Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is the latest entry in the long-running series to appear on the Nintendo DS. However, while previous entries to the series have been focused on tricks and missions, Downhill Jam takes an SSX-style racing approach, throwing you into frantic slalom races against groups of other skaters. Downhill Jam is an intense game with a great sense of speed, but the real strength here is in the fantastic online features that Vicarious Visions have provided. Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is a great racer, and there’s no better reason to get your DS online than this game.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam pits you as your own created skater as you race your way through six exotic locales to become the top-dog skater. The game’s courses, ranging from San Francisco to Rio de Janeiro, are huge and filled with opportunities for air, long grinds and shortcuts. In fact, the key to victory in most races is trying to find an alternate path it give you the lead.

Given the racing theme in Downhill Jam, the game offers up an integral new move, the Burtslide. When you perform a burtslide, you plant a hand down on the ground as you turn, which allows you to do a tighter turn without losing any speed. Given the high-speed nature of the game’s racing, this is an essential way to keep the lead in races.

Even though the focus has shifted to downhill racing, tricks are still a very important part of the game. Grinds are typically a good way to get through tight turns while maintaining your speed and building up your special meter. As in previous Tony Hawk games, the special meter allows you to perform special tricks that give you more points, but now the game has a boost meter as well that feeds off of it. Like in SSX, boosting allows you to go a lot faster while depleting your special meter more.

Goals still factor into the game, as well. The six courses each have quests that you must perform to move on, like classic point challenges or finding a certain secret route in order to unlock other features.

Perhaps the best thing about Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is the great multiplayer element. Downhill Jam offers some of the most robust online features to date, with a bevy of games to play, voice chat through the DS’s built-in microphone, and even a website  where you can go to track your in-game achievements and see how you rack up to other Downhill Jammers. The game performs very well via multiplayer matches, with minimal lag, and is certainly a game that will entice you to bring your DS online if you haven’t already.

Downhill Jam uses the same graphics engine as Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land, meaning that the game features a stylized cel-shaded look with a lot of personality. The game’s action unfolds at a silky-smooth 60 FPS framerate with minimal slowdown.

Downhill Jam also features a great soundtrack packed with a variety of licensed tunes from a mix of artists. The game also has a lot of voice work packed in. Unfortunately, this comes with a downside, since in order to pack all of these effects into the DS’s cart, they had to be compressed quite a bit, so the result is a bit tinny sounding.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is a great spin-off from the series’ formula, presenting compelling downhill racing with a great sense of speed and some truly impressive online elements. Downhill Jam is as good of a reason as any to get your DS online, and should definitely be checked out by fans of the series.

Gameplay: 8.5
Solid arcade-style racing with fun branching stages and a great sense of speed.

Graphics: 9.0
The game’s cel-shaded aesthetic is carried over from Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land, and all the action unfolds in a smooth 60 frames-per-second framerate with minimal slowdown.

Sound: 8.0
Even though the quality is a little tinny and compressed, Downhill Jam still manages to pack an impressive amount of voice effects and licensed songs.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.5
Downhill Jam breathes new life into the series with competent high-speed racing coupled with the series trademark trick system.

Multiplayer: 9.5
Downhill Jam online options are extremely robust, with several different game modes, voice chat, and smooth performance with minimal lag.

Overall: 8.5
Downhill Jam is a refreshingly different take on the series, with high-speed action and excellent online features.