Review: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (NDS)

While the Dreamcast was home to all-time classic games such as Shenmue, Jet Set Radio and Rez, Gamestyle spent an awfully large amount of time with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. As much as any of the previously mentioned games it was compulsive, brilliantly designed and perfect in more ways than most other games can dream of. After that though, the franchise started to stutter, each new release seeming a little worse than the first in the series. Project 8 on the 360 sees Tony going back to its root, but for the DS (and Wii) the franchise has changed tack entirely.

The difference is simple, rather than spending your time nipping around skate parks you'll be spending all your time whizzing down hills. Sometimes you'll be going for high scores like Hawk games of old, but for lots of the game you'll be racing upto 3 computer controlled characters or against a clock. It gives the game a really different feel to start with, but after a little while it starts to feel comfortable and brings back warm memories of the rest of the series. Essentially it is the same game after all; the controls are the same as the very first game in the series but with the added option of flips, rolls, a boost to nip ahead of folk and a slide to get you around corners. Also reverts are gone, but a generous couple of seconds to keep a chain going after landing removes the need for them. Ignore the hilliness and you might as well be playing an old one in the series; that isn't a bad thing.

Of course, ignoring the hilliness is a challenge as you're constantly hurtling forwards. On the one hand it's restrictive, you see opportunities passing you by and are powerless to stop it to start with. Given time though you'll start to learn a few things, recognise where things are going to be and start reacting correctly, start learning which route to take and how to take it. Thanks to a variety of short-cuts you might choose a different pathway to the bottom if you are racing or going for points which ensures you're never quite repeating yourself. The feeling of restriction never quite goes - sometimes it's tempting to try and make your way back up the hill - but in many ways it makes the game feel more focused. As good as the other Tony Hawk's games are they almost push you to picking an area and taking advantage of it. This forces you to utilise everything and that is a very good thing. Boosts are earned by fitting tricks into your speed runs, which encourages you to work even when the score is unimportant.

The main game mode is World Tour, which gives you 10 challenges to complete, followed by three to get medals. They include variations races, trick challenges as well as hitting specific lines or knocking over bins. It doesn't feel particularly original, but the learning curve is well balanced and progression is smooth. There is also a Jam Session mode that uses the same challenges but presents them in the way the older games did; in one run see if you can finish everything off. It's good clean fun, although it would have been better if the two modes had different goals to make things more interesting.

Graphically, it gets off to a poor start with character designs, which are horrendously low poly models, although the level of customisation is quite impressive. Once you're in the game and you've spent some time it things don't seem to so bad. You get used to the style of it and it genuinely does start to grow on you. While it's unlikely that anyone will be impressed, it's also hard to complain. Anyone that played the last DS release will recognise it immediately, apart from more slopes the differences are slight. In fact the only real improvement over its predecessor is in terms of speed - Downhill Jam positively whips along and smoothly too. And while it might sound a little tinny, Gamestyle must sheepishly admit to really enjoying the soundtrack.

And again like the previous release, Downhill Jam is lovely to take on online. Once you're in a game (it can be a bit difficult getting one sometimes) connections tend to be smooth. Of course people tend to spoil online games and that happens here (sticking to a half-pipe rather than using the whole course) but with friends it becomes a lot better and for one specific reason - voice chat. It's not perfect (one person can only talk at once) and it gets passed a little slowly to other people. But there aren't many portable games that let you chat, so it's still a great feature even with its little quirks. Combine it with brilliant stat tracking on the site, a surprisingly approachable online forum and a general feel of polish and you can't help but be impressed.

There must be some downsides? Of course, but not many. It's not a massive game by any means, 6 courses isn't really enough, especially with the last being a real let-down as it is shorter and duller than the rest. You lose the exploration feel of other titles and short cut hunting doesn't feel quite the same. The comedy sections between levels aren't that comical and hearing "I got owned" for the two hundredth time is a little annoying. But you will hear it for the two hundredth time because this is a game worth playing and worth sticking with and it complements the previous release perfectly. It's different, but it's definitely a Tony Hawk game. And a really good one at that.

Rating: 8 / 10

Words by Andrew Revell