Tony Hawk’s American SK8Land
Possibly the best Tony Hawk game since Tony Hawk 4
Tags: Tony Hawk's American SK8Land Categories: GBA Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Dec 6th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tony Hawk's American SK8Land (title page) | 1 - 2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Sports (Exteme) | Yes | ||
If there’s one thing that can be said about Tony Hawk’s American Sk8Land for the Nintendo DS, it’s that this is the first truly ambitious Tony Hawk game in years. While recent console titles have done little more than make largely ineffective attempts at infusing the series with a storyline, and handheld titles until now have set their goals no higher than trying to recreate the experience of the console games (Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 Remix for the PSP was nothing more than a straight port of the console game, minus many of the features), Sk8Land tries to be its own game, do something different, and make specific use of the platform it’s on, and as a result it blazes its own trail while the other games in the series are merely just spinning their wheels.
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The game isn’t completely original, with level designs and a basic storyline premise taken from the new console title, American Wasteland. Impressively, even some of the better songs from the console version’s tracklist (like Greenday’s “Holiday”) are brought to the DS, sounding exactly the same. However, the similarities end there. American Sk8Land also distinguishes itself from Vicarious Visions’ previous GBA titles by being fully-3D like the console games… and cel-shaded. It’s a look that’s quite a surprising turn for a Tony Hawk game, but one that actually works rather well. The game looks very simplistic and colorful, and ultimately it makes the game stand out on its own, and with the added help of a smooth framerate, it thankfully doesn’t detract from the gameplay.
Tony Hawk’s gameplay has always depended largely on the game’s control, and the DS works pretty well in that regard. Although it only has one set of shoulder buttons, the gameplay is still largely intact, with my only major complaint being that I can’t “roll” special moves like I can in the console titles (think “hadoken”). Generally the controls in American Sk8Land seem a lot more unforgiving than your average Tony Hawk game, although there are settings you can use to make it ease up a bit.
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Interestingly, a few of the game’s commands, like the “focus” (i.e. Matrix-inspired bullet-time) are used with touchscreen presses, and some, like “freak out”, are completely custom-tailored to the DS touchscreen, in a way that makes the game work very well on the DS’ hardware. In addition, the map on the bottom screen is extremely useful (especially if you’re looking for any people in the area that can give you a mission, or that last damn “S-K-A-T-E” letter), and the game even lets you use the touchscreen to make your own custom deck designs and spraypaint tags, and the DS mic to record your own success cheer and bail yelp.
Notably missing from the game are a lot of the moves that quite frankly cluttered up the console versions as of late. Here, you will find no BMX biking, no caveman, only one type of wall jump (seriously, why does American Wasteland need two?), a Natas spin that’s executed automatically when you try to grind an appropriate object like a fire hydrant… it’s like Vicarious Visions has taken Tony Hawk back to the essentials, and I for one will not miss having to execute fifteen million moves in the game’s story mode when I’ll only ever actually use a dozen or so.
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Like the console versions of the game, you even have both the Story mode and a Classic mode, only here the classic mode is a bit more fleshed-out, with more areas, including a few notable ones like Tony Hawk 4’s Alcatraz stage (still one of the hardest Tony Hawk stages ever made, but definitely memorable). Really, the only major thing missing here is the create-a-park mode (the “create your own warehouse” mode here is pretty weak). However, given the limitations of the system, this oversight can be forgiven.
However, where Tony Hawk’s American Sk8Land really goes above and beyond is in its use of the newly-unleashed Nintendo Wi-Fi, although it might not seem that way at first. The connection with other players here is a tad weaker than what was offered in Mario Kart DS (you can only choose friends or someone randomly selected online), the options aren’t quite as extensive as one would like and the limitation of 2 players (for local games, too) is restrictive. At the very least I can say that online play works very well, just as you’d expect. However, what really kicks things into high gear is how the game works together with the official website, http://www.american-sk8land.com/, to forge a virtually unprecedented level of community.
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Players can upload, trade and share skateboard designs, spray paint designs, custom avatars, and the like. They can check out not only scores ranked by region, but look up any individual player’s scores, as well as having a look at how many custom goals they’ve completed. Oh, yeah, the game lets you download new goals too.
This strong online element really makes Tony Hawk’s American Sk8Land set a strong example for future DS Wi-Fi titles to follow, and makes its implementation of the feature every bit as impressive as what we’ve seen in Mario Kart DS, if not more. And combined with the game’s great use of DS features and completely original approach to the Tony Hawk formula, this is the biggest breath of fresh air the series has seen since Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. Definitely a must-buy for any series fan.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Controls work well, and are stripped of much of the extra stuff that was really unnecessary + Cel-shaded look works well + Online element is extremely well-done, with a great sense of community + Very original and inventive |
8.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Controls a bit stiff and unforgiving - Could have done with more matchmaking options - Still no real create-a-park |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| The first time since Tony Hawk 4 that anyone has done anything truly new with the series, and for the first time in years I'm actually excited about a Tony Hawk game. There's stuff that could be improved and stuff that's missing from the console games, but that's more than made up for by what the game accomplishes by trying to do something new and different. | |
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Tags: Tony Hawk's American SK8Land
Posted by Jake McNeill on Dec 6th, 2005 and is filed under GBA Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
