Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam DS(Neversoft)

The idea of having a downhill-only Tony Hawk's game seems to backtrack all the progress the series has made over its years on larger consoles. While games like Tony Hawk's Project 8 on Xbox 360 offer huge, free roaming worlds to explore, Downhill Jam can't help feeling a little too linear.

You are enrolled in Tony's skate crew with little backstory and thrust into a head to head competition with a rival skate group to see who can pull off the best stunts and win the most races around the globe. Visually, this game couldn't be more stunning, with superb cel-shaded levels ranging from San Francisco, Hong Kong and even Edinburgh. When you pull off monster tricks, impressive light trails fly from your board, the action slows down (a la bullet time) and the camera angles change to give the game a jolt of adrenaline. Boosting is also a neat touch: building up trick points fills your boost bar which can be unleashed at any time to help you gain air on ramps or win races. The soundtrack is equally as impressive with some catchy rock tunes that fit the tone of the game nicely.

But for all its glitz and gloss, Downhill Jam just doesn't feel right. It feels like it's been toned down to an SSX clone and without the freedom of exploration you can't help but feel a bit short-changed. The control method is also overly complex at times and you may wish you were playing the game on a PS2 controller rather than the DS. It's also hard to determine what can be grinded or tricked on due to the blurs of colour and fast pace of the action. Some goals are extremely hard from the start, and despite several tries you often find that pre-planned jumps that should work will usually throw you into the out-of-bounds area of the game, wrecking your points.

Neversoft have almost hit the mark with this one but fall short due to the awkwardness of some sections. The graphics, colour, sound and atmosphere are perfect. Perhaps a fine-tuned sequel could prove to be the hand-held Tony Hawk game to end them all. [Dave Cook]