Trials Evolution Impressions

Ive only played for a few hours, but I got that magical feeling when you know that a game is a true classic and will be the source of hundreds of hours of fun. The single player levels were blowing my mind, but umopapisdnpuaq invited me to a party and we promptly started up some multiplayer matches, and my head exploded when I realized what multiplayer Trials with custom user made tracks entails: endless fun.

I loved the original Trials HD, its one of my very favorite XBLA games and one of the only Xbox games I have every achievement for. Yes, I bitched and whined about the extreme tracks, and while its true the final tracks in a Trials game will push you to the point of insanity, they are passable, the game just has a steep learning curve to truly master the highly nuanced physics of the bikes and obstacles.

Ive posted a few times about complexity and skill in gaming, and also about how games, in my view, are essentially meant to be fun to play. Its a very fine line to create a marketable product which is fun to play, yet has the depth and complexity necessary to entertain you for more than a few minutes, let alone hundreds of hours. Trials is one of the very few games which rides this razor thin line perfectly, and based on what Ive seen in this latest installment, it has cemented itself as one of the greatest gaming franchises, not just of this generation, but of all time.