Both the original Urban Trial Freestyle and last year's stunt bike sequel managed to stick their landings on 3DS, though it's fair to say that neither game really attempted any outrageous stunts. At first glance, developer Teyon seems to have declined the opportunity to try something a little more gnarly with Switch exclusive Urban Trial Playground. To all intents and purposes, this is yet another 2.5D stunt racer in thrall to the Trials series.
Before long, however, you'll come to appreciate that Urban Trial Playground represents an extremely focused and surprisingly nuanced progression for the series. Once again your mission is to ride from left to right on a dirt bike, avoiding crashes, gaining air, and pulling off stunts. Key to this is a familiar body-balance system where pushing right on the left analog stick will lean your biker forward, while pushing left achieves the opposite. On the floor this will let you adjust where your weight is positioned on your bike, while in the air it will enable you to pull off flips.
So far so run of the mill. There are a couple of small but meaningful additions that subtly enrich the stunt-biking formula, however. It's relatively easy to pull off a sustained wheelie in Urban Trial Playground, though it remains just precarious enough to be enjoyable. This feeds into the fact that riding on your back wheel is the fastest way to travel along flat sections. It isn't scared to stretch its levels out a little more to suit, and the result is a stunt-fuelled game that can still feel blisteringly fast.
Another new inclusion is the provision of independent front and rear brakes, which are thoughtfully assigned to ZL and ZR. The rear brake is generally more practical, but skillful use of the front brake enables you to force a stoppie (a front wheelie) and speed up the pace of a front flip. The final control addition we should mention is a smart jump-extension system that requires both skill and timing to perform. Holding down on the analog stick to duck on the saddle, then up just before the edge of a ramp will give your rider extra air.
While you're not forced to master that last move, it's a big help when it comes to reaching some of the mid-air chip collectibles, or to access some of the subtle level splits that can take you onto rooftops and awnings. Indeed, Urban Trial Playground as a whole is a remarkably welcoming game to play. It's both startlingly easy and fun to blast through a whole bunch of levels in a row, simply enjoying the speed and fluidity of the racing. But there's also plenty of incentive to return and absolutely rinse a stage.
Besides the aforementioned chip collectibles that are hidden throughout each level, you also get given a rating out of five stars depending on how many points you accumulate. In addition there are multiple challenges to tick off, such as achieving a certain number of front flips, landing a set jump distance, or simply completing a clean run. You might want to revisit earlier levels as you unlock new and more capable bikes, or when you get enough credit to enhance your existing ride with better components. It's a sign of the game's welcoming nature that when you do get a new bike, the components you've already bought can be transferred over.
All of this, and the game looks crisp and colourful - if a little lacking in personality. It moves like a dream too, especially in docked mode. The frame rate seems less fluid in handheld mode, and it's a game that's evidently been optimised for a large 1080p display. This is comfortably the most handsome handheld Urban Trial game yet, regardless. There's no online multiplayer, unfortunately, but local multiplayer fans are well catered for with a range of two-player split-screen modes. The option to chase down your opponent after a brief head start, in particular, really drives home the game's intoxicating balance of speed and precision.
Conclusion
Urban Trial Playground may not reinvent the stunt bike wheel, but it does provide an extremely fluid and inviting arcade experience for Switch owners. Tactile controls and pacy, highly replayable levels make this an accomplished cut-price racer package.
Comments 23
This one looks fun.
Sold!
This looks good. Is this done by the people that did ‘trials’ or did they put trial in the title to kind of make people think it was?
Didn't even know this was coming! Really enjoy the Trials games on Xbox and have heard good things about the past Urban Trial games. It's a style that's perfect for portable play.
Now bring over TrackMania Turbo (or a new game in that series).
Love the series and its inspiration. Day 1.
@Mr_Pepperami The word "Trials" in relation to motorcycle stunt riding was not invented by RedLynx, the developer of the Trials series. Trials riding was a popular real life sport for many decades before RedLynx made their first Trials game. I'm not saying this game isn't inspired by the RedLynx Trials games, but even if it wasn't, it would make sense for it to use the word "Trials" in its title since that's the real-life sport it's modeled after.
