Musings on... Trials Evolution: Gold Edition

Trials Evolution was originally released on XBox 360 last year, and was finally released on PC by RedLynx in March. It is the fourth Trials game, and the third to appear on PC. It is currently available to purchase on Steam for £15.99 or XBLA for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Trials Evolution (wow do I keep thinking there's a colon there) is an evil game. It doesn't seem to be when you first play, but beneath it all is a heart of meanness which enjoys seeing you fail, over and over again. Sure you'll power through the beginner and easy levels, mostly picking up silvers and the occasional gold. Heck, on the medium levels you might do the same. On hard you start dropping a bit, maybe averaging more towards bronze than before. Then you get to the extreme difficulty tracks, and the game reveals its true self and murders you.



Some explanation before that, though. For those that don't know, Trials is a 2D motorbike game, set in a 3D environment, whereupon you must make it from the left side of the screen, through multiple checkpoints, all the way to the right side of the screen. In your way are many fiendish obstacles, including huge jumps, steep hills, and small boxes. The only methods of control you have over your rider are accelerating and decelerating, and leaning forward or backwards.

Despite the simple control scheme, the game manages to include a surprising amount of depth. Initially the challenge is not too difficult, generally requiring good balance and a restraint in how many flips you can definitely do over that big jump. The license tests, which you have to pass in order to unlock better bikes, do a very good job of teaching you the tricks necessary to progress further in the game, such as the correct way to go up steep hills, and the bunny-hop, which will absolutely become your most-used skill once you get into the game proper.

The PC version of the game (the titular Gold Edition) contains two sets of tracks: Trials Evolution's 50 tracks, which span a wide variety of areas and scales, from vast castles to small skill tracks; and the XBLA only Trials HD, a set of warehouse themed courses very reminiscent of the original Trials game and the PC's Trials 2. Each has a mix of very easy initial courses, which ramp up to brain-meltingly difficult final tracks.

What makes the game so fun is that desire to restart. Your progress on each track is monitored by both time and fails, and in order to achieve the highest medals you'll need to get as close to perfect as possible, often without being allowed to fault a single time. As well as personal pride and showing off to your friends, you need a certain number of medals to unlock the next set of tracks. Initially you can easily drift through the levels getting bronzes every time, but later on you run out of options, and have to start bumping up those times, getting gradually better and better. In theory at least. The reality, of course, is very different, as you press the B button (XBox controller pretty much required) time after time to reset to the last checkpoint, slamming your hands in frustration, before finally clearing what must be the most difficult obstacle known to man and feeling the euphoria of conquering it. It doesn't matter that it took you 248 tries and you only have five minutes left to complete the rest of the course, because you dominated that one obstacle.

This mentality will soon pervade the way you play the game. A single crash and you restart one of the easier maps immediately. Later on you're hitting that B button before you even see the crashed message. Spun slightly too far in the air? B. Going a little fast and need to slow down? Not an option, B. Your rider's head speeding towards a ledge? B. B. B. B. B.

The leader-boards give added motivation over the simple desire to at the very least complete every track (even if you don't do it very well) but some of the people on there seem to be literally Gods. Still, when you post a respectable time and break into the top two thousand or so, it's a pretty great feeling. If you have anyone in your friends list that plays you have your own personal leader-boards to contend on, which I would expect adds a lot to the experience.

If you somehow manage to finish all of the tracks in the main game, there are a whole ton of mini-games you can have a go at (including a Marble Madness clone). Additionally there's a vast collection of online maps made by the community which you can sample.

There's a lot of game here, and it's very, very good fun. Just be aware that it doesn't stay easy for long, and when it gets difficult, it gets really difficult.