Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

Advertising Blurbs

Remote grinding

Downhill racing has never seen so much style!
Thrash on a higher level! Experience the breakneck speed of downhill skateboard racing and tear up the steepest terrains in the world while performing tricks and outmaneuvering opponents!
Features
• Turn the Wii Remote on its side and prepare for tons of speed! Jump, grind and pull off tricks to gain a boost down the steepest terrains in the world.
• Choose from a wide variety of skateboards such as current, old school "fishtails," longboards and '70s skateboards, all of which have different attributes that will have an effect on gameplay.
• Play as Tony Hawk, one of eight original skaters or create a character with Create-A-Skater.
Truth in Advertising Dept.: Downhill Jam is truly a downhill racer, downplaying the exploratory and trick-oriented vibe of earlier Hawk games for high-velocity thrills.
The action careens down vertically challenging tourist destinations like San Francisco, Rome (not for nothing do people talk about its "seven hill"), Rio and Hong Kong. The developers love shortcuts and hairpin turns like Howie Mandel loves his razor. You’ll also find plenty of grind routes on fences, rails and power lines.
Like other racers, Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam has you grasp the Wii Remote on either end. Crouching and accelerating are done with the 2 Button, while most tricks are executed with the D-Pad and 1 Button. The game is pretty forgiving but if you crash, just shake the Remote like a cheerleader’s pompom.
Single-player mode mixes things up by having you re-run courses but with different objectives, such as clobbering as many spectators or wreaking as much property damage as possible, beating a rival racer in a one-on-one challenge or accruing the highest trick-point total. In slalom, you’ll gain extra time by hitting gates. In the offbeat Steal the Head race, you earn the head by either being in first or stealing it from the leader. The winner is the brainiac who can hold on to his head the longest. Kind of like high school, don't you think?
As you proceed, you unlock new racers, tracks, clothes and boards. Both racers and boards are rated for speed, turning, balance, jump and combat.
Tony is the only real person. The rest are Gen Y stereotypes: the goth chick, the lumbering Swede, the legally blond, the spacey white guy in dreads, etc. etc. etc. Faux interviews before each event add personality, but the legendary Hawk quality control didn’t extend to his unfunny lines.
Thanks to the emphasis on speed over subtlety, multiplayer rocks. Just pick a bruiser like Jynx (the aforesaid goth grrl) and deal devastation left and right. You’ll need to be familiar with the courses, though, especially when snaking your way through a dark shortcut at top speed.
Activision ably maintains the Hawk tradition of high-quality audio tracks, reaching into the Way Back machine for classics from Motorhead and Baid Brains. The bands with full heads of hair include The Loved Ones, Anti-Flag and The Futureheads.
Bottom Line
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam does a great job of conveying a sense of speed and the Wii controls are very intuitive. Just don't try any of these tricks at home, kids.


Contributed by Evil Ryu (32116) on Jan 31, 2007.

Schnappen Sie sich Ihr Deck und stürzen Sie sich mit Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam direkt in den extremen Temposport des Downhill-Racing. Wagen Sie sich in diesem High-Speed-Wettbewerb die steilsten Hügel der Welt herunter - vom felsigen Gelände von Machu Picchu bis zu den Straßen von San Francisco und anderen einzigartigen Locations, inklusive Hongkong, Edinburgh und Rio de Janeiro.


Contributed by Xoleras (67002) on Jan 18, 2007.