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| Tony Hawk's American Sk8land; (DS) 8 out of 10 | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 27 2007, 09:23 AM (783 Views) | |
| Evil Hamster | Mar 27 2007, 09:23 AM Post #1 |
Osu!
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Tony Hawks American Sk8land is an excellent game with some of the best wifi features available on the Nintendo DS, yet it is let down by a terrible lack of online players. However, the game is still strong in both Single player and multiplayer modes, with the sort of addictive gameplay which makes you want to just keep on playing. The story in THAS is based around rebuilding an old skatepark, 'The Warehouse' by gaining help and money from pro-skaters and various people you find around all of the seven different locations in the game. The story isn't too bad, and is acted out through cutscenes throughout the story mode. Whilst it isn't particularly engaging as storylines go, it could have been a lot worse. Posted Image The game plays with the skating action on the top screen (a behind-the-skater view) and a map of the area you are playing through on the bottom screen. The touch screen is used to perform 'touch specials' which, when you have enough points, tap on the touch screen to perform an uber-awesome trick. This works reasonably, although sometimes it is hard, as you have to readjust your grip on the DS to perform it. Posted Image Your character starts with very low stats, but you build them up by completing certain tricks and combos. For example, rail is improved by grinding for long enough in a combo, and manual is improved by having a long enough manual. Whilst this sounds OK in theory, it is much too easy to tune your characters to the max, and more of a challenge in doing so would have been better. There are three main modes in Single player- Classic mode and Story mode. Story mode involves going through each of the seven worlds, collecting money to help rebuild the Warehouse skate park. This mode, whilst great fun, is very slightly short compared to some other games on the DS. The classic mode is likely to keep you interested for a similar length of time. Classic mode involves jamming around the seven locations, completing various goals such as 'collect S K A T E' and 'get a 200 000 point combo.' These are great fun, the longevity is greatly extended due to unlockables whenever you complete it with a different character. Classic mode also has the option of skating around the different levels, to try and gain the highest score you can. Then, these scores are uploaded to the internet via Nintendo WFC, and onto the worldwide scoreboards, which can be checked either from your DS or from your internet browser at American Sk8land.com Unlike Other games such as MPH, the tables seem to be virtually hack-free, so your position will be a lot fairer. You can use your money for two things: To buy new skate pieces in the Warehouse, or to buy clothing and new tricks in the skateshop. In the skateshop, you can change the appearance of your character, and you can buy new tricks. You can then choose your favourites, and choose the buttom combinations required to perform that trick. The skateshop is a nice addition, and the large variety of tricks you can use is fantastic. Posted Image In the skateshop, you can also create your own designs to use as clothes, graffiti or board decals. The designer is much harder to use than the ones in Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, due to a lack of a grid and no D-pad control, but it is still a nice addition. The ability to upload your designs to the internet is also great. Posted Image Whilst the single-player mode is good fun, the game truly comes into itself in multiplayer mode. Unfortunately, there is no single-cart download play, but there is local multi-cart play, and wifi. The local play involves free-skating around the various levels, and either player can choose a challenge to play, such as Combo Mambo or Horse. The other player can choose whether to accept or decline this challenge, or choose one of their own. The wifi gameplay works the same way. The wifi gameplay is excellent, with very few disconnectors compared to other games such as Mario Kart or Metroid. Also on wifi, you can upoad your high scores to the online tables, or join a 'crew' (basically a THAS clan) You can also upload your designs to the internet, and download new goals to play in single player mode. Overall, the wifi is probably one of the best out of all the DS wifi games (with the possible exception of it's sequel, Tony Hawk's downhill jam) However, the only serious problem with the wifi is it's lack of players. You will often have to wait at least ten minutes to find someone to play against over random match on wifi. The graphics in Tony Hawk's American Sk8land are cartoony-styled. Whilst this may appeal to some people (Such as me) many other people seem to find it a turn-off that the graphics use a completely different style to any of the preceding games. However, the graphics are well-detailed, the scenery is fairly-good looking and it all moves along fairly smoothly without a hint of slowdown. Posted Image The sound in THAS, like most other Tony Hawk's games, is proper music tracks. You can choose which tracks you like or dislike, and turn certain tracks off if you dislike them. Whilst some of the tracks are exceedingly annoying, others are great, and really fit the game well. Overall, Tony Hawk's American Sk8land is a good buy if you don't have a wireless connection, but if you have the ability to connect to WFC, it's so much better. Presentation 7 Graphics: 7 Sound: 8 Gameplay: 8 Lasting Appeal: 9 Overall Rating: 8 |
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