Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land (DS) Review

There are only a few sporting games that I can honestly say I enjoyed. The majority of these few would be from the Tony Hawk series and this new entry to not only the Tony Hawk series but also the new Nintendo Wifi game library is no exception. With a slew of options, customisability and outstanding first generation online play this game is everything and delivers everything, even if it does have some small shortcomings.

Do not under-estimate this game simply because its on the Nintendo DS and no longer has many of the features that its console version have including the ability to get on and off your board at will, drive cars around for no particular reason and scoot around on BMXs. In a way the disappearance of these extras actually makes the game feel like the old skool Tony Hawks instead of the no gimmicky, GTA style additions. Heres hoping they dont add weapons anytime soon. Regardless of my utter hatred for THUG this game has really brought me back into the wonderful skating world that is Tony Hawk. You should not underestimate this game simply because it is one of the biggest games out there with an unbelievable amount of stuff to do, see and experience. From the beginning, even without being connected to the new Nintendo Wifi Connection you have the ability to take part in a Story Mode, a Classic Mode, Free Skate Mode or if you have a friend who has the game a familiar 1 V 1 multi card mode. After selecting your gender, name and outfit you will be instantly thrown into the mayhem that is Story Mode which takes you over 6 gorgeous California locations as you challenge pro skaters and do odd tasks in order to earn some dough to redo the old Warehouse. The ability to edit the Warehouse as you see fit is limited however, though that has very little impact on the overall fun factor of this game.

The other single player mode that is worth mentioning in Classic Mode which takes you all the way back to the roots of the Tony Hawk series. You have two minutes to complete 10 goals, which may include collecting the word S-K-A-T-E, finding a missing Tape and breaking a record score. None of these goals are mind numbingly hard and will be easy to conquer after a few replays of the given location. Before entering the Classic Mode you will have the option to play as either yourself or one of the many pro skaters including the man, Tony Hawk, Mike Vallely and Paul Rodriguez. The game will also save your highest score as a replay for later upload to the online portion of the game or for simple gloating when your showing it off to a mate. Free Skate lets you explore the locations with no restriction and as each location is interconnected there is no need to go back to the menu and select another location. Simply skate to it, its that easy. Free Skate allows you to explore the world and navigate the best combo route or if you want gives you an excuse to just stuff around.

Most of the customisability comes in the Skateshop which can be found offline and online. Here you can Change your Deck or edit you Board and Graffiti art in which two styles can be saved. Warning, if you upload a friends or fellow skaters art from the internet then yours is erased so to be safe, upload yours first to the Tony Hawk website. The game takes a small advantage of the inbuilt microphone allowing you to save approximately 3 seconds of sound that will play when you either pull off a killer combo or when you bail after what should have been a killer combo. For a while now, Tony Hawk has also had available a Skate Park Editor however sadly, this did not make the cut this time around. Instead we are greeted with a Warehouse Editor which allows you to alter the placement of set items in the Warehouse upon purchase of these areas in the Story Mode. You cannot mix and match and have something here and there, you simply have the option to choose three items and put them smack bang in the already pre-determined location. The items, whether they be a ramp or rails are also pre-determined for each location in the Warehouse. A slight disappoint here but considering I never personally used the Create A Park mode in THUG this does not concern me. Aside from altering the Sound pitch and loudness as well as going back and changing your characters appearance TH:AS allows you to view all of the tracks featured on the game and gives you the power to turn music on and off, as well as playing in order or randomly. There are 13 unique and original songs featured in this game, including such titles as Holiday by Green Day and an ever so annoying I Like Dirt track.

