While all three of the Tony Hawk’s Underground games were staples of my childhood – and yes, we’re counting today’s subject, American Wasteland, as the final one of them – none are quite so etched into my mind as American Wasteland. If I could pick any of the three to play and keep forever, this is the one I’d choose. This one, more than the others combined, I played endlessly during my teen years. And yet this game is, by a clear margin, the least liked of the trilogy going by both critical and user response alike. But never mind that – obviously everyone else is completely wrong because this one’s my favourite and we’re going to look at why.
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland (GameCube, PC, PS2 [reviewed], Xbox, Xbox 360)
Released Oct 2005 | Developed: Neversoft | Published: Activision
Genre: Sports | HLTB: 12 hours
Part of the reason why I group this game together with the Underground pair is because Neversoft were still trying to build a Tony Hawk’s game with a narrative focus. Each of the three touch on a different aspect of a kind of grand mythologised notion of what skateboarding culture was about: the first used a sports movie-style framing narrative to paint a grandiose rags-to-riches picture of how people imagined skating fame to look, and the second drew from Jackass to tap into an anti-authoritarian anarchy-laden sense of destruction, at once both a reflection of the yobbish image propagated of skaters by mainstream media and a celebration of that same image pushed to a fantastical extreme. American Wasteland’s roots, however, are in punk rock, in underground zine culture, and in an exuberant glorification of skateboarders as outsiders free from corporate governance. It is to me the most pure expression of what skater culture meant to me as a teen as our protagonists celebrate their differences in the face of the corporate plastic-shell society of Los Angeles.
One criticism I have to level at American Wasteland right from the off is that we are suddenly far more restricted in our choice of player character. The character creator mode from the previous two Underground games is still there though, and it’s accessible in full from the main menu but this is only to let us make a character for the non-story modes of THAW. In the campaign we have to play as one of a tiny selection of dorky boys, each one little more than a basic model from the character creator. The reason for this is because there’s a romance subplot woven into THAW’s narrative as our character falls for a spunky zine artist called Mindy and evidently Neversoft and/or Activision weren’t brave enough to have a lesbian relationship in what was a blindingly homophobic game industry at the time.
Once we’ve picked from our choice of wasting hideous spuds that the game offers us (as an aside, in case you think I’m being a bit forceful or mean, don’t worry – the game makes it very clear that this is intentional since you’re supposed to be a moronic hick at the outset), our protagonist opens the game by escaping from the archetypal life that every teen imagines they have, complete with disapproving, verbally abusive father, power-tripping cops, and a cheating girlfriend who dumped you for a local jock. He arrives in the gilded streets of Hollywood, fresh-faced and filled with an enterprising spirit, ready to make something of himself in the greatest city in the world… and is immediately jumped by a bunch of kids who kick the shit out of him, nick his bags and cash, and leave him face down on the sidewalk.
Our hero picks himself up, American dream thoroughly beaten out of him, and wanders into Mindy, the aforementioned punk artist. She helps our main character fit in L.A. a bit more, sprucing him up with some new clothes and hair, points him in the direction of the local skate shops, and then watches as he rips it around Hollywood, finally in his element. This is, obviously, where our game tutorials start and American Wasteland gets to show us just how much work has gone into this iteration of the Tony Hawk’s franchise. This brings us onto one of the big reasons why I love this entry so much: the gameplay has finally reached what I honestly consider the perfect refinement of the franchise’s trademark frenetic skateboarding.
A lot of the work done in American Wasteland with regards to the skating itself comes down to fine tuning; it is, after all, built on the backs of a now-lengthy series of games that, with each new release, added and fixed feature after feature. The jump from Underground 2 to American Wasteland isn’t massive but it is there. It’s in the ever-so-faster response time, and in the perfect balance between punishing your bad timing and allowing you to hit that trick just at the last second. It’s in the myriad little ways one can now shift tricks mid-action, such as flicking through a larger pool of options while grinding, holding a lip trick, or when performing flatland moves. While Underground might have set the bar for the PS2 era Tony Hawk’s games, I personally think this entry is where the series’ skateboarding hit a glorious peak.
Not content with offering a refined skateboarding experience, American Wasteland also adds in BMX riding to the main campaign. It’s no ill-thought out extra either; this is a genuinely well-realised additional way to play, with the bike having a full suite of tricks to perform as well as its own gimmick to the way it works. Unlike when skateboarding, the BMX makes use of both analogue sticks on the PS2, with the left used to steer the bike and the right flicked to perform tricks depending on the direction of its movement. Bikes can grind, manual, and lip trick exactly like a skateboard, and can perform more advanced moves such as spins and reverts in order to extend combos out. While there’s not as much trick variety when using the bike, the game is rightly proud of its tightly implemented BMX riding. Legendary riders Rick Thorne and Mat Hoffman, the latter of whom already had his own Pro BMX games published by Activision as competition with Acclaim and their Dave Mirra-branded games on the PS1, even make appearances in the main game, with the former showing up in each level to offer you tutorials and challenges.