In case you didn't know, this is the real-life sport these games are inspired by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_trials
@bilboa thanks for the info but yeah I was aware of the sport as used to go watch a lot of it when I was a kid. Was more the name and the style of game is very similar and was just wondered if it was a conscious choice by the developers to pick up a few more sales off of that misinterpretation. Game looks well worth it though
@Mr_Pepperami Ah ok, sorry for assuming you didn't know.
I think it's somewhat unavoidable that other games about motorcycle trials riding will benefit from RedLynx's Trials games having popularized the genre. I don't see any evidence that the devs of this game are intentionally trying to mislead gamers into thinking this is related to RedLynx's games though. The real-life sport that's the inspiration for these games is called "trials riding", so it makes sense that games modeled after it would use the word "trials" in their name.
I would say that if a developer is the first to make a game modeled after a real-life sport, and they want to have ownership of the name, it would be up to them to invent a made up name for the game instead of using the real name. For example if the developer of the first tennis computer game called their game "Tennis", it wouldn't seem reasonable to me to assume other developers who use the word "tennis" in their game titles are trying to be misleading. It just makes sense to use "tennis" in the title of a game that's inspired by tennis. Now if the original dev used their own made up word, like I don't know, "Pong", as the title of their game, then if other developers used a similar name for a similar game, it would seem like they might be trying to be misleading.
@bilboa I totally get what you are saying mate and agree. It was just a thought as it looked so similar and the name matched up to a degree
@Mr_Pepperami I get you. In fact I agree that this game was almost certainly inspired by RedLynx's games and the devs are probably consciously hoping to benefit from RedLynx having popularized this type of game. I just don't see the fact that they used "trial" in the game title to be problematic or intentionally misleading.
Awesome. I'll be buying this, really enjoyed Urban Trial Freestyle on the Vita.
Looks very similar to those Trials games on 3DS
Price?
I've always been surprised on these releases; They've always handled well and were always fairly inexpensive for what you got. I do wonder the price on this one though.
It is really quite a nice game with loads of fun to be had. I have played it for review purpose the last few days and having a blast. It runs in native 720p and upscaled to 1080p in docked mode.
Framerate is unlocked and scales over a range of 30-50fps. All according to the devs. Certainly is a perfect fit for handhelds and the loading times are short with instant retrys.
Sounds like a so-so game, why the 8?
I played the first on 3ds, it had its moments, but is mostly forgettable.
I'd love to get Trials on the Switch. Maybe some Ubisoft love might come this way? No?
The PS3 iteration was pretty good... now it's just a matter of price?
Appears to be $19.99... worth that? Probably...
But no mention in the review of game length, does it get repetitive, etc.
And why in the world would the frame rate noticeably suffer in handheld mode for a game this simple... that's unacceptable. Apparently it's only 30 FPS at its max, which is sad enough, but it dips below this in handheld?
@EasyDaRon its not made by the people who made those games, the devs of this game only made Urban Trial Freestyle and Urban Trial Freestyle 2
Nice. I love the Urban Trial games on 3DS and I forgot about the Switch getting one. I will definitely be checking this out.
Surprising score, tbh.
Looks okay, I had an earlier version of this game on my PS Vita and it was nothing special. Totally the kind of game I would wait to get on sale if I ever buy it.
Like on the 3DS, this game will be fun for short play sessions and are a good alternative as long as an original Trails game doesn't come to the Switch soon. I'll buy it
I can't vouch for docked mode, but in handheld mode, loading times are excessively long. Jumping back to a checkpoint occurs instantly during a stage, but loading from one level to the next, or even just the main menu is quite long (over 10 seconds) and considering the brevity of the average stage (under a minute), it really drags down the experience. Unfortunately, restarting a stage in order to reset any penalties will also subject you to the full loading length.
Lack of customisation options is also really disappointing. Some more options, or even the option to remove certain articles of clothing (shoes/tops perhaps) would have been welcome as I didn't like any of the (extremely limited range of) shoes or tops on offer.
It's a very simple arcade-like experience, and while I ordinarily would never even consider splurging on something like this, I was drawn to the lovely environments (it's a shame that an open-world mode of some kind wasn't included, as I would love to explore the in-game world).
It's nothing particularly special, but it is a solid arcade experience for those who know what they are getting. Just don't expect a great deal of content and replay value. All in all, a short and sweet arcade-style game that is surprisingly appealing.
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