28 October 2005
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
One of the goals in this game requires you to jump over a shark. It even happens in slow motion and the gap name for it is "the Fonzie". I'm going to be positive about things and say that that is some sort of signal from the no doubt overworked THPS team at Neversoft. They're telling us "we understand what you're going through, just hang on".
It is practically heroic to have released a hit game every year for the last seven years but a part of me wonders if it was the right thing to do. Maybe Neversoft's buyout deal with Activision included a certain number of Tony Hawk titles and the last couple years have been their "contractual obligation-filling double album" phase. I hope so.
All other things aside the true appeal of Tony Hawk games has always been a certain refinement in the gameplay. THPS games always felt "natural" to play. Even when the content got exceedingly stupid and "Jackass"-focused the sweet, sweet satisfaction of nailing a long special over a gap or lining up a rail transfer perfectly remained. But they took it too far. At any point on any level you can just alternate between pressing x and triangle and do a lengthy combo. You can do a 720 or 900 off every quarter pipe. since every button is mapped to something at all times you frequently Bert Slide while trying to walk or start flips or rolls just while ollieing. THere's only six levels in classic mode [there's 8 if you buy the $60 limited edition], they didn't even bother making Classic goals for the main levels in the game.
It's still a Tony Hawk game and it's still fun to cruise around at high speed [fater than ever] and just try things. But in a lot of ways it just feels too raw and unfinished.
Like I said about SSX On Tour if this was the first THPS game ever it would be an achievement. The problem is that we've become accustomed to them being achievements every single time so now that it's not we can't help but feel disappointed.
It is practically heroic to have released a hit game every year for the last seven years but a part of me wonders if it was the right thing to do. Maybe Neversoft's buyout deal with Activision included a certain number of Tony Hawk titles and the last couple years have been their "contractual obligation-filling double album" phase. I hope so.
All other things aside the true appeal of Tony Hawk games has always been a certain refinement in the gameplay. THPS games always felt "natural" to play. Even when the content got exceedingly stupid and "Jackass"-focused the sweet, sweet satisfaction of nailing a long special over a gap or lining up a rail transfer perfectly remained. But they took it too far. At any point on any level you can just alternate between pressing x and triangle and do a lengthy combo. You can do a 720 or 900 off every quarter pipe. since every button is mapped to something at all times you frequently Bert Slide while trying to walk or start flips or rolls just while ollieing. THere's only six levels in classic mode [there's 8 if you buy the $60 limited edition], they didn't even bother making Classic goals for the main levels in the game.
It's still a Tony Hawk game and it's still fun to cruise around at high speed [fater than ever] and just try things. But in a lot of ways it just feels too raw and unfinished.
Like I said about SSX On Tour if this was the first THPS game ever it would be an achievement. The problem is that we've become accustomed to them being achievements every single time so now that it's not we can't help but feel disappointed.
13 October 2005
SSX On Tour
I'm kind of torn on this game. The level design is quite good and if nothing else I'll get my money's worth just freeriding. The rest is, well, sort of a mess.
The interface sucks and that's not even counting the SUPER MEGA ROCK MONSTER graphic design of it. The game autosaves if you've changed NOTHING but merely looked at an options screen or store. If you turn that off you get asked at least once every 30 seconds and sometimes twice in a row. And you can't just cancel out with triangle like before you have to actually choose "no". The "mixtapes" don't work on the menu screens.
There's no real sense of progression, you just sort of cruise along until you get sponsored and then keep going until you hit semi-pro, etc. without any real idea when it's going to happen again. The board pricing is bizarre, there can be a huge difference between 2 boards that cost almost the same or almost non between ones with $30k difference. There's many fewer clothes and accessories.
I miss the personalities of the riders, all your opponents are just genero-weenies like you. Even though a lot of the voice work has been over the top [especially in Tricky] in the past it at least gave it some personality.
The reduced trick options are a bit of disappointment as well but not a huge one for me. I like racing/freeriding much better anyway. THe only thing I don't like is that you need to do boardpress spam at all times to get your combo multiplier high enougn.
There are definitely improvements, bouncing off an invisible wall is actually preferable to the all too frequent "out of bounds" in SSX3. I like the fact that boosting actually makes a significant difference in speed unlike 3. I'm not sorry I bought this game at all and I'll probably play a lot more but it just feels sort of unfinished.
Basically, if this was the very first SSX game ever I'd love it. The fact is that they've done pretty much every thing better in another previous game which is weird.
The interface sucks and that's not even counting the SUPER MEGA ROCK MONSTER graphic design of it. The game autosaves if you've changed NOTHING but merely looked at an options screen or store. If you turn that off you get asked at least once every 30 seconds and sometimes twice in a row. And you can't just cancel out with triangle like before you have to actually choose "no". The "mixtapes" don't work on the menu screens.
There's no real sense of progression, you just sort of cruise along until you get sponsored and then keep going until you hit semi-pro, etc. without any real idea when it's going to happen again. The board pricing is bizarre, there can be a huge difference between 2 boards that cost almost the same or almost non between ones with $30k difference. There's many fewer clothes and accessories.
I miss the personalities of the riders, all your opponents are just genero-weenies like you. Even though a lot of the voice work has been over the top [especially in Tricky] in the past it at least gave it some personality.
The reduced trick options are a bit of disappointment as well but not a huge one for me. I like racing/freeriding much better anyway. THe only thing I don't like is that you need to do boardpress spam at all times to get your combo multiplier high enougn.
There are definitely improvements, bouncing off an invisible wall is actually preferable to the all too frequent "out of bounds" in SSX3. I like the fact that boosting actually makes a significant difference in speed unlike 3. I'm not sorry I bought this game at all and I'll probably play a lot more but it just feels sort of unfinished.
Basically, if this was the very first SSX game ever I'd love it. The fact is that they've done pretty much every thing better in another previous game which is weird.
