Tony Hawk's American Wasteland - Best Yet, or Beginning of Downward Spiral? | Skater Reviews 

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland on Xbox 360 online works still. After all these years the servers are still on for it..

American wasteland was the last good tony hawk game, but I also feel that it was what started the spiral down.

THAW is truly a masterpiece.

This game is gold. Everything takes place in 2000s California with skate culture. Destroying stuff to build a skatepark. The soundtrack was a good mix of classics and modern bands, hip hop and punk. The story was cool too.

The load times in this game is like GTA: Vice City loading times... It last 2 seconds.

The stall is actually very useful once you know how to use it. You can use it to instantly halt your momentum and redirect yourself while in a combo, without getting off your board. Also you won't do it on accident on the PS2 version because the button is separate from the spin.

I've had the 360 version for some years now and I can say with ease that it's the best version of THAW. The load times are much nicer and I always thought the 360 controller had the best feeling for the Tony Hawk games.

American Wasteland is THE best Skateboarding game I’ve ever played to date and I’ve played all the Skates and TH games! The amount of stunts you can do no matter how ridiculous is unreal and endlessly fun.👌🏻💯

Out of all the Tony hawk titles, this was my favorite.

This game WAS my childhood. I fucking loved it. I still have it on GameCube, still play it, and still have fond memories of it. It's my favourite Tony Hawk game from the GameCube era. THUG as good, THUG2 wasn't too bad, but since I started with THAW and then went to those games, they just didn't seem to live to the hype and anticipation I had in playing them -- even though they're still good games in and of themselves.

My all time favorite! The soundtrack, the art direction and the story man. So great.

Actually, Matt Hoffman played more or less exactly like Tony Hawk. X and B + direction for tricks. The bike controls in this game are original.

Yes. The best one they made. I don't know why it gets any hate.

Personally, for me I was attached to Tony Hawk's Underground.

I always found stalls really useful for changing direction when you are grinding. Makes it easier to control where your combo goes next.

i found this channel recently and i have to say youre awesome. all of your topics are well researched and you present them well. i usually dont comment on youtube but i just had to say kudos

I've played every single game with Tony Hawk's name on it ever released, and can 100% say without a doubt that THAW is the absolute best one by a milestone. This game needs a remaster ASAP. I actually just finished replaying Story and Classic mode and they're just phenomenal

Watching your videos on cell data since I just moved to Virginia and need to set up my WiFi, love ur videos, dude!

I racked up so many hours to this game...if I only I would’ve spent that time actually skating..

There is a use for boned ollie and bert slide. The boned ollie gives more distance instead of the improved height of boneless. The bert slide is a great combo ender especially if you hit the left trigger to do a 720 bert slide. Honestly this is my favorite game in the series, especially from a story perspective. It has a very underground, street skater life feel to it.

Hey Rad Rat I just wanna say how much I appreciate your videos, you're so interesting in the way you emphasise parts of sentences, but also how calm and collected you are! Live the videos!

I've been waiting for this review. So happy!

IMO the splitscreen in this one was the best in the series. So many game modes and the levels sparked a lot of creativity

this is the one i keep coming back to. Then again, I live 2 hours from LA so the culture and style of the game is right up my alley.

enjoying these videos man, brings back some good memories!

love your videos dude, you are very knowledgeable about skateboarding and it's awesome to learn the history behind tricks I grew up learning, mostly from games like thps and old skate videos. Please do more trick history vids and bio vids for classic skaters. I'd love to see you do a video on the gnarliest pro bails in skate history.

17:00 there is also the Nintendo GameCube version, which introduced me to the Tony hawk series and currently is the only one I've played but that will change soon I have a lot of fun with that one and I play this version every so often but not much for the story mode, mostly for the classic mode

As for THP8 on the PS2 it has the same Downhill level from THPS3 from the ps1 version, but slightly modified.

I never used the triggers to spin I would just use the left analog... still would be able to out combo my friends lol

The Bert Slide is so underrated. It is very useful if you use it right.

Congrats on the progress man I'm loving it. Here's a suggestion Id love and I'm sure others would too, you should review new skate parts/team vids. That'll be cool to see you talk about that.

I absolutely loved this game. When I first bought it (the same week it came out) I literally couldnt believe you could go into a store and change your clothes and hair in a skateboarding game. Also picking up the bike and getting on the bus were awesome. Challenges like getting the alien suit( I wish you could keep it but it's gone once you've completed the mission, even though you need like 350$ to buy it ). This game was innovative and probably the most "realistic" skating game; at the time.

You should do a review of American Sk8land next.

i remember growing up having my girlfriend ramble on and on, on the phone while i crank out hrs on this game

Bert slides weren't useless, i used them at the very end of my combos for extra points, they are useful if you are going down a long bank. Thaw was one of my favorites in the series just, because i could do more stuff there then in any other tony hawk game. If it had nail the trick and neil the grab as well, then i would give it a perfect 10 with maybe my only minor complaint being that there just wasn't as much cool videos to unlock like in the pro skater series.

