Games I Want - Part II: Trials Evolution (XBLA)

This is a bit of an unplanned blog post today, but I felt I had to whenever I realised that Trials Evolution is released tomorrow on Xbox Live Arcade!

Trials HD is one of my favourite titles this generation.  At its core this is a platforming game with a time trial element - except you're on a motorbike.  And you're traversing through a strange obstacle course in some madman's warehouse.  There's no story, no reason behind what you're doing.  You're just trying to get from the start to the finish as fast as possible.  The controls themselves are very simple - accelerate, brake, lean forward, lean back - but it's all about using these moves in combination and with near perfect timing.  The early levels in Trials HD were pretty simple, involving a few ramps and jumps to allow you to just have fun working your way through them.  As you get on to the harder courses the game gets tough - like hair pulling, controller throwing tough!  I'm proud to say I was able to complete all the Trials of the first game - though some of them took a lot of attempts.

So what does Trials Evolution bring to the table to up the ante?  To be honest if it was just more of the same I'd still be hyped about the game and would buy it in a flash, but surely it's not just called "Evolution" for a laugh?

As you can see from the above screenshot the action moves outside of the weird warehouse seen in Trials HD and into larger landscapes and some frankly stunning backgrounds.  If you look a little closer at the screenshot though you'll see something that has me really excited.  Yep, there are four bikes in that shot, all racing at the same time.  One of the most addicting things about Trials HD was the online leaderboards - completing a track, seeing how you stack up against your friends, and then doing your damnedest to beat them!  The feature was brilliantly integrated to the game as it gave you notifications during the level of how you were doing in relation to your friends and I'd imagine it will still be integral in Evolution, however the ability to actually race your friends in real time will be manic and a hell of a load of fun.

They also seem to have improved the level editor a whole lot making anything possible if the trailer is to be believed.  To be honest I don't have the patience to make the most of a feature like this, but for a lot of people this will be the main draw of the game.  If you're a LittleBigPlanet fan then this will interest you greatly.  And hey, even if you don't plan on making any levels yourself at least you can try out other people's creations!  

As this is just a preview I'm not sure of what else has been added/improved but I know I'll be spending hours finding out - check out the jaw dropping trailer below and let me know what you think.  Hopefully I'll see you on those leaderboards!

Phil

P.S. If you ever played Elastomania you will love this game.  If you never played Elastomania then go and download it right now!

Games I Want - Part I: Fez Preview

I have to say, my favourite "innovation" of this generation is downloadable games like those available on XBLA. They've brought back the kind of so called 'simple' games of years gone by that wouldn't have a shot in hell of being a success if you stuck them in a shop for £40, that's if shops would even stock them.

Fez is latest game to be released on XBLA, and it's got me very interested. At first glance it could be any old 2D platformer from the 8 bit era as the graphics are very simple, but the art style is fantastic and of course they've been HD'd up and as a result the game looks beautiful.

As was the case with a lot of NES era games the simple visuals seem to mask what is a much more complex game. The 'twist' in Fez is a literal one, as you can manipulate the 2D plane to give a new perspective on the environment allowing you to discover unseen items or find a new path to continue through the level. This gameplay mechanic has the potential to turn into a puzzle game nearly as much as a platformer.

Fez was released yesterday for 800 MS points so somewhere around the £6 mark, cheaper than I expected given that most high profile Arcade games come out for 1200 points. I've downloaded the free trial but haven't given it a go yet, if anyone has then feel free to post your thoughts below. I'll be sure to buy the full version once I get some points loaded onto my account and will have a full review once I complete it. That could be a while given my stack at the minute! Reviews for the game have been mostly glowing so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it.

Why not download the free trial and let me know what you think? It's free and you might discover a gem. Thanks again for reading.

Phil

Press A to Start

Hello,

I expect most people reading this will know me, but if not, Hi, I'm Phil.
I've been using the screen name bigphil2003 in various places for a long time now, even before 2003. Why 2003 then? I don't even really know now but it's not important. I'm taller than average, but by no means 'big' so none of it really makes sense so let's not get stuck on the details.
It might seem a bit self indulgent but I created this blog mostly for me, but it might interest other people too and if it does that's great. Everything I put here will just be my opinion so feel free to get involved with anything you agree with, or even better disagree with!

However long this venture into blogging manages to capture my attention I'll be making posts about games I'm currently playing, games I've recently completed, upcoming games that I'm looking forward to or games from days gone by that I just feel like talking about for some nostalgia induced reason. I'll probably cover some other topics like trends or standard features in gaming past, present or future. Basically I'm using this as a dumping ground for my thoughts, part of the reason behind the name "Scrap Brain Zone". The other part of the reason is that the Sonic the Hedgehog series on the Sega Mega Drive is one of my favourite game series ever and was a big part of my childhood.

I've always had a love for gaming ever since my cousin first passed on my first "console", a black box of some sort that came with two paddles attached by the same type of curly chord they use on telephones and about 20 black and white games, most of which were different variations of Pong. Ever since then I've always had some form of gaming machine and while I've certainly had some loyalty and personal preference to certain companies I've never been a 'fanboy'.

Currently I'm an owner of Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and a Nintendo 3DS. Of those three my Xbox definitely gets the most play but I'm a sucker for first party Nintendo games! You'll notice I don't have a PS3 so I'll not be covering an awful lot of Sony's exclusives but if you're a PS3 fan I'll still have plenty to interest you with multiplatform games. I'm not a Sony hater by any means and have been tempted a few times by the PS3, but I've a big enough play queue as it is. One thing I will say is that I hate the Playstation controllers, specifically the analogue sticks - seriously, what the hell is up with them?!

Anyway, I hope you'll find something of interest for you here, if so hit the comment button! If not, well, I'll enjoy it anyway. My first proper post (hopefully less wordy) will be coming soon and probably on either XBLA title Joe Danger or Sonic Generations (multiplat)


Phil