Review: Trials Fusion

Title: Trials Fusion
Platform: PC, PS4 Xbox 360 and Xbox One (reviewed)
Developer: RedLynx Studios
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release date: Out now
Family Focus: Click here for more information.

While we reviewed Trials Fusion originally May of last year, we wanted to take a second look at the game a year and a few months later along with some of the DLC which was released post-release. Unfortunately, last summer’s Awesome Max DLC was not available for review.

Trials Fusion is a 2D motocross racing game set in 3D environments. Each race offers the possibility of winning a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal. Making it from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time and avoiding crashing will ensure a Gold win at the end. Each races feature multiple checkpoints throughout the track allowing players to restart close to your crashing spot instead of having to start over. Respawning at a checkpoint will penalize the player as it will reduce chances to earn the gold medal.

As with most racing games, the few first races are simple enough to enjoy and successfully completed without failure; however, this brings a false sense of security as the difficulty ramps up quickly. Due to this increase in difficulty, Trials Fusion, and its predecessors, have been known to cause a high mortality rate to game controllers. The game does have a standard method of racing: hold down a button to move forward and guide your motorcycle with the joystick. The addendum being that the physics are cranked up 110%, where simply that barely touching the joystick will make the rider go drastically into the direction you moved, requiring a lot of balancing by moving the stick forward and back in order to land properly.

As you progress through the game, the racing tracks get even more crazy and obstacle-filled. Although players can easily respawn to the previous checkpoint before crashing, sometimes this will hinder your progress as some jumps require a lot of momentum you would’ve gathered before reaching the last checkpoint. Meaning? That you’ll have to completely restart the track in order to master the previous jumps in order to have enough speed to tackle the more difficult jumps. It can get annoying real fast as some landings aren’t easy to gauge.

In order to keep players busy, Ubisoft released a total of six DLC add-ons with a vast array of additional content such as new achievements/trophies, tracks, local multiplayer tracks, challenges, new vehicles and new content for the Track Editor. As you’d expect, these new tracks feature even more crazy jumps and another difficulty spike. Each additional track pack is set is a different environment where it gets more nuts as the previous course. It’s just more of the same. Although the new tracks will introduce new crazy ways to reach the finish line, it would have been fun to have a bit more of variety gameplay wise. Sure, it’s a “racing,” game, but having one or two races with A.I. opponents or races where you need to pull off moves and reach a high score could’ve been welcomed.

One of the game’s strong point is the overall presentation, hands down. Each track’s environment is very detailed. The backgrounds are the real star in this game, as they look highly detailed and full of activities; the sunset will make you wish for summer. Audio wise, beside the annoying narrative voice-overs, the soundtrack will probably buried under the motorcycle’s engine and your never ending swearing sessions as you resist the urge to break the controller.

Unfortunately, if you don’t enjoy the core game, the DLC will not make you a believer. Although finishing a few courses can feel satisfying, others will make you cringe and throw the controller as you have constantly to either restart at the checkpoint or the track altogether. The new tracks do feature a mix of enjoyable and frustrating maps, the latter surpassing the former by far. Unless you’re a patient and dedicated gamer, you might want to pass to avoid investing in a new controller. This type of game makes me miss EA Big’s Freekstyle game so much so that I’d like to hook my PS2 back up.