A massive next gen leap for the old skool trial bike game.
This new edition of the Trials franchise is definitely a next generation game. After playing it, I tried the previous trials game and thought: "this looks like crap compared to Trials 2 SE!" The graphics use plenty of state of the art do-whackies like shaders, per-pixel occlusion, volumetric particles, ambient lighting and so on. In english, it means that light sources dynamically showers the map with accurately calculated shadows, sparks fly, there's smoke, even fires react to the air you displace; It's simply breathtaking! You will need a quite decent video card to run the game with all the eye-candy but there's a visually lighter version of the game for lower-end cards, provided it supports the Pixel Shader 2.0 technology which is a minimum requirement to even get the game to run at all; so it doesn't look bad even in lower quality mode, not even close to previous games of the series.
The sounds are pretty much what you'd expect from this kind of game. The music isn't bad and fits the game well but like in most games, it gets annoying after a while. Fortunately, it can be turned off while leaving sound effects on. The sounds are adequate and new voices add something nice and gloomy to the game and they can be turned off individually as well, but if you're like me, you'll like to hear the occasional "outstanding!" when you beat your highscore and the evil laugh when you crash at the end of a hard track on an otherwise pefect run.
The gameplay aspect is really where the game shines though, it's really hard to know where to start. One of the big features is that the game is evolving and patches are downloaded automatically by the game when new stuff is released. There is a huge community to the game, including dedicated forums, in-game records, rankings and achievements, all displayed on the website as well. All records, from anyone, can be viewed live or raced against as a ghost. You can also browse your personal stats as well as your team's and your country's stats. I never quite understood why we don't see these features in more PC games...
The riding aspect by itself is obviously the cornerstone of the game, and the physics engine behind the bike controls is what makes this game what it is. While most games require you to understand the scripted motions available to you to progress, in this one, you have to learn and predict the way to use physics to be able to pull the moves you need to. This concept makes this game really easy to pick-up because the controls are minimalist: throttle, brake, lean left and lean right: that is all there is to it. Sounds simple enough? You couldn't be more wrong. The thing is, these simple controls allow for an almost endless possibilities of different movements. Unlike in many games, where pressing a button makes you pull and hold a wheelie at will, in this one you have to actually balance your weight and throttle to hold one. The other way is like fast food for me, I call it lazy gaming. I like the idea that I'm in perfect (or lack of) control of my bike.
The most important moves in this game involves leaping, and once again, this ain't no Mario Bros. : you don't jump by pressing a button. Every leap is a different challenge in this game. Some people are put off by the game's learning curve and difficulty but it's the very reason that makes Trials 2 Second Edition a winner. It will keep this game challenging for ever. Mainly because "perfection" in this game is an abstract concept that can always be improved on. This is all thanks to the physics engine: every weight shift, position, bounce, pitch etc.. will affect the way your bike reacts, and control inputs are precise to one hundredth of a second. All movements are precisely calculated without randomness: the game redoes everything you did when you load a replay or ghost. That's the secret of holding 100,000+ replays on their server is that they don't record replays, just log your keypresses. All these factors make this a skill based game, a grueling one at that, it can be as fun as it can be frustrating. Actually, being frustrated has never been so much fun and compelling.
Another superb use of the very detailed physics engine in Trials 2 SE is the Dynamic levels. In these you have freely moving objects instead of static ones. Some involves rolling barrels, planks wobbling and falling, sometimes causing chain reactions and you have to manage to pass these in motion and it's absolutely an experience of it's own. Those levels can be very hard, but mostly they are fun and bring something new to the series that was critically acclaimed by fans.
In conclusion, this game is a hardcore sport competition game. Don't expect anything more, but what it does, it does very well and is designed with love by developers who are fans of the game themselves and it shows. Developers also want to hear their fan's opinions on the forums so they can improve the game by focusing on popular requests. One of those requests was more easy and dynamic tracks, and it was answered in version 1.06 and we're promised there's more to come in the future, free as always for anyone who already bought the game.
Graphics: A 20$ game that looks as good as many full priced 3D titles.
Sounds: Fits the game and does the job, nothing fancy.
Gameplay: The physics engine in this game makes for a superb gameplay experience.
Replay Value: I can't get bored of this, need I say more?
Final Rating: 9.5
QcChopper