Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Skate or die? Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is somewhere in between

Legendary Tony Hawk has been conquering media forms for almost over 20 years. From professional sports to videos, he's now branching out one step further and going mobile.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, the latest in his Pro Skater Series, has received accolades as the highest quality out there in skateboarding gaming. Now, after it hit the gaming video screens in 2005, it's hitting the streets with its phone version.

THAW starts off the same as the non-mobile version, letting players kick it off as a newbie in the LA skater scene. After completing goals for the veterans, they have to convince them they are worthy of continuing to skate. To keep things exciting, THAW has three different settings including the beach front Santa Monica, Hollywood and the Skate Ranch, a skate park.

At the beginning, it seems you don’t have a lot to work with - only ollies and kick flips. But once you continue you are shown other tricks such as grinds, manuals and transfers. Pull all the moves together and you can find yourself enthused for quite some time.

The more goals you set, the more ticks you're given, allowing you to chain together high point chains. It's a bit confusing to tell where some of the goals need to be played and what exactly you have to do to gain more tricks - try not to get easily frustrated.

It's slightly disappointing that the tricks aren’t always that extensive - wallies, 50-50 grid and Christ Air are it - but they can keep you excited for awhile. The prettiest looking trick hands down is the Christ Air.

Directional contracts are straightforward - directional pad or the 2,4,8,6 buttons on your keypad. Tricks are played out on the other key available. You'll be impressed by the animation even on the small size phone screen.

LAST WORD

It's certainly not the slickest mobile product but it looks great and plays well enough for short periods of time - which is the way the game was designed in the first place. There's nothing about this that's out of the ordinary but if you like Tony Hawk or phone games, give Tony Hawk's American Wasteland a try.