Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

In a new bid to get some games off the shelf, I’ve employed a new method of picking games – letting my friends do it for me based on a number selection that applies to all the games currently taking up space on the shelves. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland was one such chosen game that, on paper, looked the easiest and quickest to complete.

Back when I was young, I actually got quite good at the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. On reflection, this was probably my very first venture into a gaming genre that didn’t hold much interest in relation to my gaming patterns at the time and it also required me to go from not being able to land a kickflip at the start to being able to pull off massive combos and get the highest score achievements in the game with relative ease. So essentially it was the first game to teach me, if at first you don’t succeed, keep trying until your eyes bleed.

Anyway, journey forward in time some seventeen years and it turns out I’ve come full circle – not being able to land a kickflip without eating some pavement.

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland has two game modes, Classic and Story. Classic mode is essentially another version of the original pro skater with different maps and similar challenges so this was quite nostalgic for me. There are six levels in which you have to do specific tricks in specific locations, get a certain amount of score and collect some shit.

Story Mode is very similar. Essentially you an unknown skater who is trying to make a name for himself on the skating scene. The main driving force behind the story is that you are trying to build a skate park after your actions get the layabout idiot who doesn’t work for a living arrested. You then need to build the skate park yourself and get other professional skaters and BMXers to offer support.

The ways of doing this involve completing certain challenges in specific locations to get parts of the skate park. This is relatively straightforward if you have some skill with skating games and you haven’t lost all of your acquired skill by playing RPGs – like me.

Considering the game was originally released on PS2 in 2005, it hasn’t aged well at all and looks 13 years old in both character and level design. There were times where I felt like the scenery was interfering with the game and I got caught on invisible walls a lot during my playthrough.

Musically, its actually alright but I think this is a generation thing. I liked the punk rock scene in the mid-2000s, so it was right up my street.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 45 Achievements

Most of the game is pretty straightforward in terms of the achievements and the game itself can be made easier by enabling cheats as these don’t disable said achievements.

First things first, playing through the whole of story mode will get you 8 achievements and unlock all of the levels to play in free play mode.

Completing everything in Classic Mode will get another six achievements. I needed the cheats for this due to my inept ability to play the game and the fact that some of the things you need to do seem practically impossible without them.

After completing both story mode and classic mode, all of the levels in the game will be available in free play and to play on Xbox Live. The next thirty achievements are really easy. All you have to do is play free play and set a high score on each of the fifteen levels and play an Xbox Live game on each level too. The Xbox Live ones don’t require you to play with anyone, you only need to launch the game. It’s a bit weird from an achievements perspective but whatever, we’ll run with it.

The last one is the biggy. In typical Tony Hawk fashion there are special jumps throughout the levels. To get the 100% completion, you have to find all of these special jumps. You will get some of these while playing the game but some of them are so utterly ridiculous, you wouldn’t think to even look for them. Some of them are also really hard to do. I spent ages working on individual ones on some levels but managed to get through some whole levels relatively quickly. No matter which way you slice it, getting this achievement alone is easily a six-hour time investment and offers the biggest challenge in the game.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland was, for me, a flashback to the past that offered some enjoyable and frustrating game play in equal measure. It hasn’t aged well and hasn’t encouraged me to buy other skating games. In terms of achievements, it would be an easy completion if not for the hidden gaps, but if you’re not fussed about the 100%, it’s a very easy and straightforward 90%.