Yes, I’m finally writing something again. Over the past few weeks I’ve either been too busy to blog or to bored to find anything to blog about. Nothing all that exciting has been happening so I decided to rent a game for the Wii this weekend. I had hoped to rent Excite Truck, and I’d been looking forward to playing it all week. Turns out so had a lot of other people, I can’t seem to find a copy to rent at any place. Well, EB Games might, but they don’t answer their phones. Like, ever. I ended up deciding to rent Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam over Elebits and I think I may have made the wrong choice. It’s not that bad, but looking at the numerous games in the series this isn’t one that stands out. Well, not for good qualities, anyways. Maybe it’s not getting Excite Truck or that Tony Hawk accepted for Project 8 at those damn Spike TV awards, but I’m not too happy with this game right now. Consider that if you plan on reading the following review.

I was a little surprised to look on Downhill Jam’s menu and find no true story mode. The main mode lets you compete in a series of events and placing in one of these events will open up the next level of challenges. Gold, silver and bronze placement will gain you different amounts of points Get enough points and you open the next tier. This works okay, but isn’t all that interesting. At least in other Tony Hawk games you are give a reason why you are skating and it has some story, even if it is really lame. In this game you get nothing save some really annoying videos before events that are interview with your opponents, detailing their relationships and back story. They are very, very stupid. Thankfully you can turn them off in the options. Speaking of the characters, Downhill Jam has mixed things up from the regular cast of pro skaters to a bunch of stereotypical made up ones. The dumb blonde? The goth? The black guy? All here. You are able to play as all these characters through story mode, and that’s actually part of the game. I’m not having that much fun just playing through as my created character, never mind these guys. I suppose it will add some depth to the game for anyone actually willing to bother with that.

There is a pretty good variation of events in the game. Races of many lengths, trick events, gates/time trials and elimination races are some of the game types that show up. The problem is that none of them are all that great since they still are built around the sub par racing elements. Trick events are alright, but you are always under a time limit, being forced to miss that perfect jump to get to the next gate before your time is up. Manuals have been removed, too. In recent Tony Hawk games combos and high scoring tricks are usually built around manuals tying everything together. Now pulling off tricks is about button mashing while you randomly spin and shake your Wiimote, hoping to add some crazy spin moves. The Wiimote controls in general are poor. There is no sensitivity settings within the game that let you fine-tune things, so you’ll find yourself crashing into a wall instead of turning a tight corner or, more likely, overdoing it and going from side to side on a straight. The problem isn’t that the controls don’t work at all, it’s just that it takes way more effort to control your skater than it should. The button commands are questionable, too. While the A button’s uses are minimal, the B trigger is in charge of boosting and special tricks. Tricks are limited, have odd activations and the motion sensitivity just doesn’t feel like it’s working the way it should. Needless to say, Downhill Jam has serious launch title symptoms.

The graphics are nothing special, to say the least. The character animation is decent, but you’ll be doing the same tricks quite frequently so that should be a given. One of the most pathetic things about the game is its skylines. There is such a clear line between the game environment and the background it’s almost sickening. The rest of the graphics are acceptable considering it is a launch title and you’ll usually be whizzing through the course anyways so it’s not like you’re going to stop and check how good the leaves on trees look. You’d be disappointed anyways. The level design is good, there is a good number of locations and they are really long. In the single player mode you’ll usually start and finish at various places on the course to mix things up and so races are not too long but you can play through the entire level in multiplayer.

I could go on. Really, I could. I think you get the point, though. Tony Hawk fans probably won’t like this game. Wii owners will probably be disappointed. It may be good for playing some multiplayer when you have your friends over or as a pick up and play game when there is a dry spell between big titles, but not much more. And seriously, what’s with that cover art?

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