Urban Trial Freestyle Is Pretty Much Trials HD

People love Trials HD and Trials Evolution. If you don’t know them, the Trials games are dirt bike titles from Finnish developer RedLynx where you ride across a 2D plane and try to set high scores and beat set times. Trouble is, Microsoft publishes Trials, so it’s never coming to the PlayStation. Polish developer Tate Interactive is basically saying “screw that.” Urban Trial Freestyle is coming to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita next month, and for all intents and purposes, it’s Trials HD.

That’s a good thing.

So it’s just Trials on the PlayStation?

At first glance, yes. Urban Trial Freestyle packs five mini-games and 20 levels, which each pack a Stunt Mode and Time Trial. You ride your bike from left to right across the screen and try to pull off stunts or be as quick as possible. It’s a game of accelerating, shifting your rider’s weight, and surviving obstacles. It’s just a few buttons to worry about, but mastering it is what could keep everyone coming back.

I’ve never played a game like this; what’s the hook?

Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high.

High scores / best times. There’s the personal satisfaction of beating a time you set on a previous run, but Urban Trial Freestyle does a great job of making you compete (indirectly) with other players. When you start a level, you see a billboard for the best stunt score on the PlayStation Network – PSN avatar included. When you head out on a time trial, you see the ghost of the best player.

It’s coming to the PS3 and Vita; is it cross-buy?

Nope. The Vita version is just different enough (the view’s a bit tighter, there’s a different mini-game, obstacles have moved around) that the games can't communicate with each other. So, there’s no cross-buy, cross-play or cross-save.

Did you play both versions?

Yup. They both feel good. They’re easy to jump into, triangle restarted the race when I screwed up, and the controls are tight. “Tight,” what’s that even mean? You know -- the game’s all about not falling to your death while you land your bike on an awkward tree trunk. The little changes I had to make, the game allowed me to make. The controls always made me feel like I had a chance at being the best.

So it’s riding a bike and…

When you die, hit Triangle.

Collecting and unlocking. There are moneybags hidden around the levels, you collect them, and you spend them on bike mods. These mods change your bike’s stats, so there’s this challenge of matching the perfect loadout with each challenge.

Sounds cool. When’s the review so I know if this was all BS or if it’s worth my money?

Urban Trial Freestyle is targeting February, so we should know more soon.

Greg is the executive editor of IGN PlayStation, cohost of Podcast Beyond and host of Up at Noon. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Greg's shenanigans on IGN and Twitter. Beyond!

Source : ign[dot]com