Downhill Bland
What's this? A kid's game with a half-assed effort? What a surprise!
Published: May 8, 2007
For some strange reason, I still like the Tony Hawk's... franchise. I ended up giving American Wasteland the highest score of probably any outlet in history, and I stick by it as the pinnacle of the old-school style of game. But even us blindly loyal fans of the series will admit that it's hit on some hard times as of late -- particularly due to the complete lack of effort when putting the series on PlayStation platforms. The surprisingly competent PSP ports have stopped being made, the PS2 version of Project 8 dumbed the whole experience down so much that reverts and manuals were a one-button affair. Hell, the PS3 version of Project 8 lacked online completely (Neversoft insists this is because Sony wasn't forthcoming with their online tools, which makes sense), but actually hitches when someone on your buddy lists signs in or out.
Yes, Tony has seen better days, and unfortunately, Downhill Jam seems to be continuing that snowball effect of crap with aplomb. From the very second that the game starts up, the very first screen you see, the effing Activision logo, compression not seen since the days of the original PlayStation's 15fps MPEG-1 artifacting and dithering-fests rears its ugly head. It's as if the developers and the publisher got together to happily announce, "yeah, we crapped this port out, what of it?"
On the one hand, I can almost understand why they did it. It couldn't be more obvious that the Wii version of Downhill Jam, a launch title for Nintendo's newest consumer darling, was created for the controller, yet didn't quite sell like ATVI had hoped, so they quickly assembled a programming staff to port the game -- minus the whiz-bang new controls (which didn't really work all that well to begin with) -- to the PS2 with its 115 million owners. Surely with a pool of owners that big, the game will move copies, right? The sad part is, from a pure numbers standpoint, it's almost impossible for it not to sell at least modestly, as parents see that the game is aimed at 10+ year-olds and pick up the game because of the Tony Hawk name. I'm here to ensure you're not one of them.
One of the universal truths about younger players is that they will play the crap out of even the worst game. It's not necessarily that they think it's great, it's just something new to play, but even 10 year-olds (as any parent can attest) have the gaming skills of a small army of robotic tournament-ready super-gamers. I play games for a living and I get smoked by cousins and little brothers. So with that in mind, it's easy to see why so little effort was put forth on this port. There was talk of tweaking the game a little for the PS2 audience, but whatever tweaks were made, they didn't change the core of the game, which is still as bland and vapid as ever.
I get it, though; I really do. This is not a game for the million point combo savants that can drop into any level in the old games and nail a line that runs the entire level without even warming up. It's not even for the typical Tony Hawk fan, but even with re-mapped controls that allow you to use the d-pad and Square, Circle and Triangle Buttons to do flip and grab tricks or grind on nearly every surface in the game, it still feels soulless. Part of it might be that the game looks downright hideous at times and usually feels rather lifeless and trite in terms of personality, but more on that in a bit.
The idea was that the game would be a pure arcade experience; levels are broken up into chunks for the myriad different challenges and races, and you'll rarely run the entire level for a race. That's actually a good thing, as it teaches you where all the shortcuts in the level are before you have to run the whole mess because as hard as it is to bail, it's going to happen at least a few times. See, you can't bail if you land a trick sideways, but if you manage to slam into something solid or land mid-trick, you'll kiss asphalt.
Because the game challenges you to be grinding, tricking or kicking (yes, there's a button to kick or punch everyone from innocent bystanders or other combatants, though neither will actually fight back), it feels more than a little button-mashy, and more than a few times you'll be trying to rack up a big combo (the game is fairly harsh about docking you points for repetition), but not switch into an emergency grind and bail by grazing a lip or something.
On the one hand, it means that races are always frantic, since you'll have to constantly mash the trick buttons while spinning (it adds a multiplier) to fill up your turbo meter (no, I refuse to use the retarded "Zone Bone" name beyond this once just to make fun of it and the marketing guy who came up with the name), because you'll probably have to kick off a few turbo sprints per race, but this also leads to the feeling that you're just button mashing constantly. Hell, even when you bail, you hammer on the X Button to get back up.
Yes, Tony has seen better days, and unfortunately, Downhill Jam seems to be continuing that snowball effect of crap with aplomb. From the very second that the game starts up, the very first screen you see, the effing Activision logo, compression not seen since the days of the original PlayStation's 15fps MPEG-1 artifacting and dithering-fests rears its ugly head. It's as if the developers and the publisher got together to happily announce, "yeah, we crapped this port out, what of it?"
On the one hand, I can almost understand why they did it. It couldn't be more obvious that the Wii version of Downhill Jam, a launch title for Nintendo's newest consumer darling, was created for the controller, yet didn't quite sell like ATVI had hoped, so they quickly assembled a programming staff to port the game -- minus the whiz-bang new controls (which didn't really work all that well to begin with) -- to the PS2 with its 115 million owners. Surely with a pool of owners that big, the game will move copies, right? The sad part is, from a pure numbers standpoint, it's almost impossible for it not to sell at least modestly, as parents see that the game is aimed at 10+ year-olds and pick up the game because of the Tony Hawk name. I'm here to ensure you're not one of them.
One of the universal truths about younger players is that they will play the crap out of even the worst game. It's not necessarily that they think it's great, it's just something new to play, but even 10 year-olds (as any parent can attest) have the gaming skills of a small army of robotic tournament-ready super-gamers. I play games for a living and I get smoked by cousins and little brothers. So with that in mind, it's easy to see why so little effort was put forth on this port. There was talk of tweaking the game a little for the PS2 audience, but whatever tweaks were made, they didn't change the core of the game, which is still as bland and vapid as ever.
I get it, though; I really do. This is not a game for the million point combo savants that can drop into any level in the old games and nail a line that runs the entire level without even warming up. It's not even for the typical Tony Hawk fan, but even with re-mapped controls that allow you to use the d-pad and Square, Circle and Triangle Buttons to do flip and grab tricks or grind on nearly every surface in the game, it still feels soulless. Part of it might be that the game looks downright hideous at times and usually feels rather lifeless and trite in terms of personality, but more on that in a bit.
The idea was that the game would be a pure arcade experience; levels are broken up into chunks for the myriad different challenges and races, and you'll rarely run the entire level for a race. That's actually a good thing, as it teaches you where all the shortcuts in the level are before you have to run the whole mess because as hard as it is to bail, it's going to happen at least a few times. See, you can't bail if you land a trick sideways, but if you manage to slam into something solid or land mid-trick, you'll kiss asphalt.
Because the game challenges you to be grinding, tricking or kicking (yes, there's a button to kick or punch everyone from innocent bystanders or other combatants, though neither will actually fight back), it feels more than a little button-mashy, and more than a few times you'll be trying to rack up a big combo (the game is fairly harsh about docking you points for repetition), but not switch into an emergency grind and bail by grazing a lip or something.
On the one hand, it means that races are always frantic, since you'll have to constantly mash the trick buttons while spinning (it adds a multiplier) to fill up your turbo meter (no, I refuse to use the retarded "Zone Bone" name beyond this once just to make fun of it and the marketing guy who came up with the name), because you'll probably have to kick off a few turbo sprints per race, but this also leads to the feeling that you're just button mashing constantly. Hell, even when you bail, you hammer on the X Button to get back up.
