For gamers, summer has usually been a cruel time of the year with next to nothing coming out at retail, and save for a few surprisingly awesome sleepers like BlazBlue and Call Of Juarez: Bound in Blood, this summer has been no different. Note that I said “retail”, because over the last couple of years the summer has become the time for big time downloadable releases. Last summer saw games like Braid, Geometry Wars 2, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Castle Crashers, and Penny Arcade Adventures capture the summer. This summer has been no different, with games like Trash Panic, Shatter, ‘Splosion Man, and the one two punch of Tales Of Monkey Island and Secret of Monkey Island SE. I say great timing on the industry’s part. First off, it’s summer time, and people tend to hang out with friends more and do things that don’t involve hanging out in your apartment, so these fun little experiences are perfect for summer. Secondly, it’s a down economy, so people aren’t so inclined to be spending $60 on a game right now.
In any case, the downloadable game rush is spearheaded by Microsoft’s “Summer of Arcade” lineup, which has not disappointed as of yet. However, one game tended to stick out a little more then the others in the lineup, and that was Trials HD: a sequel to a string of Steam titles with a cult following and developed by Finnish developer RedLynx. I am proud to say I was a member of said cult, as last year I spent countless hours perfecting my riding abilities in that game. And believe me when I say I got way more out of it then the $8 price tag led me to believe I would. Well now it’s 1,200 points ($15), and it’s on XBLA. It’s time to check out why Microsoft thought so highly of this title that they put it in it’s summer of arcade lineup.
As Walter from The Big Lebowski would say, “the beauty is its simplicity”, and when you first start the game you will think it’s simple. Trials is a 3D racer on a 2D plane where you control a motorcycle and flip, jump, fall, and climb your way to the finish line. How Trials sticks itself out from the crowd is with its physics. While driving, you have the ability to have the driver on the bike either sit back or lean forward to alter how the bike controls or to position your bike for the perfect landing while airborne. As you progress through the level, you will go through countless checkpoints at the rate of one for every couple of seconds. This is done so that you will be able to finish the game without getting too frustrated, but if you’re anything like me, scoring gold medals is where you’re gonna spend most of your time; and believe me, getting a gold medal in this game is not a easy task. You have to be perfect and not crash once on your run, and sometimes that isn’t even enough. You will be re-trying levels over and over again attempting to shave off .235 seconds and figuring out how to perfectly hit a certain jump to avoid air time to get the gold. This is hard to do during the beginner and easy levels, but once you get to the harder levels the difficulty goes to legendary heights, where even finishing the level with a bronze medal can be extremely hard.
However, getting gold medals will always be your goal, as gold medals unlock some of the cooler stuff in the game, such as new tournaments, new bikes, and, best of all, minigames. Try to imagine the minigames from flat out mixed with the minigames from Super Smash Bros. and you might have some idea. These score-based challenges have you doing things like hurling your body down stairs to see how many bones you can break or keeping your balance in one of those sphere metal balls motorcyclists drive around in. These are a total blast and, like the rest of the game, if you just wanna have fun with it, you can, but getting the gold is infuriatingly difficult. One last thing Trials HD does really is its leaderboard system. If you have friends who have also played the game, the first place score through that level will be posted and there’s a little meter on the top of the screen showing you how your run compares to his run. If you’re into bragging rights with your buddies, this is the game for you.
The game’s style is…intresting, to say the least. The music is comprised primarily of incredibly cheesy shred metal, and the only voice work consists of some random 20 year old dude constantly yelling things like “ALL RIGHT!”. Basically, the style is like something out of a Monster energy drink commercial, but it’s not as annoying as you might think. It’s either intentionally funny or this is just what people from Finland think we want. Either way, presentation is secondary in this game. Every one of the games levels takes place in a abandoned warehouse looking location, and while it’s not the most pleasing game to look at, its rendered nicely enough. The game uses Unreal Engine 3 but doesn’t fall into any of the pitfalls of that engine, such as weird looking lighting or nasty pop-in. It also runs at 60FPS, which is good considering those frames could mean a big difference to people chasing gold.
So while I love this game to death, if you’re the type of person who gets easily frustrated, then be forewarned: you’re going to die in this game. A lot. And then you’re gonna die some more. And then when you get super focused and say, “Ok! I’m feeling it! This is the run!”, you’re probably gonna die there too. If that greatly bothers you, then this might not be the game for you. However, if you are not a pussy, then do not hesitate in picking up Trials HD. There’s tons of levels and plenty of content to justify your $15, not to mention the fact that the game features a full level editor and user generated content, and I cannot wait to see the crazy shit people start making for this game. Trials HD is the new standard in the “just one more try” category.
