trials 2 |

Publisher: Valve

Developer: RedLynx

Release Date: 3/19/2008

Available Exclusively On

Now I’ve never played the original Trials, and in fact, I never heard about it until I saw it on Steam. Trials is a motocross physics game that gives you control of a poor soul on a dirt bike, and you have to safely get him through and over obstacles. The game is a side view, so think of it as a 2D scroller; you don’t have to control in a 3D environment; you just go forward and backward. You can adjust your bike in three different positions, and this affects gravity and inertia, so leaning forward helps you go up steep hills; lying flat helps you go under low-hanging obstacles and level your bike out in the air; and it also helps you go down steep hills. Most of the game consists of going up steep ramps and jumps and using precision to go over the craziest jumps you’ll ever see.

Some consist of extreme ramps (leaning forward) and then maybe going down three smaller ramps (leaning back), and you have to adjust the speed with all of this. Trials 2’s physics are superb and feel very real; the graphics are excellent with shadows, motion blur, depth of field, and high-res textures. You need a pretty beefy rig to get this running at full speed, but when you do, you’ll love it. There are online leaderboards and Steam Achievements, so there are plenty of reasons to replay courses.

There are three sets of courses: easy, medium, and hard. Each set requires more accuracy, precision, and skill. They get longer and crazier as you go, so watch out! As the name implies, Trials 2 has a ton of trial and error, so you’ll be hitting backspace to reset your guy more times than you can count (sometimes I was resetting over 100 times for the same spot). I highly recommend Trials 2 to any physics/puzzle game fan or any racing fan. With it only being $10 on Steam, it’s a bargain.