And you think Wii games are shallow? Well wait till you play a port of one. The Wii, with all its arm waving and casual gaming audience, has carved a new niche in the world of videogames. The whole family can gather round and flail at the television and have fun for around, oh, ten minutes before granny gets tired and needs a nice cup of tea. And Corrie. Thing is though what are you, the hardcorest gamer in your family, supposed to do? Retreat to your room and have a go at God Hand on hard mode probably.

What you definitely won’t do is take the game you’ve just been playing on the Wii and play it on your PS2. And you know why? Because most Wii games are rubbish, and if you take away the fun (silly) control method you’re left with a game that is bereft of substance.

Downhill Jam sees you, well it sees you racing downhill; there’s very little jam involved unless you get the disc stuck in the console, we suppose. Another good description could be a bad version of SSX on wheels.

The races are short, some only last 30 seconds which is almost as long as it takes to load the course. And it’s so, so easy, we played it for half a day and had already got up to the rank of Champion. We didn’t want to play it for that long but there wasn’t much else to do while waiting for E3 to start.

Aside from the races there are trick attack levels where you have to score points through tricking, the slalom levels are less fun when you have to skate through gates, and then there is the worst idea in a Tony Hawk game ever – the lava levels. In these you’re not allowed to touch the ground because it’s all turned a hideous shade of yellow so every time your skater gets flung off a grind, you land in it and are restarted back at an earlier section to fall into the ‘lava’ again and again. There are short cuts to find, new boards, new skaters and new clothes to unlock, though that’s no real incentive to complete the game. The PS2 version has a few more multiplayer modes, but good luck trying to get someone to play with you – we tried but everyone told us to piss off.

Tim Empey