Motorcycle racing games appeared to be running out of fuel in 2008, with Nintendo abandoning its classic Excitebike brand for the disappointing Excite Truck and THQ dumping mediocre MX vs. ATV games onto every capable system.

The outlook was just as muddy on the PC, where the platform's best franchise, Microsoft's Motocross Madness, showed no signs of ending an almost decade-long retirement.

For a time, it looked as if the PlayStation 3's MotorStorm might end up being the only great motorbike series on the current generation of hardware.

It took three attempts from RedLynx, a small development team located in Helsinki, Finland, to finally reverse the diminishing fortunes of motorcycle racers. On August 12, 2009, RedLynx released Trials HD during Xbox Live's second annual Summer of Arcade promotion.

In its first month, Trials HD was downloaded over 300,000 times. By June 2011, Trials HD and its two expansion packs, Big Thrills and Big Pack, had registered over 2 million downloads. To date, Trials HD is the 7th best-selling Xbox Live Arcade game of all-time, in the same class as sales behemoths Castle Crashers (2nd), The Walking Dead (4th) and Minecraft (1st).

RedLynx's 2012 follow-up, Trials Evolution, isn't far behind in the Xbox Live Arcade rankings, currently in 12th place despite its predecessor's three-year head start.

The Trials series launched its career on the PC, where it matured from a primitive Flash game (2000-2005) to a full STEAM release (2008) featuring 3D models and realistic physics.

But it was RedLynx's console versions, rebuilt to squeeze as much power as possible out of the Xbox 360's modest hardware, that catapulted Trials' faceless motorcycle hero into video game stardom.

What Holds Up

Much of the Trials series' popularity can be attributed to its brilliant physics engine and simple control scheme.

With gas (right trigger), brake (left trigger) and body lean (left joystick) as the game's only controls, Trials Evolution didn't need a twenty-minute tutorial or a twenty-page instruction manual to explain itself to people who hadn't played a previous version of the game.


Learning how to tilt, throttle and land your bike over tire stacks and tree trunks is a skill that comes as naturally as learning to ride your first Huffy bicycle down to your neighbor's mailbox.

When you inevitably reached that one level that you just couldn't seem to beat, the downloadable replay feature was there to show, with on-screen controller indicators, exactly what you were doing wrong and how you should manipulate your bike through troublesome obstacles.

While most gamers were not challenging the world's best Trials players, competing against your friends' top times was extremely satisfying, as Trials Evolution not only tracked your individual course records, but also kept a cumulative medal count across the entire game.

Trials Evolution even found a way to include 4-player simultaneous supercross races, which brought back fond memories of Excitebike 64 on the Nintendo 64.

Players' primary complaints with Trials HD included the game's uneven difficulty curve, repetitive warehouse environments and restrictive level sharing system.

Trials Evolution righted all three wrongs from RedLynx's first Xbox 360 game, offering a larger selection of beginner and intermediate courses, with many set in expansive outdoor areas. Additionally, server support from Microsoft finally allowed players to upload or download custom content directly from a central hub.

Trials Evolution was the first Xbox Live Arcade game to let players share custom content openly, as Microsoft had previously restricted content sharing over Xbox Live to where it could only occur among two friends who were online at the same time.


Video game companies have become hesitant to put powerful customization tools in the hands of their users. The few games that do include creation and editing kits often have to settle on dumbed-down, stripped-out, lawyer-approved tool sets. Trials Evolution, by contrast, gave its fans the exact same level editor that the designers used to craft the game's 100+ courses.

RedLynx even created a 32-part, 145-minute video tutorial covering all aspects of Trials Evolution's incredible in-game editor.

What Doesn't Hold Up

Trials Evolution released with several noticeable graphical flaws, including screen tearing and texture pop-in. Slow menus and aggravating load times also made jumping around the game's interface a chore. None of these visual issues were ever solved with a patch, suggesting that the game's massive amount of content and huge outdoor environments were simply pushing the Xbox 360 hardware beyond its limits.


Additionally, some of Trials Evolution's levels were designed with so many explosion effects, confusing camera shifts and dimly lit areas that the riding path became difficult to find among the visual chaos.

RedLynx's penchant for corny rap intros and grating hard rock music never seemed at peace with the natural beauty of Trials Evolution's game worlds. Many of the downloadable levels from the Riders of Doom and Origins of Pain expansion packs proved just how much better the Trials experience could be when the gameplay was accompanied by ambient electronic beats or a majestic orchestral score.

Final Recommendation

With three massive worlds to explore, plus an unlimited supply of free community tracks to download, Trials Evolution is the type of game players can keep coming back to until the next version, Trials Fusion, releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Windows computers in 2014.

Trials Evolution, now a year-and-a-half old, still offers the best value of any downloadable game on the Xbox 360.