Trials Evolution Review - New Game Network

Much like many popular games before it, the basic gameplay mechanics behind the Trials franchise began as a web flash game. And as many before it, a developer has picked up on the idea and created a full-fledged experience out of it. Trials Evolution marks the sequel to Trials HD, a so-called “2.5D” downloadable game that focuses on player precision as you attempt to pass various obstacle courses with your motorbike. Varied environments and over the top physics once again take center stage, providing for an excellent sequel. Fans of Trial HD should pick up Evolution without any hesitation, and new players are welcome too – given you can keep your frustration levels in check.

So in case you aren’t aware – Evolution is a bike game, where your sole purpose is to get from one end of the course to another. You can only control the gas and breaks of the bike, as well as lean the rider of the motorcycle forwards and backwards. The challenge and entertainment factor come from the gameplay mechanics – the bike is heavily influenced by real time physics and the course is littered with jumps, dips, and other obstacles.

Getting from one end to the other without faulting (letting the rider touch the ground or crash into an object) can be both exhilarating and frustrating. This balance – trying to beat your own or a friend’s score, and simply trying to pass the course without restarting for the n-th time – will determine whether or not the Trials franchise is your cup of tea. As the difficulty increases through the single player career mode, you may often find yourself leaning towards the latter feeling. While Evolution feels a lot more balanced in its difficulty curve than its predecessor, it’s still only a matter of time before most players reach their breaking point.

The single player career allows you to play through a significant number of unique and well designed tracks. Starting off with just one bike, your progression depends on the total amount of medals earned – with up to three medals up for grabs from each race (depending on your time and how many times you crashed). Getting bronze should be easy enough even for the completely inexperienced players, though earning enough to progress to the next stage might require some patience.

When you’ve earned enough medals, the next level License test becomes available, which is essentially a test trial that teaches advanced mechanics needed to succeed in the next leg of the campaign. A new bike is unlocked as well, with increasingly better stats – but in a game like Trials, this also means higher difficulty. Though there are only a few bikes in the game, they all feel significantly different and pose a unique challenge.

Depending on how well you do, getting to the final levels can take a few hours at most. Notice I said just getting to the final levels – not necessarily completing them, because it’s no easy feat. Winning races also gives you cash, which can be spent on customizing your bike and rider, though the changes are completely superficial and have no effect on the gameplay. Outside of the campaign, you can participate in tournaments, which are essentially single player races strung together and evaluated on your total score across the events, rather than each race individually. Special skill events are very random, using the game’s physics engine for something very off-beat, such as trying to drive without control of breaks or gas, attempting to balance a giant ball, flying around in a UFO or even skiing.

The selection of courses in Evolution is excellent. Fully utilizing the game’s unique perspective, the environments and backdrops are simply a pleasure to look at, and might often make you feel as if you’re playing a full retail release. The game uses lighting effects in full force, across a wide range of effects and day/night conditions. Tracks are creative, too – from a Limbo themed ride to a WWII scenario, there is plenty to see in the game.

And even if you’ve seen everything the game has to offer – it’s only the beginning. Evolution, like its predecessor, includes a fully functional track editor which was actually used by the game developers to create all the tracks in the game. A simple version of the editor allows you to get in and create tracks quickly and easily with some automated features. For dedicated players though, the advanced track editor is a complex tool that is only limited by your imagination. Favorable comparisons to LittleBigPlanet 2 aside, this is a feature of the game that will keep adding value to the experience for a long time. Now that you can easily share your creations with the world (and not just with friends like in Trials HD), and download tracks from others through well implemented search filters, Evolution suddenly becomes a game that keeps on giving.

Evolution also extends the multiplayer offers from Trials HD. There is a heavy reliance on leaderboards to keep players engaged in the game at all times. On all tracks you race – even in single player – the ghosts of players from your friends list will appear and race alongside you. This means not only are you trying to beat the track with a good time, you’re trying to beat your friends’ track times. It’s a fantastic idea with a single drawback – most of the ghosts you race against will likely be of your friends’ re-runs of the course with a better bike than you currently have. So while completing your career mode for the first time, it’s a bit pointless to try and keep up with the ghosts of your friends.

You can also head online and race against others directly in the Supercross mode. Due to the mechanics of the game, Supercross tracks are specifically designed to be played by up to four players at the same time and work very well. Trials mode, meanwhile, offers you the chance to race any tracks from the career mode, but due to their design, your opponents will simply appear as ghosts. The game can be played offline with up to four players as well, but for obvious reasons, only Supercross tracks are available. Private, unranked races are available as well if you want to simply mess around with friends.

While Trials HD wasn’t a bad looking game, Evolution really impresses with its visuals for a downloadable and Unreal title. Aside from the texture streaming issues that are common to the engine, the game can look quite good, particularly the environments. The lighting effects, day and night transitions, shadows and explosions all look very good and even create an atmosphere in some levels. The 2D/3D perspective allows for some great background manipulations and giving the world a different feel. The soundtrack is appropriate but feels rather limited and repetitive.

With a game like Trials Evolution, finding the balance between making you want to retry a track and making you need to retry is the key. If you enjoyed Trials HD, there is no question that Evolution is a stellar sequel that offers more of the same, for a great price. The included track editor, great visuals and solid online component makes this one of the better games available on XBLA. However, if these features are enough to get you past the often frustrating gameplay is another question entirely. The end result remains a game that will try your patience. Whether you take it in stride as a challenge or throw your controller at the wall will be the deciding factor in your enjoyment of Trials Evolution.