Reviews// Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (Wii)

Activision’s once-adored Tony Hawk’s franchise has suffered in recent years, simply by dint of having been around for so long – seven years, to be precise (the original came out on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64).

The yearly updates have provoked an increasing amount of indifference. Thankfully, this year’s next-gen/current-gen effort Tony Hawk’s Project 8, has been widely hailed as a return to form.

Faced with the prospect of updating the franchise for Nintendo’s wacky Wii, the publisher took what appeared to be an adventurous decision to create an entirely new sub-franchise, entitled Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam. Rather than entrusting THDJ to Neversoft, developer of Project 8 (and all previous Tony Hawk’s games) Activision handed the development reins to the obscure Toys for Bob.

This Californian developer was once part of Crystal Dynamics, its only relevant experience was the mercifully forgotten Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure and Madagascar, so it’s clearly a kids’ games specialist. Sadly, the THDJ Wii results reflect this.

Structure
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam abandons the familiar Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater structure in which you free-roam around a location and take on a diverse array of challenges, such as nailing particular tricks and combos, getting certain trick scores within a timed period, and so on. This game instead opts for something much simpler.

Ludicrously simple, in fact. It’s a downhill racing game, so it’s all about getting to the bottom of your chosen stage as quickly as possible. You can perform tricks, but all this does is fill up your Special meter, allowing you to trigger an (admittedly handy) speed boost.

There are three types of courses. The most common pits you against seven other AI-controlled skaters. If you finish in the top three, you acquire Experience Points (one for third place, two for second and so on); otherwise it’s time to select Retry. Some courses challenge you to solo time trials, placing circular gates around the course which you must skate through to buy yourself extra time in order to reach the finish. The time you take to finish such courses defines whether you are awarded a bronze, silver or gold medal. And – rarely – you do find courses in which you have to perform tricks in order to generate a set amount of points.

Compared to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, this game is ridiculously regimented and monotonous; the diversity and difficulty of the challenges in THPS is what gives the game its attraction. Admittedly, there are plenty of courses in Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam – initially, you can access ten, and once you have amassed 16 Experience Points you open up another 10, and so on – but you’re lucky if they take as long as two minutes to complete, so the game’s structure is inherently insubstantial and tedious.

Controls
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam’s control system is certainly wacky – it is different to that of any other launch Wii game. It ignores the nunchuk, and encourages you to hold the WiiMote in both hands – with its long side parallel to the TV screen. This feels very much like clutching the handlebars of a motorbike or, perhaps more appropriately, one of those idiotic push-scooters on which grown men could be seen embarrassing themselves a few years back.

To get Tony to accelerate, you tilt the controller forwards. To turn, you lift one hand or the other, as if it was a steering wheel. Holding down the [A] button puts you into a crouch, and letting go of it when coming off a ramp initiates an ollie. If you fall over, vigorous shaking of the Wiimote gets you back on your feet more quickly than waiting around.

At first, the control system does seem unnatural and fiddly, particularly as far as steering is concerned; I found myself fish-tailing as I moved the controller far too much. But soon I discovered that, even when making sharp turns, I had to be smooth and fairly gentle with my movements. The control system may be odd, but it does work, after an initial learning curve.

That said, it still doesn’t necessarily feel as though it’s the best control system that Toys for Bob could have come up with. I found myself wondering if the company decided to be wilfully wacky, and whether one of the design criteria was to use a system that was different to everybody else’s. Mind you, no obvious alternative leapt out at me. To be honest, the game isn’t good enough to waste any more imagination on.