American Wasteland is probably best known for attempting to place a Tony Hawk’s game into a semi open world. Prior to this all of the games in the franchise had been strictly level-based, but American Wasteland was more ambitious than that and instead we get an entire rendition of Los Angeles to skate around in. Well, not quite an entire thing – this was the PS2 after all, so actually what we get is a necessarily crunched up and, naturally, Tony Hawk’s-ified version of L.A.. Our story begins in Hollywood, which is complete with many of the obvious landmarks, such as the Walk of Fame, Capitol Records, and the Hollywood sign, albeit all squished together. At the outset of the game we’re stuck skating around only there, but events unfold fairly quickly which opens a path through an abandoned mall on the other end of which is the neighbourhood of Beverly Hills.
This leads into one of American Wasteland’s big selling points, which is that we’re given an open version of L.A. to skate around in, with districts separated by skateable corridors that mask behind-the-scenes loading in order to create a seamless, loading screen-free world. Technically we still have levels, each one a different part of the city, such as Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and downtown L.A., but when you’re in the campaign you get the ability to freely skate between them. Critics might point to the bland non-spaces that you pass through between districts but I don’t mind them; many an hour was spent in my teen years trying to do that elusive full combo starting from one end of the map and reaching the other!
Of course, there has to be things to do in an open world, otherwise it’s just a big empty sandbox. That wouldn’t be the worst thing for a Tony Hawk’s game, mind, given that the primary joy is the skateboarding, but just in case American Wasteland does have bits and bobs for players to engage with. Radiant quests pop up around the areas that can be completed for money, which players can use to buy new clothes, hair, and board accessories in order to customise their character. Finding Rick Thorne and completing his BMX missions also nets money, while a local graffiti artist gives players platforming sidequests that make use of newly added off-board parkour moves as you try and reach places to tag with his sign; in return you get new skills and art presets which can be turned into your own custom graffiti tag that can be thrown on any nearby surface when you’re on foot. There are even challenges set by each area’s local skate shop which challenge your boarding skills, and completion of which increases your stats to make you a better skater.
The main thing to do though is build a skatepark. The main story of American Wasteland sees your podunk town skater meet up with a reclusive ex-pro named Iggy Van Zandt who lives on an abandoned lot in the outskirts of Beverly Hills. Iggy has a dream of building the best skatepark ever there, so our protagonist and their friends head out into L.A. to find things to break, smash, and otherwise pilfer in order to bring them back to the lot and make Iggy’s dream a reality. It’s easy to trace the lineage of American Wasteland here back through to Underground 2’s Jackass roots as everything you can source for the skatepark involves both skating and property destruction, typically on a major scale, but in keeping with the ethos of American Wasteland, it’s presented as a bit more punk rock and with a little less puerile humour. This suits me more, in all honesty, and I think it helps American Wasteland’s writing feel a touch less dated than Underground 2’s, although it is still unmistakably wrapped up in a sanitised, corporate Hot Topic-esque idea of what skate-punk looks, sounds, and acts like.
Naturally there are other things to do in American Wasteland outside of the story. The usual suite of customisation options are available so you can at least create a more representative character to use outside of the campaign. Classic mode makes a very welcome return from Underground 2; in this mode the game emulates the feel of the original Pro Skater games by dropping you in levels with a set of goals to achieve and a short time limit over your head. Running out of time isn’t awful though as any goals you achieve in a run are saved, so you can return again and again to try and master each stage’s challenges. The levels in Classic mode are a mix of the regular ones from the campaign and a set of returning ones from older games, such as downtown Minneapolis and the Mall from the first Pro Skater.
When I come to play these older games, in particular ones from my childhood, there’s very often that strange sense hanging over them as I question their quality (and, I suppose, my younger self’s taste in games). I feel an odd anxiety about it sometimes, like there’s some sort of stake or personal pride in whether or not they turn out to be still good. The Underground trilogy have especially been examples of this. I think it’s because the whole idea of a Tony Hawk-branded skateboarding game feels very quaint now, like it belonged to a very specific era of time alongside Vans slip-on shoes or emo-infused pop punk. When you have a piece of media tied so intrinsically to a moment in time like that I think it’s reasonable to assume that its time has long passed and that it might not be that much fun to experience again.
I’m very pleased that the Underground games haven’t felt like that – at least, not for me. I replayed and reviewed these games in fairly rapid succession, but not for any reason other than I was having a whale of a time with them and kept wanting to pick the next one up. Perhaps for other people they might feel antiquated or awkward now but I loved replaying them and, true to form, I loved returning to American Wasteland most of all. Everything the series has been working towards finally all comes together beautifully here on the streets of L.A. where, as the song goes, everyone is someone.
6/7 – EXCELLENT.
Games with a touch of brilliance. It might only just miss out on being an absolute favourite, but you should definitely play this.
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