Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (2005)

TLDR: Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is a really fun Tony Hawk experience, but it doesn't quite reach the heights of THUG or Pro Skater 2. There are some unmemorable moments and silly gimmicks/jokes that don't quite hit. Despite this criticism, the skateboarding is really fun and smooth. I would recommend playing this game.

I am on a journey to beat 360 random Xbox 360 games. Here's my next adventure.

Game number 13 is Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. This is a skateboarding platformer, where the goal is to traverse different areas on a skateboard and perform a series of tricks/combos to build a really cool skate park. In order to beat this game, my criteria was to do all 95 story missions. I did play a little bit of Classic mode, but I mainly focused on the story mode.

The gameplay in American Wasteland is the cumulation of all the games that have come before it. There are tons of tricks to pull off and its a load of fun to traverse through the city of Los Angeles. Most of the missions in this game involve a random skater going something like "Bro it would be really cool if you did X" and then I go and do that thing for the guy. It's really basic and derivative, but doing the tricks is fun.

While doing tricks is constantly fun, I do not find using the bike fun at all. I signed up for a skateboarding game and I wanted to skateboard. It would have been nice to opt out of those missions.

In contrast, I have always thought that getting off of the skateboard was a great addition to the series in THUG. I like climbing ladders to get to high spots and pull parkour tricks to reach tricky places.

Some of the things that the skateboarder does in this game are absolutely ridiculous and the delivery ranges from charming to downright stupid... and not in the funny way. I think the flip tricks are pretty dumb and I also thought a couple missions were insane. There's one mission where you climb a giant building and have to grind a couple circles down it to pull a sign off of said building. The character just looks like they are about to die the whole time and I thought it was crazy. Even when its extremely stupid there is still charm and fun to be had here.

The story is okay I guess. You are a rookie skater that just moved to LA and, after proving your skills, you "borrow" a bunch of cool things around the city for the skate park that you are building. Towards the end of the game you make a video with a ton of real-life pro skaters and its really cool. It was only better when the credits hit and you find out that these skaters actually made a real video for this game. Watching them do real skate boarding tricks was amazing.

The levels in this game are also just okay. It seemed like all the cool/memorable places didn't flow well. I loved the idea of the oil rig, but it sucks because you have to maneuver elevators to get around the thing. Same goes for the casino. I liked Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and the Skate Park the most. Even if they were my favorites, they are not as good as some of the classics, like Warehouse, Hanger, School 1 & 2, or Downtown. I don't even think they measure up to my favorite levels from THUG 1 or THUG 2. That doesn't mean they are bad... just that there are 5ish games that have better levels.

Overall, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is really fun and provides the Tony Hawk experience that you want... but go play any of the Pro Skater games (except 5) or either of the THUG games before this. Either way, there is fun and enjoyment to be had here (3.5/5)

I spent 8 hours and 21 minutes playing Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

I have spent a total of 157 hours and 29 minutes on the Road to 360 challenge so far.

Next game: DeadRising 2

2025 EDIT

• Platform: PS2

• Language: English

• Finish Status: Completed

• Playtime: ??h

Finally took some time to finish the story and collect all the pieces for the ranch! Man, what a blast it is! It's so addictive and the story is so whimsical but such a product of its time. Best Tony Hawk I've ever played for sure!

EDIT 2024

I recently started going through some of my old PS2 games. Tony Hawk American Wasteland is definitely one of my most played games from my childhood. And replaying I can totally see why, and I can also see how its theme and story really impacted me growing up. In mostly good ways I would say. It's still super fun to play, the story is really fun to move through as well. The best part about this tony hawk installment is how all the maps are so different and fun. Exploring a new area is simply an awesome experience of exploration. I often find myself skating for hours between missions just because I found a line I wanted to get down so badly. This is from back in the day when the only female skateable character is a secret unlockable one, but I feel like the man dominated sport is definitely catching up in the later games, even though we are not quite there just yet. All in all, an excellent revisit!