The two most important factors when racing are your speed and energy. Speed gets you down the track faster and helps you to launch higher off of the jumps.  Energy can be used to give you a boost of speed, but its use is limited.  Energy slowly recharges on its own, but doing stunts and picking up power-ups are the best way to restore it quickly.  A nice feature of Downhill Domination is that you do not need to win every race in order to advance to and unlock new tracks.  Finishing in the top few spots will earn you points, and you will be able to advance after accumulating enough points.  It's a good way to allow players who may have trouble winning races to still be able to unlock additional tracks.

Fly like a bird.

The one thing that is a bit disappointing about the game is its tricks.  While in the air you use the shoulder buttons in various combinations to do stunts, but the stunts are all the standard ones such as the superman and can-can that you've seen plenty of times before in these types of games.  The generic stunts stand in marked contrast to the other aspects of the game such as the great track design.  You'll need to pull off stunts to earn more money and energy boosts, so you'll still need to make sure that you try to hit as many as possible.  However, they'll feel as more of an afterthought to the racing than an integral part of the game, which is a missed opportunity that could have really catapulted the game into a top-tier classic.

Downhill Domination provides plenty of different modes to keep things interesting, from single events to monster careers that require you to compete on every track in the game.  If you prefer one type of race over another, you can play in a career mode for just that type of race.  In addition, there are time trail, training, jump modes as well, and an arcade mode in which you just play to race without worrying about distractions such as bike upgrades and the like.  Up to four players can compete in multiplayer races and tournaments, and there is even a combat mode called Moshbowl where the game plays like a combat car game.  Unfortunately there is no online component, though, so you'll have to find friends on your own if you want to experience the multiplayer modes.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 86%.  The stunts are a little lackluster, but the downhill racing delivers plenty of high-speed thrills.

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