Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam Review

Instead of getting Tony Hawk’s Project 8, the Wii got something entirely different: a downhill racer that just so happens to star Tony Hawk. This doesn’t mean Tony Hawk is no longer about the tricks, though. There are still trick attack events, but these play second to the race and slalom challenges. Even then, tricks are useful for building up your boost power. What’s a racing game without a little boost?

Downhill Jam spans eight levels broken up into smaller sections depending on which event you are in. One level by itself, top to bottom, is actually quite large and contains several branching pathways (hence why the game can get away with breaking them up). What’s really cool about each level, though, is just how much stuff there is in them. Hundreds of pedestrians wander around, just waiting for you to knock them over, and there are always crates, food stands, construction signs, and glass windows to break. In that vein, some of the special events require you to hit so many pedestrians or do so much damage. These end up being the more enjoyable parts of Downhill Jam.

The single-player “Downhill Challenge” mode has you work your way through several tournament tiers by placing in single events. You don’t have to play every event so long as you earn enough points to advance to the next tier. Naturally, gold medals net you more points than bronze. But even getting a bronze medal opens up new characters, costumes, and boards. It’s pretty easy to unlock stuff in this game. In fact, the first 3/4 of the tournament is a breeze. It’s sad when you can get a silver medal on a trick attack by just mashing buttons and playing like an actor on a TV show.

The shallow and overly easy trick system is one of Downhill Jam’s biggest letdowns. The amount of tricks available is quite low. You don’t even wreck if you didn’t let go of a grab before landing. Your only penalty is getting slightly slowed down. What went wrong is that the game only uses the Wii remote and not the remote/nunchuk combo. The remote doesn’t have enough buttons on it to suit a trick-based skateboarding game. Many of the buttons start serving multiple purposes, like the 2 button that accelerates, jumps, and performs grabs. You end up doing grabs when you don’t want to, becoming so used to holding down the 2 button to go faster.

The remote-only setup exists, because the developers wanted you to be able to tilt the remote side to side to steer and balance grinds. The tilt control works well and feels like a natural fit, making an already fast and intense game more so. But tilting is sensitive business, and it’s a bit too easy to swerve out of control. Getting snagged on a nearby wall or sent in the opposite direction without warning are common occurrences. Hitting the minus button will reset your position, but it’s annoying how much you have to rely on this. Yet the biggest problem is that tilting also spins your character when air-borne. Time and time again, I fall victim to poor landings, because I think that tilting in the air is a way to adjust my angle of landing. It isn’t.

One very positive aspect of Downhill Jam, however, is its multiplayer support. Four players can compete in races, slaloms, and trick attacks, which is a very welcome addition considering the popular trend on Wii has been two-player outings only. But being able to play with three friends doesn’t make the multiplayer an instant win. Most of the destroyable objects in the levels are missing, and there are no pedestrians at all. This means the fun special challenges like knocking down people aren’t available for 2-4 players. A real shame. The two-player mode doesn’t even let you race against AI opponents, turning this into a somewhat empty–but still appreciated–experience.

Visually, Downhill Jam is underwhelming. It’s somewhat impressive that the developers were able to create such busy levels and keep the frame rate up, but they sacrificed a cleaner presentation. The graphics are very, very muddy and plain and look overly compressed. The music isn’t anything too exciting, either. Though there are a lot of recognizable names in this list of licensed music, such as White Zombie and Motorhead, what’s featured certainly isn’t the artists’ best. You can create your own playlist to weed out the more obnoxious stuff, but there’s no way to sample the music in the playlist option. In-game, there’s no pop-up that tells you what song is currently playing. You are expected to already know what the song is if you want to turn it on or off.

Final Comments

Those of you who already own Excite Truck and SSX Blur have no need for Downhill Jam. And if you don’t own those games, well… you’ve got some homework to do. This spin-off will in no way change the future for the Tony Hawk series, but it’s still mildly amusing. It just doesn’t fully satisfy as an extreme sports game, nor does it use the Wii remote in ways that trump traditional controllers. If anything, Downhill Jam is like an arcade racer: it’s over-the-top, wonky, and even a bit of fun, but then you move on to something better and forget it.