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Tony goes downhill alright...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In time for the holidays (and the debut of Nintendo's Wii), Activision released Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam for the new system to take advantage of it's innovative control capabilities. While the end results were mixed to say the least, Activision ports Downhill Jam to the PS2, and the results here aren't much better. Contrary to previous games in the long running series, Downhill Jam does just what it's title implies. The trick heavy skate park based gameplay is transformed into that of a downhill racing game. Naturally you can play as legendary skater Tony Hawk, who is the only real life skater in the game for some odd reason. You can still perform a nice amount of tricks and combos while you race, but really, what's the point when the gameplay itself is so stale? The tricks are super easy to pull off, but are very repetitive to say the least. Not to mention that the race tracks themselves are blandly designed to boot and offer up some confusion in terms of "where the heck am I going?". The worst factor of Downhill Jam is undoubtedly the muddy graphics and textures and the unstable frame rate that make the Wii graphics look mouth watering. There are some pluses here though, albeit there are few. Like the previous Tony Hawk games, Downhill Jam offers up a nice soundtrack, and the game is easy to pick up and play for newcomers to the series, but like the last few games to come from the franchise, there isn't anything we haven't seen before, and seen done much better at that. All in all, Downhill Jam may be worth a look for fans of the series that don't own a Wii, but don't expect much at all from it.

Graphical masterpiece it is not...but what a ride!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If the primary reason you purchase Tony Hawk's games are for the graphical resolution, you may be dissappointed. I was a big fan of the Downhill Jam level on the original Pro Skater, and have been looking for something similar for a long time. This was it. I could not put down the controller. Not having the impossible task lisk of stunts was a refreshing break from the norm and allowed me to enjoy the game for what it is. A fun and strangely addictive diversion. You can either try to expediate your way through the levels, of which there are 10 with between 6 to 10 courses for each level, or you can focus on one course and try to perfect it. Some of the courses were mind bogglingly simple, where as others took some skill and course knowledge in order for you to excel. There are about 8 different venues. Each venue is broken down into 3 courses, which as you advance through the game are combined to make grander courses, with the apex being the "Top to Bottom" runs. Through each venues you will be tasked to "Race" vs. 4 other computer skaters, "Slalom" through the course hitting gates to increase your time, "Trick" your way to the highest score (including slow motion gates to allow to pull off impossible combos mid-air), and some "Special" courses. The "Specials" include gathering up coins (feeling a little Mario Bros.), beating down on pedestrians (which can feel very pedestrian, unless you need to vent some real-life frustrations in a constructive way), and elimination events, during which the time clock is divided up and the person in last at those times is eliminated. To top it off, there is the multi-player option to allow you to go hth vs. friends and family for hours of entertainment. While Downhill Jam was't the next evolution of the Tony Hawk series, it was well worth the price for the entertainment it has given me and it will give me matching off against my nephews.

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