Review: Tony Hawk's American SK8Land (NDS)

Whilst many believe the Tony Hawk series has gone downhill since the third iteration, even more agree that the Underground versions have been the worst. American Wasteland attempted to win back the fans but sadly the weak storyline and silly additions such as cycling and on-foot tricks did little for Gamestyle personally. The promise of a fully 3D online version for the DS seemed too good to be true.

Finally, it's here, and surprisingly with Wi-Fi intact. Although Activision have had to agree to Nintendo's strictest communication rules (no communication of any kind during the game, opponent unknown until you're matched, enforced friend codes and so on) and only managed to squeeze a two-player game in there, all the modes are present and if you both have decent connections there's little lag too. The inability to talk (or even type) does hurt the online game though; everything seems a little 'mute' and sterile without the trash talk and bragging.

The biggest surprise though is the solid graphics and 60fps frame rate. The stuttering, choppy display was the only thing to hurt the PSP Tony Hawk's game, but thankfully the DS version suffers no such problem. Naturally, the graphics aren't as high poly or as high resolution, and the levels are structured in a way that the view distance is always short, but once you're in the game this doesn't seem to matter - everything is fluid (in a kind of cell-shaded style) and the DS controls hold up well enough to directly translate anything you've learnt from other Hawk games.

The story mode is weak, though, but this is entirely the fault of the source material - we'd have loved a fully-developed 'classic' Hawk DS game featuring our favourite maps from earlier games but instead we've got nonsensical missions and trials scattered about butchered sections of a developer's twisted view of Los Angeles. There's 'Hollywood' and 'Beverly Hills' but the inverted commas are entirely relevant - these are even more distant from the real locations than the console versions were. Some key areas still remain, and you're sure to spot some locales you're familiar with, but apart from the Vans Skatepark (which is nice) everywhere else is second best.

Most of the moves have made the jump intact, and the animation is spot-on and impressively smooth. Your own speech can be sampled for bails and so on, which is a nice touch, and the stylus and touch screen make light work of the visual customisation of your board and graphics. There's no create-a-park but the Warehouse (from THPS1) can be altered slightly with various chunks of skate park and these can be taken online to challenge others to your own version of the level.

Elsewhere, Tony Hawk's American Sk8land features several fully sampled music tracks (complete with vocals) and local wi-fi multiplay. There's enough levels to provide a bit of variety to the single player modes but multiplayer is definitely where it's at, and always has been. Those with a web connection can connect to Wi-Fi and then play single player aiming for scores which are then uploaded to an online scoreboard, which is great fun to admire the scores you're never going to beat - features like this add masses of longevity to a game already packed with features. The DS version isn't perfect, but it's a damned good game. 

Rating: 7 / 10

Words by Alex Carroll