It always made me laugh when Daewon Song came out as the Flatland Challenge Boss 😂😂😂

finally someone who talks about the trick animations. or details like the boned ollie. this is how a skater sees this game and usually gamers miss these things when reviewing a game because they dont skate. so really impressive and appreciative the attention to detail!

Not a single word about, the AMAZING soundtrack???

the THAW classic mode levels were my favorite levels in tony hawk because i was a little kid and i loved to roleplay everything, i still do. So my little brother and i would go to santa cruz and pretend to be dogtown style skaters hanging out on the pier, then we'd race to the skatepark and try to one up eachother.

This is my favorite skateboarding game of all time. I have it for the original Xbox, ps2, GameCube, and PC. It's been my favorite game since I first played it in 2006.

I've never seen somebody complain so much about a good game. I don't know man, I like your videos but come on this game really put forth a lot of effort. And this is why we get games like Tony hawk shred or thps5, because developers think way too hard to try to win us back when really they should expand on games like Wasteland.

The nostalgia is real. Used to play this all day during the summer while it was hot out then go out and skate with the homies when it cooled down

the new tricks like stalls and the slides are pretty useful getting massive combos, almost needed

your channel is awesome!!

These videos are so awesome, i'm glad you're making all of them! Grew up playing pretty much every Thps game with my brother, but on Ps2. Actually played very well at the time & still respect the games. Which one was your favorite?

Btw on the ps2 version there is an extra skater and only in the ps2 version Robo-Tony or Robo-Hawk don't fully remember the name but it's a robot version Tony Hawk

I honestly can’t believe these comments as despite AW being my all time favourite I’m mad sure I remember it being slated and criticised by the masses, but positively surprised to see how many actually liked it! Really hope they remaster!

Stalls are actually very useful for changing your skaters direction mid-grind. You'll use it a lot in Project 8 for the "owned" and "get there" challenges.

yess been waiting for this! I personally loved thaw

Graffiti always felt out of place when mixed with skateboarding. It's the reason why my group of friends stopped skating. Always hated how skateboarding somehow turned into graffiti, crews and then eventually gangs in real life. It always seemed like such an awkward transition.

This was always my favorite tony hawk game of all time and heavily influenced my taste in music

The soundtracks from all the Tony hawk games got me into the music I listen to nowadays...im 26.

Excellent review. I played this on a friend's Gamecube and it was alright but at that point I was done with Tony Hawk and started playing Thrasher (and Grind Session) again. Luckily, Skate was only 2 years away in 2007... Hard to believe 10 years have passed already. I do remember playing a demo of Project 8 and enjoying the feel but it was a very small slice though.

It was my favorite because of the story and missions

i love the thaw story and world it brings back so much nostalgia

The Xbox 360 version is amazing. Looks great.

another fine review, sir

2:50 bert slide was useful for conserving your manual balance to prolong your combo.

So i played THAW for the first time and I'm just finishing up with the gaps and stuff, and to me is ok i would say, not really good but ok. I think that if i played this at a younger age the nostalgia would've make me actually love it.

I actually used to play AW online back on PS2 and would host “Realistic Skate” lobbies. Stalling was very useful back then because when skating mini ramps or transition it broadened your abilities. We used to try so fucking hard to make it realistic and honestly did okay haha. I kinda miss it actually

I have fond memories from this game from my childhood. Used to play it online a lot

I remember as a kid that i literally could not progress past the first mission in hollywood because my disc was scratched tf up😄 So i had no choice but to play the classic mode over and over again. Itd crazy seeing all these missions and different environments

The last good game was Proving Ground. After that is when Ride came out and it was clear they were done

the ground tricks were fun for me because it matched my own style more.

The bert slide was actually immensely useful in THAW's multiplayer. Specifically the king of the hill mode. I distinctly remember just how overpowered it was.

*OH BOI I WAS WAITING FOR THIS ONE*

I think the bert slides were added because lords of dogtown came out before this or after this i dont remember. Tony Alva is in the game too so.

Maybe because I was still a kid when it came out, but I loved the sheer variety of options. I know the parkour stuff was probably easy to dismiss for the oldschool crowd but I loved the weird places you could get to with it. And Bert slides had some surprising uses, especially since you could jump out of them and I think you could do them out of manuals. Honestly it played like the classics but even more, with some pretty fun levels, a good character customization, and a decent story mode. I love this game!

I loved project 8 on the ps2, the game has a heavy focus on skill challenges, the amount of hours that I spent trying to get sick on everything were insane

Also can someone tell me everything that is included in the ps2 collectors edition? I can't find solid info on it.

