This game totally deserves its own thread
I got the game from Amazon for $10 thanks to the bargain bin thread, and Eurogamer was not exaggerating when they said this could be XBLA game of the year. This is a very polished product. And it’s such a blast.
I haven’t played enough to know who I should be smack talking yet. For those that have been playing since Wednesday: Feel free to rumble.
Yeah, I’m gonna pick this up tonight. Even from the demo it is obvious this is better than Trials 2 on the PC.
Jason Cross thought it would be funny to send an Xbox Live message last night to the effect of “I am in UR Trials beating your high scorez!” Which he was. The funny thing is that at the time some of my buddies and I were playing and replaying some of the challenges and courses to work our way up the friends scores. Whenever we came across JasonC, his Xbox Live tag, he was dubbed “Jason Cock”. Ha ha.
Of course, he gets the last laugh cause he’s way better at Trials HD than any of us.
-TomYep agreed. It’s simple to play but tough to do well on. Those gold medal times are just manageable enough to keep you coming back for more.
yeah, Trials is totally addictive. In that hateful, press the restart button SO MANY TIMES way. It’s one of those rare games where you fail relatively painlessly 20 times in order to succeed once, and keep coming back for more. It’s not hard in the Ninja Gaiden type way where it’s just plain difficult and demands crazy skill all the time, and when you die you have to back up and play the last 5 minutes again. Those games frustrate and annoy me. In Trials, restarts are pretty much instant (no loading at all) and you don’t even hit a confirm button.
Good LORD does it get hard once you get up there, though.
There are a couple of QT3 folks who give him a run for his money, Vincent 19 is one. I am definitely not one of them.
There’s enough nuance and control in the physics that it’s totally worth replaying that many times. This is what a skateboarding game should be like.
Also, I’m convinced I’ve got a couple of you jerks on my friends list who are on the development team. Which one of you guys is Mageical, or something like that? I think I also have a Hetz or a Heintz or a Hunty or something. Those two either made the game or are using a hack of some sort. Jerks.
By the way, having unlocked the “hard” level, I don’t see myself making any more progress unlocking courses in the foreseeable future. Egads.
-TomI’ll be running through this later on tonight I hope so all you Geometry Wars people can get your just revenge…
Excellent game, Excellent port. The only problem with the 360 version is the urge to smash something when things go horribly wrong is much stronger when you have a controller in your hand instead of a keyboard.
In the XBLA thread I invited people to friend me if they wanted to feel better about their own scores. I got a few bites and, as predicted, I was at the bottom of every single level. Though I did have a better score than somebody on the ski jump skill game – but I’m sure that changed today.
Personally I love the game through medium difficulty. However, I think that hard (and I can only guess, extreme) is a bit much, or at the very least a bit mis-directed. In pre-hard there were long stretches of high-soaring fun that still required precision in landing jumps, etc. Everything I try on hard is “try and get traction going up a slope” and less “do crazy flips and awesome jumps”.
Like Tom, I doubt I progress through hard.
I’m still enjoying it greatly, though.
Hard is where is game gets fun. Good god ‘Technique’ kicked my ass, but it was such blast working my way over that stuff.
You guys talking about it convinced me to pick it up, so I’ll be trying to set some scores tonight. I’ve got some space on the Friends list if you’d like to send out adds.
I’m on one of the last hard levels and just before the finish there is a 45 degree incline or so with a checkpoint at the top. Near the top of the incline is a very small block that I can’t get over without flipping – anyone have any tips? I’ll try and look up the name of the level in a bit (but don’t want to quit out or I’ll lose progress).
Edit: The level is “Trials and Tribulations” – it is the final obstacle, a board with a second, shorter board nailed to it.
Edit 2: Beat it. Holy cow. Basically, go full throttle then when you get off the checkpoint platform lean full forward. This will place you at a decent start position. Now, very very easy on the throttle, ramping it up with no lean let the front wheel clear the bottom of the shorter board – as soon as it does do a nice, gentle even throttle and lean forward gently and just pray.
And we call this fun.
I just unlocked hard now. Dynamic Range and Technique were amazing.
I was just trying to do the 2nd Extreme track. Turns out you “only” get 30 minutes to get through. I didn’t make it… this time.
The 2nd and 4th Extreme tracks are the only ones I haven’t got to the end of yet. I’ve also been working on golds in the minigames. Right now I only need to get about 10m higher in the hillclimb and I have to figure out how to drive in and on big balls, as I am not even close to gold in those. Some of these minigames are brilliant, particularly the one where you tow the little trailer with bombs in it. Even the new wheelie mode is clever.
I find it much easier to climb up steep hills in this version than I did on the PC. I think that is probably down to the analog controls.
edit: This game has some nifty achievements, too. Like the PC version, it’s got one where you’ve got to complete a level without leaning, and one where you can’t lift off the gas (or hit the brake). There is also one for knocking down all the bowling pins one one of the levels. They are off the normal path a bit, and lining up the perfect shot is tricky, but I had fun getting it. I wish there were more like those three.
Are there still only 3 postures (leans), or is it progressive now?
It’s nice to pop into a high score thread and see your name mentioned as one of the bastards.
One of my favorite things about Trials HD is the wonderful sense of progression not just in the levels but also in your skill handling the bike. There’s a hell of a lot of nuance for a game with such simple controls, but I’ve found it immensely gratifying to get better at the subtleties of bike control (mostly because I also find it immensely gratifying to overtake my friends).
Rowe33, your entrance on the leaderboards makes me nervous. I’m ahead of you for now, but if Geometry Wars is anything to go by, that may not last.
My GT is Mageical, if anyone wants to add me.
It was always progressive. I played the pc version with a 360 pad, easier for my lethargic reactions than digital.
But the main reason was my hand cramps with the arrows keys.
This was exactly my reaction to the game. I had a blast with it for about two hours, and then spent an hour humping logs (and boxes, and other assorted crap) to sllllllloooooooowwwwwwwwlllly get over them. Then I shut the game off.
Those were two damn fun hours, though.
I don’t mind spending time jumping over a log pile so long as I gain a better understanding of the game. To be fair, that is mostly the case – it has really dawned on me that the game is mostly about managing the cycle’s rear wheel – landing on it rather than the front and also properly managing the throttle.
Those obstacles that I knock my head against for a long time and somehow get past with no understanding gained are the ones that bug me, however.
Sitting at only one bronze left to go in hard (you can do it Tom! If I can, anyone can!) and having learned some from the progression through hard (as evidenced by the ease at which I can do medium like I couldn’t as well before), my initial impression about the latter stage of the game has changed.
However, I would still have preferred it if the latter part of the game was more about sticking very long / tricky jumps or manipulating the physics of other objects (but please, no more mine carts!) rather than uphill grindfests.
Added Rowe33 as well – what is his Qt3 board name? I wish we could annotate our friends list – that’d be great for the next update!