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Trials Evolution: Riders of Doom Review for Xbox 360

Trials Evolution: Riders of Doom Review for Xbox 360

“Doom” Is A Mite Strong

Trials Evolution is an extension of the sort of game I’m accustomed to playing in my browser, composed in Flash and simple enough in concept to be controlled with only a trio or quartet of keys at most. The idea is that physics are fun and driving motorcycles is more fun, so combining them with hazardous obstacle courses that demand the total sum of your physics-defying, high-flying, acrobatic acumen to surmount must be super fun.

Well, they’re right. It really is super fun. Or it was , anyway, since Trials Evolution came out in April. Trials HD, to which it was a sequel, hit way back in 2009. Now we’re looking at the game’s second expansion pack, Riders of Doom, so titled to cash in on the fervor that had surrounded the December 21, 2012 apocalypse hullabaloo that had the Internet cursing a long-passed Native American culture and their truncated calendar.

Trials Evolution: Riders of Doom Screenshot

The world didn’t end, though, and Riders of Doom probably wouldn’t have been how I’d have chosen to see it out, anyway. That isn’t to say it isn’t a fun addition to the core experience that Trials Evolution provides, but if you’re going to pay five dollars for an expansion, a full third of what the original experience cost, you’re going to expect something that makes you feel like you got another sizable chunk of the experience.

I guess, in the strictest terms, Riders of Doom delivers exactly that. More tracks for those at all levels of skill, more skill challenges with unique and often wacky objectives, some of which don’t even seem to touch on the core game, and more parts for building one’s dream (or nightmare) track, which can then be unleashed on the unsuspecting masses.

Trials Evolution: Riders of Doom Screenshot

In the new tracks, nothing of the core experience has been altered. You’re still manipulating your rider’s balance on his bike as he speeds along turbulent terrain, surmounting obstacles with careful shifts in his weight, hurtling from perilous jumps over dramatic distances. It can often prove positively eye-catching, and some of the new tracks (such as one set in a city in the sky) are positively breathtaking. There’s also one that serves as a belated Halloween celebration, and a third that involves UFOs. It all smacks of a missed opportunity, though. Riders of Doom has a few stages that evoke that “end of the world” sensation, playing on tropes thereof, but it doesn’t really serve as a unifying theme. The levels are more a hodgepodge of different flavors and textures that are certainly of high quality, but would have been more interesting if they in some way formed a progressive narrative. The difficulty, on the other hand, follows a progression much like that of the base game, though far sharper.

The stages run the gamut in challenge from the very simplest, pretty much easing one back in after a long absence from the game, to controller-chucking hard, with painfully precise jumps stacked atop one another with nary a checkpoint in sight. Personally, I think the game as a whole is at its best when its tracks strike a balance between spectacle and challenge. There’s little fun to be had trying the exact same jump 30 times just to get it right once in isolation, but it’s an absolute blast trying to chain together a sequence of simpler maneuvers in a single, faultless trial. I’m sure there are Trials hardcore who disagree with me, though, and are able to flawlessly bunny-hop from platform to platform.

Trials Evolution: Riders of Doom Screenshot

Skill challenges are where the designers behind Riders of Doom went nuts and pulled out all the stops. While the main levels are enjoyable, they don’t really diverge from what has defined the Trials experience since day one. That skill challenges, meanwhile, don’t stop with variations on the basic motorcycle-navigating-the-track theme, but include one-off experiences such as motorcycle shot put, jumping challenges, a jet-pack-based stacking game, a Marble Madness-esque ball-rolling maze, and a slalom-esque rocket race with controls ripped from Asteroid.

There are also variations on the core gameplay, such as a race with a nitro-boosted bike that overheats quickly and a coin-gathering track in which half a dozen carts full of monkeys trail your motorcycle. The most comprehensive of these, however, is an infinite obstacle challenge, which consists of almost impossible platforming jumps one after another, the player’s goal being to complete as many as possible without restarting or faulting. They’re both absolutely brutal and somewhat randomized, making for a stiff challenge; you’ll want to be an expert at the game before you even attempt it.

Trials Evolution: Riders of Doom Screenshot

The most enduring element of Trials Evolution, though, that which provides theoretically endless enjoyment, is its track editor, which allows one to create and share Frankentracks that fulfill one’s deepest Trials Evolution desires. Riders of Doom introduces a few hundred more parts and effects to the track editor mode, as well as a new lot on which to build them, but there doesn’t appear to be anything in the parts list that will outright revolutionize the way people design their tracks, and navigating to those new parts involves selecting the “Burning Sands” category and then navigating through various sub-categories for the various themes and part types included therein. Certainly you can add some extra visual panache with what’s on tap here, but it isn’t a comprehensive upgrade to the track design capabilities of Trials Evolution’s editor.

The word “comprehensive” keeps coming back to haunt me, because it’s what kept nagging at me while I was playing the Riders of Doom content. I was having fun, yes, but it’s really just an extension of the base experience with well-designed levels that are in no apparent way connected to one another. Given the tremendous variety of downloadable tracks available for free, courtesy of both the players and RedLynx itself, charging five dollars for a smattering of content without some serious sort of hook seems almost disingenuous.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.0 Graphics
Looks just as good as the base game, where spectacle abounds, but it tends to take a second to load in high-resolution textures. 5.0 Control
The controls are still incredibly precise and excellent, as is absolutely necessary for a game like this. A pleasure to handle. 2.5 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The sound is still there, I guess. The rider screams and there’s occasionally music of note, but the sound is typically the last thing on my mind. 2.5 Play Value
There really isn’t a lot here for five dollars that you couldn’t have found, in some capacity, for free through the game’s user-created tracks. 3.5 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • New Tracks and New Bike: Riders of Doom features 40 new tracks set in a new environment – The Big Sand Lands. Along with the new tracks, a new bike known as the Banshee brings a middle ground offering between the Phoenix and the Scorpion.
  • Additional Editing Items: RedLynx has added hundreds of new items to the Track Editor allowing gamers to create even more insane tracks.
  • New Skill Challenges: The newest DLC pack also feature ten new Skill Games.

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