Story
Trials HD is a game with no story, so it won’t be given a score in this category.
Story: N/A
Gameplay
The gameplay in Trails HD is somewhere between puzzle game and racing game. The game lets you control a rider and his dirt bike. The right trigger accelerates and the left trigger brakes, while using the left stick leans your rider forward or backward. Using these four methods, you traverse 3D courses on a 2D plane. The game uses an impressive physics engine, which is key to most everything in the game. How you bounce when you land, the way you’re bike moves on inclines, and even the way you crash all depend on the physics. You must navigate jumps, ramps, loops, and other more creative obstacles as quickly as you can. Crash and you’ll usually explode in some way. In fact the game is littered with explosives and fire, along with numerous other hazards. Through all this you race through the course competing for the best time. The game awards you medals for quicker times and using less faults.The courses start at beginner and get progressively harder all the way to expert. The beginner though hard stages are a lot of fun to play, and the learning curve is well balanced as you progress, getting more challenging as you go. Expert on the other hand is a whole different animal. These four tracks are hard. Really hard. Rage inducing hard. “So, I have to get my motorcycle up this almost vertical incline, with a lip at the top I somehow need to get my front wheel over without flipping over backwards. Got it…” It gets to the point where it just isn’t fun. You just want to finish the course. The last one, Inferno II, had profanities echoing throughout my house for a few nights on my many attempts to beat it.
Luckily the game provides checkpoints throughout the stages. Reach that checkpoint, and no matter how you fail, a tap of the B button sends you right back to the checkpoint instantly. This is nice because there is no load time, and it really keeps you in the groove of the course. However, you spend 30 minutes on a course, or have 500 faults (hitting the B button), and you have to restart from the beginning. These limits seem extreme, and I didn’t even know that they existed until the expert levels. And then 500 faults just don’t seem like enough.
In addition to the regular courses, there are tournaments that task you with playing through a series of the courses in order, cumulating in a final time for the bunch. There are also Skill Games, little mini games where you compete with the leaderboards for the best score. My favorites were “Outside the Ball,” where you are on top of a big metal ball, seeing how far you can ride it before you fall, and “Infernal Pinball,” where giant pinball paddles launch you to see how high you can get.
Finally the game has a detailed and powerful level editing tool. You can add any object in the game, rotate it any way you want, and place it however you want. You can even change the lighting, set where the checkpoints are, and change the foreground and background (it’s a 2D game in 3D, remember). I played around with it some, but didn’t create anything of note. It’s obvious that with some dedication, the tool allows for some great creativity. There are going to be some amazing player made tracks out there in the coming weeks.
Trials HD is a pretty solid game. Once you learn how to eloquently control your bike and rider, the game starts to click. The courses are fun until the extremely frustrating expert stages, where it just becomes a chore. The Skill Games are a lot of fun, and add some variety to the gameplay. And with the custom levels, this game has a lot of room to grow. Just don’t make your levels too hard.
Gameplay: 7/10
Presentation
All of the stages in Trails HD are set in a warehouse. The graphics are pretty good, they do the job. The lighting is great, with fire effects and everything having a sort of “extreme” feeling. Everything looks aged, like someone found this warehouse and set up some crazy tracks inside with the junk they found laying around. However, it’s all set in a warehouse. There is no variety in the visuals, and it gets pretty old looking at the same browns and oranges after a while. There are a couple of tracks that stand out (Dreamscape comes to mind), but for the most part, its detailed objects are wasted on the bland, repetitive warehouse setting.One thing of note in the game is the physics. There aren’t really animations as a result, but the game looks realistic, especially when you crash. You’re bike goes flying, and you do too in an impressive explosion, your body flopping around with ragdoll physics. It can often result in something that makes you laugh or cringe at how painful it looks.
The sounds here do the job. The motor on your bike is what you are going to be hearing mostly, and lots of explosions. Every now and then your rider will yell something, which would have been okay, but it goes a little too far with the extreme theme and just comes off as annoying. The music is a metal and hard rock instrumental score, which fits the mood but doesn’t stand out in any way.
The main menu works well and does what it needs. The level editor has no real explanation, and after a while of hitting random buttons you start to figure out what does what. The real problem is the tutorials, which is just a sign on the level with pictures showing you what you need to do to pass an obstacle you’ve never encountered. Not only do you have to stop to read these cryptic signs, but they are hard to figure out, wasting precious time. And most of the time the tutorials are trying to explain some complicated maneuver. The signs only give you an idea of what you need to do. It’s up to you to actually figure out how to do it.
Unfortunately, Trails HD doesn’t do anything impressive to show off in those HD visuals it’s so aptly named for. The sound is adequate at best, and the game could really use some sort of actual tutorial. However, the physics really add a lot to the game, adding a level of realism.
Presentation: 6/10
Summary
Trials HD is a game that can be a lot of fun. The beginner through hard stages are a blast to play, but the expert stages are just too hard. It’s only frustrating. The game’s visuals are bland most of the time, although the ragdoll physics adds a lot. The sound is appropriate, but nothing stands out. Trials HD is a game that can be fun for anybody for a little while. The game gains its mileage with those who love to improve their times and scores on the leaderboards, and those who take the time to create custom levels. Other than that, it’s a fun distraction.Final Score: 6.5/10
(Average of Gameplay and Presentation)
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