Trials Evolution
To infinity and beyond.
A library of editing tools taken straight from the design process and thrust into the players' hands has made all of this possible. All of the track content in Trials Evolution has been created with the same plastic controller that sits underneath your television – and it's the same one you'll use in Trials Evolution to create your own.
The Pro Editor mode features a bewildering array of options, from the modification of physical properties, to a sculpting mode that allows you to terraforming the pre-existing playground. For those new to the experience, and who might prefer a somewhat tamer tinker, the simpler Track Editor offers all of the fun with less of the fuss, placing a greater focus on the placement of objects and the setting of ambience.
User-created tracks will be shared through the Track Central Hub. It's a powerful tool that's presented with simplicity – at a glance, you'll see new tracks, the top-rated, the most-downloaded, along with a selection of favourites hand-picked by RedLynx.
As well as leaderboard functionality for each user-created course, personal favourites can also be sorted into feeds - whether you wish to organise your play session through Skill games, new courses or even themed courses.
While they sadly won't make it into the final release, we even saw hints of the creative freedom embraced by the StarCraft II community to create games unrecognisable from the parent title. Takes on Breakout and PacMan have been faithfully recreated internally, only hinting at the potential once the community gleefully takes control of the game.
The Skill games in particular have benefited from this LittleBigPlanet mentality. Whether free of bikes, or indeed traditional tracks, S.P.H.E.R.E. is one example that sees you guiding a steel ball across a Marble Madness landscape, set 500m above the canyon.
Other skill games put you in the role of a high-wire trapeze act, flung from beam to beam in a game of last-minute timing. In the Icarus Factor, players take control of a frantically unwieldy UFO. Balls of Steel places an arched frame over the bike, one that contains a giant steel ball-bearing that rocks ever more precariously out of control as you navigate the course.
Rather than the simple, often rather unsatisfying diversions of the previous games, the developer has remodeled these Skill scenarios into a fun but crucial method of teaching players how to master the finer arts of precision control.
There's simply so much to this true evolution of a treasured gaming franchise for its devotees to be excited about: the euphoric, post-claustrophobia burst through sun-drenched landscapes, the near infinite potential for user-driven longevity, and a fully evolved competitive design.
The newcomer will be encouraged and guided into the subtler demands of advanced techniques, while players who currently sit somewhere in the middle ground - content to simply enjoy the tracks less egregious than the Extreme class - will be inspired to dig deeper. Hardcore players can be assured of a high-end level of difficulty that led us to witness some of the world's finest Trials players struggle with hill-climbs.
Have no doubt, Trials is still as hard as coffin nails - but your success or failure remains squarely in your own hands.