DLC Review: This is for an expansion of the Trials HD game. You must have Trials HD purchased and installed on your system to use this product.
Trials HD has always been an easy game to learn, it’s the various stages that added complexity to it since many of the later ones required precise throttle control and understanding in how to shift your rider’s weight. Thus it could be said the heart of Trials HD has been its levels and while making an easy level is quite simple, there is a fine line between making a track for advanced players and one that is basically impossible to complete. What the Big Thrills pack does is compile forty tracks, some of them made by fans of the game, and sells them to you. It’s true that you could build many of them in the level editor yourself, but what you’re paying for is both convenience and quality filtering; one download gives you all these tracks at once and most of them are very good.
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While each difficulty class got at least one new stage in Big Thrills, they aren’t divided evenly. Beginner difficulty only got one new track and Easy got eight, while Medium got thirteen and Hard received fifteen (plus three more are Extreme courses), so it’s fair to say most of this track is for intermediate to advanced players. The courses offer an impressive spread of ideas, with one stage consisting of almost nothing but bouncing jumps when played correctly, another requires you to go through significant parts of it in reverse, while another still has you racing along a series of very sharp inclines; your mastery of weight-shifting will be put to the test.
Like many later courses in the main Trials HD game, the Big Thrills courses don’t tolerate players just smashing the throttle down as hard as they can. You will have to use a steady and measured hand at many points, applying just enough throttle to clear some obstacles without flipping over or flying past your landing point. Just like in the main game, that means there will be several points where a single tiny mistake knocks your bike over and you’ll have to restart from the checkpoint... then make another slight mistake and restart again, done several times over just a few minutes. This makes completing a Big Thrills course feel like a great accomplishment, but at the same time it will make them frustrating much like advanced courses in the original game were.
The Big Thrills pack is a pretty good expansion to the game, covering a mix of track ideas across most difficulty levels. While not every stage is good, the overwhelming majority of them are and when you’re getting forty of them for $5 USD/400 Microsoft Points, that’s a pretty good way to keep yourself entertained for a while. If you still enjoy Trials HD, or would come back to it if you had lots of new stages to play, then pick up the Big Thrills pack. Just go in understanding that most of its content is for experienced players, with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies.
