There has been so many Tony Hawks games now you could almost call it a genre. First appearing on the PlayStation in the late 90's, the Tony Hawk's series of games have sold millions and millions of copies, its pretty hard to avoid them.

Whilst most Tony Hawk games have been newer, bigger, deeper versions of the previous, Tony Hawks Downhill Jam is the first to try and break the mold and offer something different.

This time around, its all about the downhill, rather than skating around a particular area THDJ will play much more like a snowboarding game, where riders actually follow a downhill track and perform stunts along the way. In addition to this change, you'll also be racing against other riders. You'll not only be trying to beat them to the bottom of the hill, but you'll be trying to out trick them as well. It's also possible to smack/hit the other riders to earn extra browning points.

Even though the idea has only slightly changed, you'll still find yourself in familiar populated environments filled with cars, pedestrians and buildings where you can perform a variety of high-velocity stunts and crashes. The game is set over 8 “real world” locations, ranging from San Francisco to Hong Kong.

The different locations in the game each feature a handful of different events that require you to do slightly different things, ranging from simple race to trick attack to slalom.

Developers Toys for Bob have apparently spend a lot of time re-doing the control scheme to take full advantage of the Wii controller. Instead of steering with the tradition D-Pad, you'll actually get to steer your character by tilting the Wiimote from side to side. This method is also used to balance the skating whilst grinding along an edge or rail.

It's also possible to crouch your rider to gain more speed as you race down the track. More speed means more air, more air means more trick time. Like most extreme sports games, you'll be able to perform plenty larger than life tricks.

We've not managed to have a first-hand play on the title yet, so its hard to say if the control scheme really works as well as the publisher wants us to think.

Because your riding down a hill, there will be a lot more huge air opportunities than other Tony Hawk games, with this there will also be more long rails to grind. It really looks somewhat like a Tony Hawks meets SSX Tricky kinda game to us.

Just like tricky, the more tricks you perform the more boost you get, boost means speed which you can use to get yourself to the finish line faster.

Tony Hawk is one of 10 playable characters in the game, it seems the other big name stars are missing from this title. The developers have also included a nice “create-a-skater” feature which allows you to create your own character to use in the game.

Typically multi-player also seems to be present, there will be a four player mode for you and your friends to get your skate on.

To be perfectly honest, it looks like a very similar idea to SSX Tricky, but with the Tony Hawk's label. However, that may not be a bad thing, I've had great experiences with SSX and Tony Hawks game, so there is no reason why this couldn't be a great combination.

All in all Tony Hawks Downhill Jam looks like it could be a great addition to the genre, the only thing that slightly worries me is the fact this is the first extreme sports game to really try and exploit the Wiimote, lets hope they got it right.

We'll be following up this article with a full review in the next few weeks.