyline from the two Underground storylines, but still keeps the theme on how the story is told though. You start out as a player (unlike the past 2 games, you really can’t use your main customized skater, you have to pick one of the 5 premade skaters (which is a little bit of a disappointment) and moves out of your hometown due to a whole lot of issues in the whole place from your parents, friends, and even others as well and you need to get the heck out of that place and decided to move to Los Angeles to make a name for yourself and what you realize that you just got bullied by a few locals because of him being from out of town. But after getting bullied, a girl named Mindy seen you was in trouble and decided to help you and with her artistic abilities, she has already told you about an interesting skate spot but it’s only for locals, but Mindy manage to pull some strings to let you skate in that skate spot anyways, the skate park is an old dump, but with all the items you add into the park, it turns into a dump into an interesting dump. After you manage to impress the 3 people you need to impress to get into the skatepark (Murphy, Boone, and Dave), you enter the skate park where you meet the leader named Iggy (no, not this Iggy typing the review, the Iggy in the game XD). And he has trained you on how to skate and what not and both Mindy and Murphy told you that Dinosaur head back in Hollywood seems interesting for the skate park, and feels like to add in a few more items in the skate park. And after you get these items, Mindy mentioned to you to talk to Master Zen (a bizarre Asian skating guru) about teaching you a few things like performing special tricks and focus which is a new feature added in which I’ll describe more in the Gameplay, and once you speak with him, he tells you about an amateur skating competition going on, you manage to compete in that contest and once you have one, you mistakenly told Tony Hawk that Iggy has gain support on your recent success, but the mistake you made that he was wanted by the police and Iggy wanted to pretend he was dead to the public so he doesn’t get arrested, but you ended up being a whistleblower and told everyone about him and he ended up getting arrested, after being guilty for having him arrested, you still manage to keep the park going, then you discovered about the skate park also has a famous drain run called “Green Pipes” but was filled up for unknown reasons, you decided to dig it up, which is also another fatal mistake you made and cost Iggy the park as well and he just snapped onto you. But the upside that you 4 got a plan to buy the park once again by making a skate video by recruiting other pros into the video and you wanted to make it big by skating in an abandoned casino, but after you have got the video competed and the pre-orders are enough to buy the property, you got it back, but one problem, the police got reported for you all trespassing in the abandoned casino, so you have to get all the way back to the Skate park with the police hot on your tail and after you made it back, you have completed your story about Green Pipes.

For the storyline, I have to give it a 9 out of 10, it’s not because Iggy is in this game (no, not the same Iggy as this Iggy, but that would be sweet), it’s mostly that the storyline is unique in its own way and to make up for a bland storyline in the past 2 Tony Hawk games, this completely makes it all up, this game gets a “9”.

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Depth..

For the Depth, American Wasteland has a lot of interesting new features added into the game such has having 15 different levels which is tied with Underground 2, but if you add two exclusive Collector Edition levels, this has the most levels in a Tony Hawk games with a total of 15 or 17 levels with 9 Los Angeles-Based levels and 6 (8 in collector’s) classic levels. Like I mentioned in the intro, if you play the Storyline, you merge all 9 Los Angeles levels all into one giant level and that is why they have advertised this game as “No Loading” because if you want to skate in 9 different locations and don’t want to worry about having to load those 9 levels, you can just pick “Story Mode”, but the only disadvantage is that you have to use your Story Mode character and not any of the other characters outside of Story Mode which did disappointed fans, but not by a whole lot though. This game also brings back the Classic Mode yet again, although there isn’t as many levels to complete in unlike in Underground 2 where you only play in 6 or 8 levels depending on what version you own and Underground 2 had 14th, so it’s like half of the levels, despite not having as many levels, it does add in 6-8 more classic levels that we haven’t seen returned as of yet such as Minneapolis, the Mall, Chicago, Santa Cruz, Kyoto, Atlanta, and Marseille. And this game also have seen customizing modes make a return from Underground 2 such as Create-a-Skater, Create-a-Park, Create-a-Deck, Create-a-Goal, Create-a-Trick, and Create-a-Graffiti.

For the Depth, I have to give it a perfect 10 out of 10 though, I feel like having a total of 15 levels or 17 levels, mostly depending on what version of the game you happen to own, either the normal 15 or the collector 17, this does make it the most levels in a Tony Hawk game, mostly that’s why it does get a “10”.

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Difficulty / Gameplay..

For the difficulty, a lot of the tasks is extremely hard to get accomplished, especially with some of the task like the one where I had to repeatedly tapped “X” until I get a roof off the building and it was frustrating to do until I got a controller with a turbo feature, just to beat this task, so this can tell you that this game is very hard and even at the beginning can also be a little challenging as well. But with the classic mode, it’s just like on how Underground 2 and THPS 3 plays out, not too tough, so that evens everything out.

As for the gameplay, this game has got a whole lot of new features in the game such as for this game; you can be able to slow time down when you’re doing tricks so you can land them perfectly and to balance out you’re your rails and manuals so you don’t lose balance quickly, the only thing that will make it a disadvantage is it will drain your special meter which is understandable. The other feature added into the game is you can be a little violent to others by hitting others with your skateboard which can be useful in some certain situations. Other than those new features, most of the things you have seen in Underground 2 has been added into this game.

For the Difficulty and the Gameplay, I have to give it a 9 out of 10, it is a very hard game, I do got to say that, in fact, might be the hardest game in the entire series up to this point because Project 8 and Proving Ground is a lot harder. But for the gameplay, this game has seen a whole lot more interesting features added in.

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Overall..

Overall, I think to my point of view, this game has brought the best that the PlayStation 2 has to offer this late in its lifetime and what better way than adding a huge feature that American Wasteland has offered like merging 9 of the Los Angeles’s levels into one mega level in the Story Mode, (although if you want to play in free skate from the menu and use someone else, you have to skate them all individually but you also have another 6 or 8 levels added in depending on the version, so that does give you 15 levels or 17 levels to experience with and you have all those customize modes to customize anything you like with your skater and your park. As for the difficulty, it is really hard to complete the whole Storyline because some tasks can be quite hard and some of the controls can also be hard as well, but with the hard controls comes a lot of new features as well like slowing down your time when you have full special so you can wreck less though.

For my Final thoughts on the game, this is one interesting game that has brought in that “No Loading” advertisement, although some people think it’s false, but not really in a way because when you’re waiting for the level to load, you can still skate around. This game has become my 3rd most favorite Tony Hawk game because all the features in this game, and I think with these features, you will love this game a whole lot. Give this game a try.

For my final score of this game, I will give this game a 9 out of 10, it gets a 9 because with all the activities you can do in Los Angeles and the freedom to skate in 9 different areas without waiting for it to load in the menus, you can skate instead. This makes this game really great. The only thing that I didn't like is removing some of the skaters and you can’t use your created skater in the Story Mode, but other than that, it’s alright, that’s why I gave this game a “9”.