The title says Tony Hawk, but this is not your usual skateboarding excursion. While other formats are receiving the definitive Tony Hawk's Project 8, Wii and DS players are getting a spinoff: Downhill Jam. You can debate the significance of this either way (a sign of the Wii's subservient position, or of it's immediate difference? Discuss.), but let's turn our attention to the game itself, and whether it's an attractive proposition for launch day.

This isn't your conventional skateboarding game: it's actually a racing game, and don't let them tell you any different. Global warming has forced SSX off the slopes and onto the streets. Your objective isn't to build up trick scores, but to skate through downhill environments and beat your opponents to the end: it marks an obvious departure from the norm, and the gameplay elements have been adapted accordingly. Out goes elaborate trickery, in comes speed. Everything moves quickly, and everything moves downhill. You goal is to get speed boasts, and use them, to speed past the other players. You can get boosts through tricks, so you're encouraged to use grabs and ollies on the way down to complement your racing. Or you can use the environment to access shortcuts, and outwit your racers. Or, indeed, you can use limited combat moves to trip up skaters, or knock them down. Simple.

The values of the game are different. The appeal of previous Tony Hawk games was in the hardcore, arcade-like thrill of amassing stratospheric scores, in a spectacle of anatomically-defying linkages. The tighter the gameplay, the better. The opposite is true here: it's all about looseness, and movement. It would be accurate to call it a more casual game than other Hawks: the intent is not to compel you to master trickery, but to simply let you have fun. Speed down some hills, out-boost your friends. SSX did the same, and inspired fondness because of its style, and sense of humour. This is something else Downhill Jam mimics: expect exaggerated moves, and a departure from the straight naturalism of previous titles.

I suppose comparisons can be made with ExciteTruck: they're both games based on speed, and promising little real depth. The Wiimote is used in the same way: you hold it like a NES controller to steer your player. Tilt it forward and back to lean your racer, and move it left and right to move your player. When you're in the air use the buttons to pull off grabs and whatnot. The ambiguity comes when you have to land your tricks or interact with objects in the environment, acts which require a sensitivity that the Wiimote doesn't quite offer yet. Clearly, complexity with the motion sensitivity is something that needs tweaking. But generally, it's looking like a solid experience.

The reviews are starting to seep through from across the water, and the verdicts aren't surprising. It's above average, it's fun, but it's got damn little depth. I was going to call it one of the Wii's "popcorn flicks", but IGN stole the phrase for their review, and I can't find my thesaurus. Bastards.