After a slightly bizarre intro that features a baby, a human skull and lots of mountain biking clips you get the chance to choose your rider and start a choice of game types. The rider selection is beautifully done; the initial six riders (Cosmo, Mai, Ajax, Jonnie, Kalolo and T-Bag - you can unlock real pros as well) are all stood atop a mountain just chillin' (although watching Mai skip is fascinating) and then they leap aboard their bikes when you select them. From here you can select the training mode (recommended), a single event, super or specialised careers, arcade mode, moshbowl (1-4 player combat with punches, kicks, sticks and bottles!) or superjump events (do your best point-scoring tricks during eight big air jumps).

   

There are four separate race styles within the game; Freeride (just what it says, get down the mountain as quickly as possible, and look out for short cuts), MX (shorter, more demanding courses with lots of evil jumps designed to knock you off), Technical Downhill (precision courses with loads of hazards) and Freestyle (trick and ride - you must complete certain objectives on the way down to complete the mountain).

When you start your first DD race you won't be blown away by the visuals, but they soon get better - due to the mountain-based downhill nature of the game it's bound to be compared to SSX3 and the like and DD comes out pretty well in comparison. For a start the riders and bikes are immensely detailed and well animated, with nice ball-breaking and dust-eating crashes as well as near-crash animations where the rider almost falls off but struggles and just manages to hang on. With a slight homage to the classic Road Rash you can also battle with the other riders on the way down the mountain, and they'll surely have a go at you if you get too close…

   

…And then there's the scenery - hugely varied (Italy, USA, Hawaii, Russia, Scotland, Japan and British Columbia) - it's cartoony but detailed and believable, with forests, deserts, towns, tunnels, volcanic lava flows, streams - even a golf course, and most of the tracks have massive draw distances with little or no pop-up. Apart from the opposing riders there's also all kinds of other life on show with mountain hikers, golfers, bathers, canoeists, mountain-climbing offroaders and more species of wildlife than a Steve Irwin series (watch out for the bears and the caribou - they'll have you). The other riders have pleasingly believable AI and not only punch and kick out at you but also have their own crashes (which look great as they throw up clouds of amazing looking dust).

The tricking control system is easy peasy; L2 makes your rider bunny hop, and when you're in the air just press L1, L2 or R1 to perform a trick. Triangle adds a modifier and scores more points, and the left stick controls the attitude of the bike and can be used to make you do forward or back flips. Spectacular combos can be achieved depending on your amount of airtime. The better the tricks you do, the more cash you earn to spend on all kinds of upgrades and unlocks - but pleasingly tricking is optional and there's plenty of straight racing to be done with cash rewards dependent on results. The controls all work well except the fact that you have to do a rather awkward double tap and hold of X to sprint (the PS2 joypad does have analog buttons so this seems daft), and the steering lacks a truly accurate analog feel, you'll often oversteer and hit something you shouldn't have. This problem is often compounded by the dense forests and blind jumps - some crashes feel unavoidable, and no one enjoys that.

   

Three difficulty settings mean that anyone can have fun and win a championship (pleasingly, "Easy" is VERY easy), and "Hardcore" is one heck of a challenge that requires skill and knowledge of the courses to win. Up to four players can play all the game types on a remarkably good split screen mode that loses little graphically. Although the game plays better with the chase view, the handlebar view is simply stunning as you rocket down the vertigo-inducing slopes and drop-offs - DD gives a better impression of speed than many MX motorbike games. Downhill Domination's big problem is that although it actually looks and plays better than EA's ultra-hyped SSX3, mountain biking just isn't as cool as snowboarding, and therefore may be overlooked by a lot of gamers that would enjoy the game tremendously if they gave it a chance.