What’s it all about?

Bustin’ a rad scoop while ollying a gnarly 720!

Eh?

Ahem, sorry. It’s the latest installment of the legendary skateboarding sim, except in this new version, the emphasis is much more on racing rather than on tricks. Which is good news for those of us who struggled to learn the lingo on previous Hawk titles, let alone the complex button combos. However, like snowboarding sim SSX, you still have to master a few tricks to help find shortcuts and build up speed boosts.
Should I be excited?

Weeeell, it depends what you think of the Hawkster and his videogames. Downhill Jam has a tough job, because hardcore Hawk fans may think it’s been dumbed down, while casual players may have been put off by the previous games.

Nevertheless, the Wii version is looking pretty nifty, letting you play as Tony or eight other characters, as well as offering the now traditional Create Your Own Character option, so you can live out your skating fantasies (i.e. the ones that don’t involve you being carted off to hospital crying like a big girl when you skin your knee).

The game is cosmopolitan too, with stages in San Francisco, Chicago, Hong Kong, Rome, Rio de Janeiro and, er, Edinburgh.

Does it do nifty stuff with the Wii controller?

Yeah, a bit. You hold the controller sideways while playing, and then tilt it to turn, and also to flip over when in the air and spin – or both those latter two at once. Reports from people who’ve played the game say it works well, providing smooth controls.

Any good multiplayer features?

Nothing online, but you can get four players round your Wii for a split-screen race, which promises to be great fun. The multiplayer section of the game has a bunch of different modes to play, from basic race, trick and slalom modes through to the frankly strange Steal The Head mode, which IGN described as “players start as headless skaters, and must compete for first place to earn a gigantic head on their shoulders as a token of their awesomeness.” As you do.

What else should I know?

The game will have a wide variety of skateboards to unlock, including current models from proper brands, old-skool retro boards (I’m guessing this doesn’t mean the cheap-as-chips one I was trundling down hills on as a boy), and ‘fishtails’, whatever they are. Like SSX, finding the secret shortcuts will be a big part of the game too, often involving smashing through scenery.

When’s it out?

Like all the previews we’re running at the moment, Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is a launch title, so you’ll be able to get it on Day One (that’s 8th December here in Europe).

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2006 at 12:20 pm by Stuart Dredge
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