In Urban Trial Freestyle, you control a dude on a motocross bike. The environments are 3d, but you only operate on a 2d plane. Your bike is oriented going left to right, and it can't change direction. Your only controls are acceleration (X), brakes (Square), and shifting the rider's weight around (left analog stick). You can also go very slowly in reverse by pressing the brake twice and holding it down. That's it. Very simple. But there is a lot of nuance to this control scheme.
In each level, you must go from left to right and go over obstacles with the goal of either completing the stage as fast as possible or scoring points by completing stunts at certain spots in the level, depending on which type of level you are playing. In race levels, you must beat certain times to earn stars. In stunt levels, you need to get high ratings on specific stunts you do at specific points in the level to earn points to earn stars. Stunts include things like jumping high or long off specific ramps, getting your speed up as you cross certain lines, and landing on certain bulls eye areas. Stars are then used to unlock new levels.
If you've ever seen a trials rider in real life, you'll know the basic mechanic of the game. If you're unfamiliar with the idea, trials riders are really good at riding up obstacles. In real life, they can climb sheer walls and make fantastic cat-like leaps between obstacles. It's pretty amazing. So in the game, you are mainly climbing obstacles using the same kind of techniques you might see in real life, such as rapidly accelerating to jump high or long, leaning hard into the bike to make it climb a steep incline, and using ramps to launch a bike up and then balancing it on one tire until you can roll the whole bike where it needs to go. I've only seen this type of riding a few times on tv, but from what I remember, the animation in this game is pretty spot on. The bike moves realistically. That's not to say this is a realistic game, because it isn't at all, which leads us back to the theme I was talking about at the beginning...
You are trial riding in urban environments that are populated with people and activity. It reminds me of the way I used to imagine a skier just outside my car window when riding in the back seat as a kid, riding through the snow over every obstacle we passed. You ride through construction sites, office buildings, mines, junkyards, highways, you name it. And all of these places are bustling with activity, some of which is window dressing, and some of which comes into play. And it isn't just any activity. It's all negative. Cars and trains are always crashing. People are fighting or arguing. All kinds of over-the-top accidents are occurring, and you are riding right through the center of the chaos. Something bad is about to happen to everyone and everything you see. More than that, everything seems destroyed and half-held together with people camped out inside half-destroyed buildings, like the city is just starting to rebuild after a bad war or something. Or maybe your character is the harbinger of destruction, bringing chaos wherever he rides. News headlines that play on the radio during the title screen seem to back-up the idea that something bad is going on. The headlines are often about natural disasters and other problems that you might hear about on the real-life news. It's almost like the game is trying to make a statement about the way people fight with each other, the way natural disasters and tragedies are part of our everyday lives, and the way accidents with machines, like cars and trains and infrastructure, are a part of our lives as well (just this past weekend I saw a car on the highway totally engulfed in flames). I think the developers really were trying to make a statement of some kind. It works really well since it never tells you this statement, just shows it to you in the world and lets you really feel it.
It also lets you revel in the chaos. Cops are always on your trail, and you end up riding over their cars as they pull up. You'll gleefully ride through horrific traffic pile-ups on the highway. You witness over-the-top destruction of vehicles, machinery, structures and more, some in the background, and some falling apart as you ride over it (or because you rode over it). Some of the crashes and scenes in the game are really horrific and crazy, but the game manages to walk the line of having those parts be fun action scenes yet still giving you a little bit of food for thought about the fact that we all drive around in cars at 65 miles an hour and that this will cause the deaths of thousands of people.
The levels can generally be stumbled through in just a few minutes, but earning enough stars to keep the new levels flowing requires good performance. You generally need to get the feel of each new level before you can earn the 3rd-5th stars in it. A lot happens in the levels, and knowing what is going to come is key to racing through quickly or setting yourself up just right to complete stunts. It's also fun to just slowly work your way through the levels for the first time as well, experimenting until you figure each obstacle out. This is made easy by the fact that you can reset to the last checkpoint instantly by pressing triangle (which you also have to do if you crash. You crash constantly).
The game has a pretty strict star quota for opening levels. About three-quarters through, I started really having to work to get the new levels open. You can earn five stars on each level, and the game basically requires you to have 4 star ratings on most levels and 5 on some to keep the new levels coming. This is a bit too strict, especially since even a not-so-great player will have a blast stumbling through the later levels. The requirements are so strict, I almost quit before opening the last few levels, even though I really wanted to see them. I stuck with it though, and it was totally worth it; the last two stages are incredible. If only I had known that upgrading my equipment would make a big difference in performance. You see, you can find money hidden away on the tracks in out of the way spots. Picking it up lets you buy parts for the bike. This didn't seem too important to me at first as the low to mid-level parts don't seem to make a huge difference in performance. But if you buy and equip all the best parts, your bike performs drastically better than even the mid-level equipment. So much so that I ran through the game again once I maxed out my equipment and was able to earn quite a few extra stars.
The game also has 5 challenge stages, which are less-realistic levels that you unlock by beating groups of normal stages. One has you blowing yourself up to see how far you can fling your body. Another has you picking up icons for points along with multipliers. The final one is a really great and fun use of sixaxis control, which I won't spoil here.
The graphics in the game are really good realistic-style graphics. Very impressive and varied. I think the main design of the biker is not that great, but you can change his clothes into some better looking stuff. The music is pretty good, but maybe not as hard as it could have been. Some of the lighter tracks don't seem to fit to me. I've been listening to a lot of metal lately, and I feel like that would have been a better fit. I could be wrong though.
Did I mention the game is super-fun? The controls are instantly understandable yet impossible to master. Every little movement and button tap counts, and the tracks can be worked in so many different ways. Every stage is intuitive to get through yet challenging if you are trying to excel. And all the stuff going on in the background and throughout the play area gives the game a big shot of excitement and creates and interesting and thought provoking theming. That's why Urban Trial Freestyle is a great game, tier 2. Next time you drive by that construction site on the way to work, just imagine...
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