Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland has always been and always will be my favorite Tony Hawk game. I know that may sound like sacrilege to anyone who grew up with the Pro Skater games, but I don’t care. The “Pro” series of games (keep in mind the much forgotten Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer, Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder, and Matt Hoffman Pro BMX games) had pretty choppy controls and game feel. The games that followed are where they started to make it right, and the games after those got way too technical (I’m looking at you, Skate franchise) or just plain gimmicky (I’m looking at you, Tony Hawk: Ride). This makes Underground, Underground 2, and American Wasteland the absolute essential trilogy of Tony Hawk games, where American Wasteland is where they took everything they learned, the best parts of the previous game, and a bunch of new really neat stuff (for example the “No loading screens” open world aspect). What’s not to love in this game? Okay, quite a bit looking back, but it’s still a really solid title. Before I get into that, here are some examples of what they did correctly.
It should come as no surprise that this game has a KILLER soundtrack compiled with a bunch of really great underground music (This game shaped my taste in music, and is also why I became obsessed with punk rock by the way). The best part though, is that they had bands record covers of songs from previous games exclusively for this game. I bought the soundtrack for those covers and I still have that CD. You already knew the music would be great though, it’s a damn Tony Hawk game, going on forever about how great the music is would be like going on forever about how misogynist Robin Thicke is. Yeah. We get it. We’ve known this for a while. So I’m going to move onto talking about the story.
In a technical sense, the story is pretty lame and cheesy, I admit that. For a skateboarding game, the story is everything it ever could be. Edgy, rebellious, and above all, rad as all hell, yo! The Skate Ranch concept is a really rewarding concept that takes some of the focus off of the story which is a great thing because otherwise, no one would be invested in the characters enough to keep going through the game. With the Skate Ranch, you get to see your progress in a tangible form with all of the new ramps, rails, and other random stuff you completely steal because… well.. punk rock? Morals aside, it’s a great feeling to go back to the Skate Ranch and see all of the new additions as you go through the game. Missions are fun and challenging but not frustratingly hard or unfair (aside from P. Rod’s shoes. Fuck. P. Rod’s. Shoes.) And with the cheats that are optional, it provides a fun way to get through the game easily without a computer beating it for you a la Donkey Kong Country Returns. Unfortunately, with these cheats, the problems I have with this game start to surface.
So cheats are very helpful in this game. ESPECIALLY the moon gravity cheat code. There are some ridiculous combos you need to pull off throughout the game that are really hard without it. Unfortunately, moon gravity works in a way that exposes a flaw in the game. Some structures and gaps are hitboxed, which means that if you go too high up when you complete a gap, it won’t give it to you always. Say what you want, because technically it IS cheating, but it was totally added to aid players, and when you aid players with things that are unreliable, it becomes a frustrating mess. That’s really the only gripe I have with the game play itself, and it doesn’t really damage the game at all, but it’s still there. The only other problem I had was sometimes in the long boring hallways to mask loading times, I would go too fast and the new area wouldn’t be loaded, but that’s very minor as it doesn’t happen a lot and at least the game play itself isn’t interrupted. The rest of my problems with this game are far more because they are problematic.
The biggest problem I have with this game looking back on it is how many goddamn weird writing choices are made for no reason. Mindy says “I know a little bit of drunk from living with my old man” which definitely implies and then jokes about alcoholism. All Mexican character models without names are known as “cholo” and have VERY jokey stereotypical voices. I could be digging too far into this, but these are definitely some things that would be met with criticism if the game were to have come out today.
Overall, I can’t help but love this game still. This game, much like many of the other games I had for the GameCube, was my childhood and I still get a kick out of going back through the game today. Did it age gracefully? Maybe not. Does it hold up and still entertain me every time I pop it in my GameCube? You bet. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is every bit as good as I remembered it, and if you have any interest in skateboarding games, this is one you NEED to own.
Unstuck Gaming 