A few years ago when I played Far Cry 3 (co-incidentally, another Ubisoft title), Vaas, the game’s villain posed me a question: “Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting shit to change.” That’s kind of what it feels like to play Trials Fusion. You fail and you rage and you swear that’s it, you’re done … but you keep going back. Over and over again.
Trials Fusion is physics-based puzzle/platformer, the latest in the five-game strong series. Loosely based on the real sport of motorcycle trials, it sees your attempting to defy gravity by riding a dirtbike over improbable terrain as quickly as possible.
The idea behind Trials Fusion is that it is set in the near future, the world torn to shreds by some sort of disaster that occurred following the creation of the “Anomaly AI”. The story is far from the game’s strongest suit and is little more than an excuse to build some crazy futuristic tracks in a variety of locales.
As a single player experience, Trials Fusion is not for those with a short fuse or a lack of patience. You are going to fail. A lot. The levels are fiendishly designed in such a way that you could play a given level a hundred times the exact same way and something different would happen to you every time. Your bike might hit a bump here just a little differently than last time and send the rear wheel into the air and over your head. You might hit that landing a little harder this time and send your rider tumbling over the handlebars. During extended play sessions, it can become absolutely infuriating to feel like you’re doing the right thing only to stack it inexplicably and have it ruin your otherwise perfect run.
The single player is broken down into a series of areas or Events, each with a number of races in them. Some take you through idyllic foothills, others through high tech cities, rainforests, deserts. There’s a nice variety of areas and each of them has a very distinct feel. To progress to the next Event you must earn a certain amount of medals which are gained by completing individual levels. Depending on your performance, you’ll earn a gold, silver or bronze medal. If you get the gold, you claim all three medals for the level which will lead to you opening up more Events much faster. It’s a simple system and one that encourages replayability.
Your controls are very simple. Right trigger accelerates and left trigger brakes. Right stick will allow you to make your rider do tricks. The left stick will adjust your lean back and forward, allowing you to move your rider’s weight around on the bike. Each level is filled with it’s own traps and hazards that are designed to trip you up – loops, ramps, slopes, pipes, water fountains, mag-lifts – the designers have done a really good job of making motorbike tracks that really feel hostile to you. This is not somewhere you should be trying to ride a motorcycle, and the environment is going to do it’s best to ruin your day.
There is also quite a bit of DLC available through the Season Pass now too. The Riders of the Rustlands, Empire of the Sky and Welcome to the Abyss Event packs are all available for Season Pass holders to grab now with another three map packs as yet unreleased. The Riders of the Rustland sees you navigating a Fallout-esque post-apocalyptic landscape, Empire of the Sky is all about high-technology and tranquil upper class mansions, far removed from the end of the world going on down below. Welcome to the Abyss takes you under the ocean, which is really cool and is an entirely different set of tracks to anything we’ve seen in the game before.
But if you do somehow manage to run out of in-game tracks to hoon about on, don’t worry. There’s also a feature called Track Central which is made up entirely of custom maps made by the game’s very devoted user base. Some of these tracks are a bit of a novelty but there are some that are on a par with the dev team’s efforts and those are the ones that’ll keep you going back. It’s one of Trials Fusion’s best points – you are absolutely spoiled for content no matter how you slice it.
There’s Tournament mode for those who are looking for play for an extended period with each Tourney clocking in at around a minimum of an hour and a half’s play which, if you can get through that, makes you a far more patient person than I am. I was pulling my hair out after fifteen minutes or so.
The multiplayer option surprised me in a really good way. I went in expecting to be dumped into an online lobby and added to a game of other people playing the game. When nothing happened for a second I started to pay attention again and realised that there is no online component. Trials Fusion’s multiplayer is that beloved but increasingly rare beast – couch co-op. You and any three of your friends can jump into the same game in the same room and attempt to navigate the game’s levels together. It’s really surprising how much fun the game is when you add in this anarchic aspect. We were hooting and trash talking each other in no time. I also found that the single player campaign is best played in short bursts, preferably in a fail, fail, pass arrangement. Get a few friends over and play. You stack it twice, you hand the controller on and so forth. It kept tempers from fraying too much and we actually managed to get through a large slice of the content that way.
There is one area where I absolutely have to criticise Trials Fusion and you may call me nitpicky for it, and you may well be right to do so. It’s the music. Specifically, the title screen music. It is just awful. I have never heard a worse song in my life. Truly, truly wretched. Now if someone would like to tell me how to get it out of my head, I’d really appreciate it because I can feel my mind unraveling as I type this.
Trials Fusion is an extremely well-designed platform puzzler and an interesting social experiment. Put the game in front of your friends and find out very quickly how short their tempers are. It’s infuriating and it will make you want to put your controller through the nearest window in short order, but it’s also very well put together and has a certain addictive quality to it.
Review Score: 7.0 out of 10
Highlights: Sinister track design, loads of content, big replayability
Lowlights: Will cause your blood pressure to skyrocket, “WELCOME TO THE FUTURE. MAN, MACHINE, THE FUTURE.”
Developer: RedLynx
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released: April 16, 2014
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC
Reviewed on Xbox One
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