Downhill Domination Member Review for the PS2

When it comes to extreme ( or XTREME if you prefer) sports games there are quite a few. To start with you have your Tony Hawk and other skate boarding games. Then you have some biking, surfing, wakeboarding and a slew of others. None of these extreme sports really caught on, except biking. Biking has been made into a variety of games from moto-cross to Matt Hoffman games to the god-awful BMX XXX. These games now have a new companion, Downhill Domination.

Downhill Domination is the latest extreme sports game in which you must race very fast (and I mean very fast) down a mountain while hitting each other. The result of this combination of violence and mountain biking is a very fast-paced fun racing game.

As you begin the game you have a few characters to choose from, pick one of them and start one of the different careers available. In this career you will race around the world on a variety of tracks and conditions, pulling off tricks and hurting all around you including yourself.

The gameplay is what really makes this game. The í¢â‚¬Å“xí¢â‚¬? button is used for pedaling, push it down to pedal and tap it to sprint however this will cause your adrenalin meter to diminish. Pulling off tricks, which can be done with the í¢â‚¬Å“Rí¢â‚¬? and í¢â‚¬Å“Lí¢â‚¬? buttons, replenishes your stamina and upgrades your weaponry. Speaking of weaponry you start each level with you fists and must press either the square button or the circle button to attack (depends on which side you attack to). As your weaponry increases you will begin using hip-checks, sticks and finally homing bottles which can wipe your fellow competitors off the mountain.

The tracks start out easy, you'll win the first few races and feel good only to come upon a course with so many twists that it will have you falling every three seconds, and I'm not exaggerating. There are three different types of races and track types; Freeride which is a straight forward race down, Mountain cross which is much shorter and built around jumps and technical downhill which is filled with so many obstacles and twisting paths it'll have you screaming. The best part about the tracks in this game are the openness of them, each track is huge and has many different ways to go down. Each of the tracks is filled with shortcuts aplenty and enough creative and individual elements to make each one stand out.

Completing the careers will unlock bonus riders and since the riders do have stats this actually matters. During each race money can be earned by doing tricks coming in first and so on. The money you get can be used to buy upgrades like just say the camelback (oh wait I didn't mention the huge amount of product placement in this game). Yup you'll find yourself flying down the mountain only to crash face-first into an í¢â‚¬Å“ebayí¢â‚¬? sign. While this product placement doesn't really take away from the game it can get sorta annoying.

The graphics in this game are good, not God of War good but they're enjoyable to look at. The effects are nice, especially when you hit a boost and fly through the air in a blur of fastness. The frame rate is excellent and the mountains are filled with other people and animals. The sound isn't quite as good as other games, you do have to buy most of the music.

Even though theres a lot to do and unlock ( videos, bikes, music etc.) the game doesn't have much depth with the only goal in mind to make money to unlock stuff. The multiplayer is fun with friends but isn't as good as the single player. There are two unlockable modes; super jump and slalom where you can race a friend. These modes do add some extra playability and the super jump is very cool. In all though this game is fun single player experience but doesn't hold up in the long run.

I would suggest renting this game, play through and have fun for while the fun lasts. If you want to pick up a really fast, really fun mountain biking game this is it. If you want an extreme sports game that will last you look elsewhere.

Bottomline:
+Fun
+Fast
+/- Easy
+Large tracks
+Lots of unlockables
-Little depth
- Can get repetitive