By Anthony Swinnich on November 7th, 2005

Broken down to the basics, the player can do two major things in THAW: they can skate around and do tricks, or they can get off the skateboard and walk around, which will allow them to find new areas to skate on and do tricks. The skating element remains largely unchanged from THPS 4. The few new moves added in Tony Hawk’s Underground and its sequel make their way in, but those moves didn’t even make much of a ripple before, so unsurprisingly they fail to make one here. If you knew what you were doing in any of the games from THPS4 and up, you’ll do just fine here.

Walking around has been refined slightly, feeling less like you’re floating around on an invisible skateboard, and more like you’re actually walking. Actually, walking around can provide almost as much activity as skating. You can run up walls and flip off of them Prince of Persia-style, climb around on ledges, or simply run from one end of town to the other and never use your skateboard should you choose to do so-- it’s just not as much fun.

The ability to mix walking in with your skating expands the way you can perform, but again, this is nothing new; this has been a staple in the series since THUG. THAW’s claim to fame is it’s open-ended GTA-style environment. The ability to roam around stages without a time limit has been around for a while (circa THPS4) but this time you don’t have multiple levels to play through-- the game is one huge environment.

Well, at least that’s what the folks at Neversoft want you to believe. THAW really isn’t one huge environment until you complete the story mode. In essence, the game is actually set up on a stage-by-stage basis; it’s just that the stages are all connected, and you can go right back to them after opening a new one without load times.

The opening area has you complete a number of objectives, and when you get enough of them done, you’ll open up the next area. If you complete the objectives there, you’ll open up the next one. You’ll repeat this process until the entire city is unlocked. At that point you can wander around to your hearts content, though there isn’t that much left to do by the time you complete an area besides wander; chances are you’ll do everything in a given area before moving onto the next one.

The level design in a gigantic city requires a lot of thought, and for the most part you can tell Neversoft really put some effort into filling the levels with things to do tricks off. However, they might have over-compensated because the levels feel extremely cluttered. Strangely, there’s actually too much to trick off, making it feel less like a city, and more like an over-grown skate park. I’m sure there will be people that can link combos from one end of the city to the other because of this, but the level design would have benefited from forcing players to be a little more creative with coming up with a run instead of giving them more than enough to work with.

Story mode is an improvement over what we received in THUG and THUG 2, though it’s still not as good as it could be. THUG was a little too serious, and THUG 2 was way too zany. The story in THAW isn’t exactly boring, but there isn’t much conflict either, meaning if you want to complete the game, you shouldn’t expect the story to drive things forward. Chances are opening up the areas in the city will be enough for anyone who’s interested in playing though the story mode.

Story mode is where beginners should probably start. As the game starts off, it runs through the basics in a cleverly designed tutorial. It takes up a pretty good portion of the mode’s beginning, but it’s worth it for anyone who needs to catch up on anything they’ve missed by skipping a game or two. Also, players can ride bikes in story mode. The controls aren’t quite as smooth as they are when skating, and you can’t forego the skateboard and complete the game with the bike, but it’s nice that they added another style into the game that plays decently. If anything it’s a step up from the worthless vehicles included in THUG 2.

While the game has a create-a-skater option, you unfortunately won’t be able to take a created skater into story mode. Instead, you can pick between five pre-made boarders. You can customize them as the game goes on in the skate and clothing shops found in the city, but it’s just not the same as creating a skater from scratch. To use your custom skater, you’ll need to play classic mode.

Classic mode would have been the better part of the game if there were more levels. There are only six levels included, all from previous Tony Hawk games, unless you have the PS2-only special edition which tacks on an additional two. This pales in comparison to the fourteen found in THUG 2, and it’s very disappointing to see such as small number here.

Regardless, fans of the older games will probably like this mode more. Just like in the original three games, you’re given a two minute time limit to complete the objectives. You can play through as many times as you want, but you’ll never have more than two minutes unless you can keep your trick going past the time limit. Familiar goals like "Collect S-K-A-T-E" and "Find the Secret Tape" make their return, as do some of my favorite levels from the first game-- I never knew Minneapolis could look so beautiful with current generation graphics, and it was nice to take a trip back to the Mall.

The PS2 and the Xbox versions are online enabled, though the modes are just like the rest of the game-- more of what you’re used to. The few new modes add some value, but overall it’s just more of what you know with new levels. Hardcore fans will love it, and new players might as well, but somebody who already isn’t into the online modes won’t find anything here to change their mind.

In all honesty Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland isn’t a bad game. If you’ve never played a Tony Hawk game before, or haven’t played the series since the earlier games, it’s definitely worth a look. The controls are as tight as they ever were, and there is a substantial amount of content here. However, if last year you played through THUG 2, and you were bored with doing many of the same things over and over again, it’s probably a good idea to steer clear of this one. Maybe Neversoft won’t take a year off, but that doesn’t mean you can’t either.