Trials’ bikes operate under entirely unique laws of physics, bouncing and rolling in ways that are far from realistic. However, it has the rather deleterious side-effect of revealing the main issue at the core of the Trials series: it’s not a motorbike riding game. It goes far too far on occasions, like having the camera rotate as you try to ride, making it deeply tedious to control, but clearly fun has been had here taking the Trials formula somewhere very silly. But the bike tracks offer ridiculous grandiosity of exploding scenery, screeching dragons, neon horror and the like. The platforming sequences are, as I’ve said, atrocious. The cartoon sequences are mostly incredibly boring, once more attempting to intersperse the clips with VHS blips of adverts and the like that have been ‘taped over’, and once again seeming to have been written and created by people who weren’t actually alive in the ‘80s – internet acronyms and energy drinks (other than Lucozade/Gatorade) weren’t a thing then, folks. What is unquestionably nicely delivered is the hyperbole of the tracks. And while no one in the gaming world could have predicted this: the addition of a grappling hook actually makes this game worse. The addition of a gun on the right stick (or mouse cursor, but really, no) is entirely unwelcome, meaning you’re now trying to shoot at targets while messing with the muddly physics. Where a Trials game should obviously shine is in the challenging tracks to race along, but there seems to have been considerable effort to ruin these as often as possible, too. “But!” I can imagine someone involved in the project objecting, “It’s not meant to be top-of-the-range combat, against smart enemies – it’s just a light-hearted…” But let me cut them off there, because it’s a colossal pile of shit – it’s bad, and it’s on sale that way. It feels like a placeholder for when they get around to properly programming it, along with the accompanying combat against nothing AI enemies. That Ubisoft and Redlynx considered it in any way suitable to release is bewildering. It’s really hard to convey quite how abysmal the platforming is. Ghastly, floaty jumping makes it feel like one of those freeware games you’d get piled onto magazine cover discs, complete with abysmal edge detection, skiddy unanimated landings, and timing-based jumping sections thwarted by its own incompetence rather than your own. The resultant mess of Trials Of The Blood Dragon is dismissive but entertainingly overblown Trials levels occasionally interspersed between incompatible cartoon sequences about Vietnam War 4 and cancerous growths (yeah), and some of the most dreadful platforming I’ve seen since the 90s. Here is what it was most certainly not built for: On foot twin-stick platforming. Here is what the Trials engine is built for: Nine years of stunty motorbike riding with a weird physics thing that makes you roll backward far too easily. So, well, it’s a bit odd that this new Trials spin-off makes exactly the same mistake, and so many more besides. In the end, its Peter Kay-ish “DO YOU REMEMBER THE EIGHTIES?!?!” felt hollow and often bewildering. Trying to spoof both at once, for seemingly no reason, it ended up spoofing neither – instead producing an unrecognisable hybrid of cheesy cartoons with incongruous swearing. Perhaps the strangest aspect of the underwhelming Far Cry 3 spin-off, Blood Dragon, was its conflation of 1980s Saturday morning cartoons, and the decade’s violent action movies. Because someone, somewhere, let leave of their senses. While there are, unquestionably, moments that are similar to what you’d expect from Redlynx, the majority of this festival of dreadful takes place off the bike. Even if you’re the biggest Trials fan in the world, steer so well clear of this. I’m a little surprised they acknowledged it after release. And having played this towering turd all day, one I can understand their wanting to keep a secret for as long as possible. Combining Red Lynx’s long-running motorbike stunt platformer with their half-idea standalone Far Cry: Blood Dragon is a bold choice. Ubisoft surprise announced, then immediately surprise released, a new game last night: Trials Of The Blood Dragon.
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