Hawk's Games Going UPHILL!!!!

User Rating: 8.1 | Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam GBA
By BloodFalcon22 | Review Date:
I had nearly no expectations for this at all. I hated the "Tony hawk's pro skater" for the GBA. I thought that this would also be one of those sad attempts to match one of his good console games. The graphics are above average for a GBA. It has great 3D-ish sense, but detail lacks. They are not made up of pixels, like many other games. They have actual shapes. But it has glitches as bad as the Nintendo 64. Sometimes, if you hit something at the right angle, you phase through it. Another weird thing is if you land a 180 spin sideways you don’t fall off of your board, you just go sideways or at a diagonal angle.

In the game, when I said the detail lacks, I meant it. The characters barely have a face, and the clothes aren’t too good either. But, it is hard to complain about the details when it has such great 3D obstacles, jumps, grind-rails, and people. I really wish that I could play as a professional skater. Instead I have to play as a bunch of nobodies like "Joe" or "Hugh", even though they are really good at skateboarding.

The music is ok. I find it rather forgettable. Obviously it has no brand name label music, but it is nearly average for it's primitive system. But, I have to say; the music has been improving through the years. In this game, the camera angle is from behind the skater. I like this view much better than the previous Game Boy Advance games that Tony Hawk has made. I have to say I am slightly disappointed that it has no multi player feature. I looked forward to racing my friends down in England, Hawaii, or in any other great places. But that didn't stop me from playing one player. The game play is limited. You cannot turn around and go back up, or get off your board like console game such as Tony Hawk's Underground 2. I still think it is ok to just go straight down. I just wish I had a little bit more freedom.

I feel that this game has made the jump from doing tricks on half pipes to a full out racing game. I happen to love racing games, and there are many cool tracks. The tricks are limited due to such few buttons that the Game Boy Advance has to offer. There are only about 15 tricks that you can do. I still like its speed. The more tricks that you do on the way down, the more a meter goes up. That meter is the boost meter, hold down the R shoulder button to have cheesy flames shoot out of your skateboard and rocket down the slope.

For difficulty… I would say that it is either medium or easy. I beat everything in this game 100% over one weekend. I still occasionally take it out just to do a free skate for fun.

I would recommend this either to buy or to rent. Renting would be nice just to fool around, but this is one of those games that getting bored with is not really too easy. It has a great replay value; I still have not stopped playing free skate mode in my free time. Sure this may be not too good compared to console games, but compared to its GBA brothers, its great.
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