Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland (THAW) is the seventh installment of the Tony Hawk series. In the beginning you had the Tony Hawk Pro Skater (THPS) series, which consisted of a list of goals and a limited time to complete them and multiple levels. Next came the Tony Hawk Underground (THUG) series. These were more story based and you were working to uncover more to the plot as well as destroying anything and everything in the game. American Wasteland is similar to the latter in that there is a story to what you are doing. While the focus isn’t on destruction, like the THUG series, there still is a great deal of destruction in the game.

THAW is concentrating on taking you back to the earlier days of skateboarding. The game feels like it takes place in the mid 90's, when it was essential to hunt for the best skating spots. THAW takes place in Los Angeles, and when I say Los Angeles, I mean ALL of Los Angeles: downtown, East LA, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and Santa Monica. If this sounds big to you, then you are right, but just wait, there’s more. There are no load times in the game. Instead there are load “tunnels” in the game. Basically you skate into a narrow tunnel and there are benches and rails and things for you to skate on, but what it’s really doing is loading the next section of the map. In these tunnels, I noticed some choppy sequences. Sometimes everything went into slow motion, but when it comes down to it, it went pretty well and covers up the load times nicely. The different areas in the game can be accessed at any point in the game; they are completely non-linear. There is also a bus you can take to different areas if you don’t feel like skating there.

You start the game as a local nobody from the Midwest. You can select from five different no name characters. This is a first for the series, as you could previously either select from a pro skater or create your own character. After picking your character, you will hop on a bus and head to Los Angeles, and upon your arrival, you will get a knuckle sandwich and your stuff stolen from you. You’ll meet a girl named Mindy who becomes your guide throughout the game. The basic plot is that you have to prove yourself to the local legends who are working on an insane skate park near Beverly Hills. After proving yourself, you must collect items in the game to add to that skate park, which is then transformed into the American Wasteland. One thing that I noticed right off the bat is that you do not start the game with all of your normal tricks. Instead you must learn manuals, specials, reverts, spine transfers, wall rides and focus. While this is good for newcomers, it’s rather bothersome for the veterans of the game. They give you this huge area to skate in, but limit your skating. It’s not difficult to learn these moves, though, it just takes a little time. You can visit a skate shop and pick up challenges from them to increase your stats, unlike before where you can assign stat points. These are assigned by the game. Also, there is an internal clock added to the game, and you will notice the changes from day to night. For the skate shop challenges, you have 24 hours to complete them.


Previously, new installments brought something new to the table that changed the way you played the game, but this one doesn’t seem to follow that. There are some new tricks, but they do not add to the game play like the manual, revert or spine transfers did. New additions include the bert slide, the ability to run up a wall and do a flip off of them, and wall plants.


The Bert Slide is arguably the coolest skateboarding trick named after a "Sesame Street" character.

In THAW you will find the same level of customization as in the previous games, except that now you are able to customize on the fly from within the game. Previous versions would have you go to the menu to create new tags, and change clothing and hair styles. In THAW, there are barber shops, tattoo shops, shops for accessories, and skate shops for you to customize yourself. When you get to a point to tag a wall, it will give you an option to create your tag right there. There is still create-a-trick and the park editor for even more customization. These two are pretty much the same as in the previous versions. One big difference is that you can’t play your created character in the story mode. By the same token, you cannot play your story mode character in multiplayer mode.

This brings me to the multiplayer section of the game. For the first time ever, Xbox owners will have Xbox live support! Multiplayer modes included are goal attack, graffiti, capture the flag, high score and 9 other online modes. The online mode is basically the same as on the PS2, so if you are familiar with that, you will have no problem. If you are not familiar with playing the PS2 THPS games online, then start practicing your combos now, because there are some insanely good players online. I mention this because Xbox owners, who have not had the experience to play online, might not be aware of the caliber of THPS playing online.