Friday, September 7, 2007

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam




Tony Hawk’s Wii debut is totally different than expected. Instead of attempting to port Project 8 to the Wii, Activision commissioned Toys for Bob to work on a unique game for the Wii. Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is best described as SSX on wheels. The game places a strong emphasis on speed and getting first on races, but you can still pull off some air tricks and grinds as would be expected from the Tony Hawk franchise.

The main mode in Downhill Jam is unsurprisingly Downhill Challenge. The mode has you completing tons of events across eight world locations as you unlock new outfits, characters and boards. If you’re trying to improve your playing, you can choose to record a ghost in one of the game’s sixteen slots. You can then choose to play against this ghost. Tony Hawk is the only licensed, playable skater in the game, but you can also play as a created skater or one of the many original characters. Your created skater can be greatly customized thanks to the ability to change your outfit and fully customize your board. The original characters have different attributes, strengths and weaknesses.

The basic gameplay in Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is simple. You have to race downhill as fast as possible. It would have been a waste to throw out years’ worth of skating gameplay so Downhill Jam still includes some of that. You’ll find air tricks and grinds in the game. You need to balance pulling off tricks and maintaining a quick speed to get downhill as fast as possible. Don’t think that pulling off tricks will detract from your racing; if you don’t pull off a trick perfectly, you’ll end with a sloppy land that will slow you down but won’t cause you to bail. Pulling off moves increases your boost and special meter, which allow you to get a boost and pull off a special move, respectively. Of course, this means that levels are littered with rails, ramps, and curves to show these moves off. You’ll race in many locations including Hong Kong, San Francisco, Rio and the Hoover Dam.

You control your characters with the Wii Remote, which you hold horizontally. You steer, balance (while grinding), and rotate your character by moving the Wii Remote left or right. You can crouch (to gain speed) and jump with the 2 button. You perform grab and flip tricks by holding 2 and 1 respectively in combination with a direction in the cross pad. Grinding is done by jumping then pressing the 1 button. Of course you can get more advanced moves like double-tap flips and grabs with the buttons or flips by flicking the Wii Remote upward or downward. The controls are instantly accessible and very intuitive.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam supports offline multiplayer for up to four players. The game supports three gameplay modes: quick play, event series and single event. Quick play lets you choose a skater and throws you in a location and event, single event lets you choose which location and game type you want to play, and event series lets you play a type of race in multiple locations. Like in singleplayer, the different events include race, slalom, trick, steal the head and eliminirace. The game doesn’t skip a beat in multiplayer.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam has clean graphics. The character models look pretty good about what you would expect from the current-generation Tony Hawk games. The environments have a similar level of detail. They’re fairly colorful and stylish although the actual architecture and geometry isn’t advanced. More importantly, the game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second.

The game’s audio is pretty good, too. The soundtrack includes 40 songs. The songs include Thursday’s “At This Velocity,” Public Enemy’s “She Watch Channel Zero,” Motorhead’s “Motorhead,” and Iron Maiden’s “Different Worlds.” The sound effects are pretty good. You’ll hear every grind, kickflip, and bail in the game. In a pretty fun twist, you’ll also hear some sound effects from the speaker included in the Wii Remote. They aren’t particularly complex sounds but it’s a nice touch nonetheless.

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is going to be a great party game. It literally takes like 30 seconds to get used to the controls in the game and it’s going to be perfect to show people what the Wii Remote can do. Although it’s not the most complex experience out there, the game is incredibly fun.

Posted by wii-play at 12:51 PM
Labels:

Alien Syndrome


The title is set in the far future, where interplanetary space travel is possible. Communication is lost with one of the stations on a distant planet, and Aileen Harding is sent to investigate. She quickly discovers that 'Alien Syndrome' is behind the disappearance and decides to fight the enemy.

The story of Alien Syndrome (2007) picks up approximately 20 years after the original Alien Syndrome game.


Alien Syndrome is played as a top-down shooter, with players turning their characters the direction they would like to shoot. A total of 30 levels have been announced, with 5 bosses and 15 mini-bosses. Players are accompanied by a robotic drone that serves as a storage space for items as well as a backup for the main character. Players will also be able to completely customize their character to expand in-game strategy options. Alien Syndrome will allow you to use 80 different weapons and hundreds of armor types and bonus items. Rely on your loyal droid assistant to fight alongside you and exchange or improve your weapons and armor at any time. Players have both a life meter and a constantly refilling energy meter, with the latter being related to the 'ammo' of weapons.

The game also features co-op multiplayer for up to 4 people simultaneously on one TV screen for the Wii version. On the PSP version, the game features co-op multiplayer via ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection.


Perhaps the biggest difference between the PSP and Wii versions of Alien Syndrome are in the controls. On the PSP, your movement and aiming are both handled with the analog stick, and when you start firing a ranged weapon, you'll lock into the direction you're facing. On the Wii, movement is handled by the analog stick on the Nunchuk, though you'll control your aiming reticle with the Wii Remote, and wherever you point is where your character will shoot.



Posted by wii-play at 12:28 PM
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)