Trials HD

Trials HD – Demo Impressions

One of Xbox Live Arcade’s most iconic exclusives comes in the form of Trials HD. Trials HD is a physics based motorcycle racing game that has many layers of quality content attached to it. Trials HD has been around since 2009 so why am i now just now playing the demo? Just never gotten around to it till now. After playing through the demo two things jump out at me, quality and content. This game has both and its fun and addicting to boot. Trials HD was developed by Redlynx and published by Microsoft Game Studios for XBLA. It released August 12, 2009 on the Xbox 360.

The main title had the following menus: Play Game, Skill Games, User Content, Leaderboards, Garage, Achievements, Help & Options, Unlock Full Game and Return to Game Library. The key word here is content. In Skill Games you can play Inside of a Ball and Ski Jump. Two completely different wacky takes on Trials HD’s gameplay. User Content section lets you play, share, manage and create your own custom Trials HD tracks and games. Some of the modes were locked out for demo purposes. I spent most of my play time in the Play Games and Skill Games sections.

The controls via Xbox 360 gamepad:  LS & D-pad-lean forward or look back, X-brake, A-gas, B-return to last checkpoint, Y-bailout, LT-brake, Start-pause, Back-restart. Trials HD takes place on a 2d track similar to old school Excitebike but at an angle. The camera can also zoom in and out accordingly. Each track has in-game checkpoints. As far as the controls go for this physics based racing game they are really solid. Some tracks in the demo really test your skills when landing and not trying to crash.

You as a player have two main goals when playing Trials HD. You must finish the track and try to have as little Faults as possible. The demo’s tracks in Play Game section ranged from a simple tutorial level to a big level with checkpoints and explosions all over the place. Big jumps doing flips while sticking your landing just makes up some of the fun in Trials HD. Before you play any track you have to pick and choose which bike you want to race with (for instance Turtle 80 cc).  As you earn medals you can unlock more bikes more tracks and more modes to play. The tracks are creative and will have you performing wild stunts which never got old.

The presentation of Trials HD is about as good as arcade games get on Xbox Live. The game looks great visually for a game that released in 2009. The texture work, color palette and art design all were impressive. The sound design was also nice featuring great sound design for the bike’s motor. The music was good as well. You can just tell this game has it. Even if you don’t like physics based mortorcycle games you would still call Trials HD a good game. And when you throw in all of the level editing and sharing tools the tracks become practically limitless. There are so many different tracks and gamemodes to unlock for Trials HD its worth its 1200 msp tag even today.

I know i just played the demo of this game. But Trials HD does have that “it” factor that Excitebike had when i was a kid. The game is just plain fun and addicting. It also has loads of quality content. There is a sequel releasing this year however i might have to buy Trials HD before then. Thanks for reading.