Downhill Domination : PS 2 Games Review

Executive Summary about Downhill Domination Review (Play Station 2 Games) By Ryan Davis

What really makes Downhill Domination stand out from other extreme sports games is its impressive sense of speed.

Downhill Domination is a high-speed racing game that has players riding mountain bikes down a wide variety of near-vertical courses. You can also unlock a handful of real-life downhill pros as you progress through the game.

The trick system is pretty basic, and it wouldn’t be difficult to succeed in the game without using any tricks at all, but such a system has become so standard for the genre, the game would feel kind of naked without it.

The courses in Downhill Domination are as eclectic as the riders, covering an impressive variety of locales, from the misty mountains of Hawaii to the asphalt streets of urban America. The technical ride tracks split the difference, keeping you in the wilderness but restricting where you can ride by means of well-placed obstacles like trees and rocks and the like. The game has more to offer than these straight-ahead race courses.

What really makes Downhill Domination stand out from other extreme sports games is its impressive sense of speed. Indeed, real-life downhill mountain biking is a pretty speedy and harrowing sport, and Downhill Domination translates that danger and speed into video game form nicely. The difference is you’ll be able to quickly resume your downhill run in the game.

There are problems, such as the noticeable aliasing, which is an issue we’ve seen in Incog’s other games, but the rest of the game’s presentation is executed well enough to supercede this issue. The soundtrack is eclectic to a fault, and by throwing together a hodgepodge of punk, metal, hip-hop, classic rock, and techno tracks, the game fails to create a cohesive feel. The single saving grace of Downhill Domination’s sound design are the in-game effects, which vary depending on the turf you’re riding on and give extra weight to bails.

Downhill Domination offers some good, clean extreme sports fun and a great sensation of speed. Some fans of Incog’s previous games may be disappointed by the stylistic departure made with Downhill Domination, since the look and design of the game isn’t as inspired as Incog’s previous projects. However, Downhill Domination is still a good game, and in a way it does continue Incog’s track record of games that are all quite different from each other, if nothing else.

As I was writing the above article, it struck me that you may be interested in reading this too : downhill mountain bike or mountain bike games.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Bike Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.