THAW has too much weird stuff in it for my taste, like parcour. but as rad rat said, the physics-"hack" with the bank drop is amazing.

4:25 halfcabs and full cabaerails are in the game, you have to add them manually to your trick list

Still one of my fav games back in the day along with tony hawk underground 2 and tony hawk pro skater 2 on the ps1

Thanks for subtitles, bro. I'm Russian and I love your vids

That tune at the beginning reminds me of the Seiklus soundtrack!

I like it I'm just having trouble putting all my created tricks to my special tricks list can that be done

animations used blends from one to another animation so up + x equals kickflip but it will try to blend into the closest frame of the double kickflip, and triple, meaning that if the boards transverse rotation was a similar place on a 0-360 degree scale then it would not account for it and blend to that frame of the double kick animation. tl;dr that triple kickflip problem def was a glitch.

I recently subscribed to your channel because I think that your videos has a really interesting content. Could you make a video about Habitat please? That would be awesome.

I remember playing this game as a kid and thinking that it was the best looking game I've ever played it's honestly crazy to look back on older graphics and how for they've come.

I don't know why, but you remind me of Zach Woods so much. Great videos, now I need to get my hands on a copy of American Wasteland to start playing, haha.

I had American Wasteland on the Xbox 360, I think the Bert slides were with the bumpers instead, so it didn't have the body varial, Nollie, and fakie issues like the original Xbox. Again I don't remember clearly but that is my memory of it, sorry for being so fuzzy on it. Personally my favorite was Tony hawk pro skater 3 but that's probably due to my nostalgia and it was my first Tony hawk game. Thanks for the videos rad rat, keep it up!

i was i think 7 years old when wasteland came out. staple of my childhood

I gotta admit, it's pretty impressive looking as far as the tech goes

360 Version had 720p, it was the exact same game but with online (other versions of the game had online but it got discontinued sometime in 2010.) btw i have that same exact version on original Xbox.

By far my favourite of the Tony Hawk games, although Underground 2 was pretty good too. Unfortunately they don't compare to the Skate series for me Having the bike in there was a huge deal for me being that I'm more of a bike guy than a skate guy!

I stalled a lot of times, it was a way for me to get points out of grinding without moving from my certain spot. I still use it in Project 8 that I'm currently trying to beat on Xbox and Xbox 360. I'm surprised you didn't do the 360 version of AW

Needs a remastered version. I love this game to death

Is the collectors edition only on ps2? I wanna download an iso for the game, but I wanna download the version that has the best graphics, is PC the best version? 360?

that last race was always my favorite part how it all comes together like that. how can you just glance over it like it wasn't awesome lol

THAW is my favourite at least from a story perspective, building the skate ranch is awesome

My fav sountrack in a Tony Hawk game ♥

12:15 Makes sense, Daewon Song was the shit at that time. This was after the 3rd Mullen vs. Song video part.

doing backlips off the wall into natas spins like wtf how could this not be the best tonyhawk

There is one thing you forgot to mention about Classic Mode. You can play Co-Op via split screen.

Best ever! All time favorite skate game.

I remember despising this game back when it came out, but after watching your review I'm not entirely sure why. It seems like a logical evolution for the THUG formula, those games of which I adore. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 are always toss-ups for my favorite entry in the series. The only thing I can think of is that the game maybe threw too many new things at you? It seems a little daunting, the way you explain it, and that could absolutely mean I hated it back in the day! After watching this review, though, I'm willing to give it another shot. Another reason I may not have liked it at all is that I played the living hell out of THUG 2 on the GameCube and the PSP. Soooo many hours played in both versions, and as a human being with preferences and getting used to certain things, playing probably around a million hours of those games and being so comfortable with them, jumping into a brand new one with new levels, a new story, new characters... I'm thinking it was just a bit of a culture shock. For the longest time I also considered Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 to be trash. Notice a commonality between me hating that and hating American Wasteland? Both games were the immediate successors to my favorite ones in the series. Haha. Anyways... sorry for the long comment. I'm sure no one cares. But here's something you might care about, Rad Rat: I'm really enjoying your series of Tony Hawk game reviews :) Very well-written and well thought-out reviews, and it is so interesting to hear thoughts on the games from a seasoned IRL skateboarder. Are you going to venture into reviewing other extreme sports games? Like Activision's other ones such as Kelly Slater, Shaun Palmer, and Mat Hoffman? Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure or whatever? Dave Mirra? And that -objectively- awful BMX XXX? All I can say is keep the reviews coming! Keep up the awesome work :)

my biggest pet peeve with AW is that they took away the progressive board damage. it was such a cool touch in THPS4, THUG and THUG2. Why did they take it out? haha

Thps4, thug, and thug2 were my favorite

man thaw is my fav tony hawk game ever, ive beaten it so many times.

So cool that there is freestyle in this game