Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

In 2006, a year after the original, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland was also released on Xbox 360 as one of the early titles making use of the power of Microsoft's new-generation console. Neversoft used the move to new hardware primarily for a visual upgrade - higher resolution, sharper textures, better shadows, and smoother transitions between the individual parts of open-world Los Angeles.

The game content, missions, and structure of the open city remain identical to the original Xbox version; the difference is mainly technical: a more stable frame rate even with large numbers of pedestrians and vehicles on the streets, more detailed environment models, higher-quality lighting, and better draw distance in the larger parts of the map. For players who already knew the original, this amounted more to a noticeable graphical leap at a time when owning the new console was itself a status symbol, rather than a title with substantively different content, new missions, or areas.

Loading times between the individual areas of the open city were shorter than on the original console thanks to the more powerful processor and disc drive of the Xbox 360, which was especially noticeable when quickly moving between distant districts of the city. The Xbox 360 version also supported higher-resolution output for the HD televisions of the time, while the original Xbox version was limited to the standard resolution of ordinary televisions. Most players and reviewers saw this version primarily as a technical showcase of the new console's capabilities running already familiar and proven content. Even so, many players at the time were curious to see how the same open Los Angeles looked and played on the new generation of hardware, which made it a popular demo for showing off the new console to acquaintances who were still hesitant to upgrade.

Why play it: Suitable for players moving to the Xbox 360 who wanted the same game with better graphics and smoother performance - a technical upgrade of the same open world, not new content.