Downhill Bland
What's this? A kid's game with a half-assed effort? What a surprise!
Published: May 8, 2007
If ever you needed an example of just how well designed the core innards of the PlayStation 2 were, you need only look at some of the games still hitting for the seven year old system. Stuff like God of War II and even Odin Sphere show that near-next-gen visuals can be pumped out of the aging hardware -- in both 3D and 2D. In both respects, Downhill Jam fails miserably.
That a game this simple, with textures this mottled and low on detail (though, admittedly, the clichéd characters you can pick from on the title screen look solid enough), with colored lighting thrown around haphazardly, with minimal detail and draw distance, still has issues maintaining the framerate is telling. Either the development team didn't know the PS2 hardware well enough, didn't really care when converting the game from the Wii, or a little of both, but the end result is a game that continually reminds you of how sloppy a port this really is.
It extends to the audio too, though to a lesser degree. The soundtrack itself is all over the place, mixing Lupe Fiasco with White Zombie, and throwing in a healthy helping of pop-punk tracks to boot. The songs fit with the game, but they're lopped off whenever loading screens pop up, and the races are often so short that you don't hear much of them, but at least the rest of the effects (along with, it would seem, the animations) are pretty much lifted from the series' audio libraries.
For a game made to turn the series into a downhill racer, it's a little funny that some of the best multiplayer modes like Slalom (which is also a single-player mode) and Steal the Head, which merges the capture-and-hold mechanic of King of the Hill with the downhill dash, are actually the best part of the game, but they're relegated to two-player split-screen. Online play, while a little scary for the wee tyke crowd, would have actually given the game some life.
Instead, what's here just feels soulless. That doesn't mean it can't be fun in short bursts, but as a compelling reason to shell out cash for your new game addled youngin', it's really not the kind of experience that demonstrates that moving away from the series' roots has been done with a lot of foresight or care. The sloppiness of converting the game to a PS2 audience further hammers home the point that this just isn't a series Activision cares a whole lot about, and as promising as some parts are, rewarding the modicum of effort spent in creating the game with some cash would just send the wrong message.
This might be a decent little side project for Tony and friends, but if the effort is going to be this half-assed, it's simply not worth buying into.
