Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

American Wasteland is the culmination of everything Neversoft has learned in the decade or so of making this series; throwing out what hasn't worked and throwing in a splash of experimentation of its own, informed by what the developers learned from experiments in the past. What results is the smoothest, most feature-rich Tony Hawk game ever made. The physics themselves feel more flighty and fast but still tight and responsive than ever before and the wide variety of aesthetically pleasing moves such as the natas spin, wall run, bert slide, etc, make an experience that not only feels incredible to play at a high level but looks incredibly impressive as well. The lack of loading screens in the story mode allow you to begin combos on one side of Los Angeles and end them on the other. The story involves ripping chunks of LA out by skating them to rubble, then taking that rubble back home to help build the world's greatest skate park, an endeavor that sees not only your park slowly develop into something great but Los Angeles itself changes as well; opening new lines and gaps to skate on.

uh ohhhhhh HOT TAKE but this is the best tony hawk game.
the idea of holding combos through areas.
the fattest move set
you can unlock lil jon AND billy joe armstrong
the humor
the SOUNDTRACK
yall cmon man. THUG 2 has a better character creator and shrek but this one is the best for my money.

By this point, the appeal of a self-insert driven story had run all the way down, and the campaign is saddled with all of the problems of the THUG games but without the sheer force of personality of Eric Sparrow to really make it anything but lousy skater wank. However, the open-world is further bolstered by a continuous map, poorly masked by loading tunnels but with nothing lost in their inclusion as they still have plenty of combo opportunities, and a main story that drives the goal of developing the most insane private skate park that slots in well with this overall ethos. Too much hopping off the board besides, American Wasteland is fine.