Publisher: RedLynx / Microsoft Studios
Cert: 12+
Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Genre: Platform, Racing
When I first started up Trials, the flashbacks to any number of classic biking come in thick and fast. From the outset you're thrown into everything the game has to offer. Here's a motocross bike, here's a course, get bike to end of course, repeat.
There's plenty of upsides, the courses are detailed and impressive, the gameplay itself is slick and addictive, and for a good chunk of the game you'll blaze through stages full of ramps, drops, see-saws, loops, explosions and trampolines. It's fast, fluid and lots of fun and early on you have time to appreciate how amazing the level are.
But for all the fun the more you play this game the more you it grates, as the game progresses a single mistake and you may as well restart. This kills all of the fast-paced action that the game opens with and makes later levels more about rote learning and brute force repetition over anything that could be called fun. Early levels I'd replay over and over just because they were so much fun to blast through, later levels I'd eventually grind my way through and never want to look at the stage again.
There are mini-games scattered throughout the stages but there's very little to them, most of the time you're playing the same basic game, balancing an object across the course but swapping a bike for some skis doesn't make the game any different or better.
Trials is a game with all the promise in the world, but over time it becomes a tedious repetitive grind, that only by memorising levels will see you through. The early stages are worth the money on their own, but be prepared to want to throw the controller at the TV.
Buy or Rent: Download Only
Graphics: 4/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Replay: 2/5
Overall: 2/5
Reviewed by: Tony O'Hare
