Nice physics, boring levels

Trial Extreme seemed wonderful at first blush. The physics are solid. The bikes rortation is responsive to you tilting of the iPhone. That part works. The early levels are also interesting. Then the developer apparently ran out of ideas. One caveat. Im old. I have played Excite Bike on the original Nintendo, some dirt bike game on the Intellivision, a Microsoft dirt bike racer, and now an iPhone dirt bike racer. The one factor that makes a dirt bike game great instead of mediocre are courses. Excite Bike and the Intellivision handily came with their own course creator. Trial Extreme should have too. Certainly I couldn not have done any worse.

For the sake of argument: a random pile of cars is not a level. Piecing together two pieces of two other tracks is not a level. A whole bunch of logs on the tack is not a level. What is a level? A well thought out serivies of ramps, landings, and hazards is a level. There are very few fun levels in Trial Extreme. The rest are just as described: piles of cars, piles of logs, and some mismatched jumps. The dificulty is also apotty, with no apparent progression of difficulty.

The lack of good levels is dissapointing because jumping a dirt bike is fun. Virtually it is fun. In real life it is frighteningly dangerous. I mean, who says to themselves, "I want to fly 30 feet in the air and have a small motorcycle land on my spine!"? Fun in theory and unimaginable in practice. That is the concept this game should encapsulate. Instead we get a a decent physics engine and dozens of lame levels. I imagine a TV makeover show for apps. Some veteran game designer swoops in to save an app like this. A few tweaks here and there, and *poof*, the game is fun.

Also, the sound could be better. The pbpbpbpb of the engine is weak. The sound of a snapping spine would be nice.

bioadam about Trial Xtreme 1