The big thing about this game however is its online play. How well does it function? Is it fun? Is it as limited as Mario Kart DS? So far, despite one hick up for a few hours where I couldnt connect I have enjoyed my online experience with this game. Aside from competing against either a strange or a friend in the Head To Head mode you can also upload stats from Classic Mode to hopefully be featured in the Pro and Rookie Leader boards, upload custom graffiti and board art from the website, download official new goals that are going to be pumped out over the course of the next few months and I as mentioned earlier explore the Skateshop. So far I have only been able to play in one online match with a friend but the experience was seamless and not a hint of lag could be noticed. We were first thrown into a Free Skate mode until a tinkered with the game modes and then after my opponent agreed to the changes we were thrown into a race to see who could get to 1 million points the fastest. This was a bad mistake on my behalf considering neither of us were that good and it took us ages to reach the 1 million mark. There are 5 modes to choose from as well however to my great disappointment and mourning HORSE mode has gone so I can no longer make those insulting comments aimed towards my younger brother which I should not mention here. I did not come across any form of a chat system though to be completely honest I didnt exactly look. Overall the online experience for Tony Hawk is very user friendly and enjoyable, especially for a First Generation title. If this is anything to go by, imagine what they could do in a year.

Before I delve quickly into the graphics, sound and game play I should also go over two last things that are unique and enjoyable in this edition of Tony Hawk. For the most part the Touch Screen is never used, at least for my part. The only time it does come in handy is when you want to keep hold of your growing combo and instead of having to remember what buttons to mash to activate a trick you can press one of three icons that appear on the right hand side of the touch screen. Depending on what you are doing at the time you can choose from doing an air trick, a grind trick and a lip trick. There is also a Freak Out game that can be played when you bail so you can retrieve some of your lost points but after a few goes at this I grew very tiresome of having to flip out my stylus and save a small margin of what should have been an unbelievable combo. The restart button looks much more friendlier at times like those than playing Freak Out. The other thing I enjoyed is the ability to being able to build up your stats by preforming a certain amount of tricks, length of a grind and other things like that. Its probably been done before but I must say I enjoy trying to better myself and ultimately getting a better star ranking for my skaters stats. So far I have maxed out on two of them but the others are driving me insane, manual for 14 seconds, AH!

I always leave graphics, sound and game play to last because I believe its a good way to finish off a review and a clearer way to further express my thoughts of the game that I have tried to convey across to you above. Firstly, the graphics are outstanding on the Nintendo DS. Though all the locations are situated either in a city or a skate park they are delicately detailed and work wonders with the cel-shaded style. The character models however are very poor and from a distance, if you can see them at all as this game doesnt have spectacular draw distance and pixellated and jagged. As you get closer they look slightly better but there is not a huge improvement. Also the thing that disappointed me most about this game is the fact that aside from yourself and a cop car there is absolutely nothing happening in the game world. Characters that give you tasks stand still and pigeons that you have to grind off a ledge are flat, 2-d models that vanish in thin air when you grind over them. Im sure nothing could be done because it would be to hard to script all of that into a DS game but the need to at least have some interaction with the characters in the game is sorely missed. The sound is great, no complaints. Okay, maybe one complaint, the I Like Dirt song. It is seriously one of the worst songs I have ever heard in my entire life and Ive heard bad. The song is so bad it could warrant at least 5 points off the review score but thankfully you can turn it off so I dont have to unwantingly listen to that poor excuse for music. As mentioned about two hundred times above, the game play is amazing, fantastic, fun, fun and fun. Aside from some repetitive tasks and frustrating game physics (when hasnt a Tony Hawk game made you growl in frustration or worst) this edition of the Tony Hawk franchise is near flawless. Some multiplayer modes are sorely missed but we get what we pay for. Activision and Vicarious Visions did an outstanding job with there first Tony Hawk DS game and if we are a fan of the classics and the newer then you will, without a doubt, be a die hard fan of this one. Tony Hawk:

American Sk8land is just one of those games you must own and the Nintendo Wifi Connection just makes it one of those games that you must own. The Story Mode may only take under 10 hours but the replay value is huge as you compete against the entire world to become to best of the best and vie to be the number one skater in the entire world.