Trials heads to touchscreens, for free, no less. It’s as solid a port of Trials as could be hoped for, but the inclusion of in-app purchases is a serious problem.
Trials Frontier: On the plus side
RedLynx’s Trials HD and Trials Evolution are two of my favourite, hard as nails racing games for the Xbox 360 and PC, so my expectations around an iOS version were, to say it, rather high.
You can’t just slap the Trials name onto any old motorbike game and expect it to to fly. I was concerned when the game softlaunched in Finland and Canada with IAP elements as well, because as we’ve seen before (cough… Dungeon Keeper.. Splutter…) it can be a fast way to ruin an otherwise slick game experience.
Trials Frontier is a slick game experience, though, and this is easily the most impressive part of this particular port. You’re limited to simple buttons for leaning back and forwards, along with accelerator and brake controls, and while it’s not quite up to the admittedly high standard of the “full” game controls, what it does manage to do is give the game an authentic Trials feel. What you get is a light, casual Trials stunt experience set against a cyberpunk future.
It’s bite-sized Trials, which means that the repetition of tricky stunts and time trials has largely been replaced with a mission structure set around a very loose plot that sees you racing for loot that accrues at the end of each race, handed out with a randomised loot wheel. You replay tracks to get the current fetch quest objective, which isn’t exactly a fresh game mechanic, but an acceptable one in small doses.
As long as that’s all you’re after, Trials Frontier delivers the same kind of addictive gameplay as its more full-fat siblings. That’s not to say that it’s bereft of issues.
Next Page: Trials Frontier: On the minus side