Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam Hands-On Preview

August 26th, 2006, 11:42 Posted By: wraggster

Heres an excerpt

Ever since Nintendo first showed the unique controller for its upcoming Wii console, one of the biggest questions surrounding the machine has been how existing game genres will be translated to the new control scheme. Though that question still applies to quite a few types of games, the last few months have provided some creative solutions from developers. At a recent Activision press event, I got the opportunity to check out how Star Control developer Toys for Bob is bringing Neversoft's incredibly successful Tony Hawk skateboarding franchise over to Wii. In addition to getting plenty of hands on time with the game, I spoke a bit with lead designer Toby Schadt and designer Nat Loh about some of the game's features as well as what it's like developing for Wii.
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam takes the skating and trick mechanics of past Tony Hawk games and puts each in very different contexts from the rest of the series. This time around, the game is not about achieving a certain number of independent goals within a given level. Rather, the whole thing is structured around downhill racing, with various other objectives layered on top. As a result, the game is much faster paced than other Tony Hawk entries; it also means that the game is necessarily somewhat more forgiving with landing tricks and with how much time is wasted after wiping out. The most fundamental change, however, is how the game controls. The Wii remote is held horizontally like a traditional game controller; tilting the controller left or right steers the on-screen character, while the d-pad and face buttons are used to perform tricks much like in other Tony Hawk games.

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