Introduction
Today’s game is a 36.9Mb download that unzips to a set up and read me document. The games installation defaults to C:\Games\MTTrials and is 139Mb in size once unpacked. There is no desktop or start menu shortcut installed, so you'll need to create these yourself. If you aren't too sure how to do the start menu short cut (or the desktop) you can find a short tutorial over in the giveawayoftheday frums:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2594
The Game:
The game opens up to a simple main menu with continue, (indicating that level progress can be saved), new game, options, help and exit. The options menu is very simple with only music and sound options. The help menu only describes the key bindings available in game which are:
Roll Left…………..………..L. cursor
Roll Right……………..……R. cursor
Forwards…………………..up cursor
Move Backwards…..…down cursor
Nitro………………………...Space
Pause…………………….…Esc
No explanation of power ups such as nitro or air is menmtioned.
When starting a new game you have to set up your player’s profile. You can set up to 6 profiles (maybe more, but there only appears to be 6 slots). Once this is done you progress to the level selection page of which there are only 8 levels. To progress from one level to the next you have to attain a bronze medal. Once this is done the next level is unlocked. There are two vehicles to choose from, Bigfoot and Buggy (which looks more like a van than a buggy), though the buggy is locked at the beginning of the game.
The game reminds me of Trials 2: Second Edition, though Trials 2 has far more sophisticated graphics, more levels; that are much,’ much’ harder and also has an online scoring system that is worldwide. This game appears to have no high scores table. Races are based on times, but if you don't attain at least a bronze time the game is null and void, that is, there is no record of your game play. Even then the only evidence you've attained anything is through the games save system, which is automatic.
I ended up crashing on my first attempt so automatically pressed R for reset (as you do in a lot of racing games<?em>), but all that did was create some weird graphical glitch that made my vehicle fall through the levels graphic into nothingness. So if you get stuck, you have to restart the game by exiting, and starting from afresh. There seems to be some bugs in this game, but, that said, I really enjoyed playing it for a limited time. (Trying to beat my times, and progress to the next level. After failing to beat the bronze time the first full race I completed, I then managed to whiz through three levels, even attaining a silver medal on my sixth try. Unfortunately wanting to post this short review as early as possible stopped me from exploring the game further. I think the buggy will unlock once you complete all levels. I'm assuming it will have a different response (that is; react differently to the controls) when running, so effectively expands the game to 16 levels.
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Images
Unfortunately every time I tried to take a screenshot it froze my computer, so no screen captures today. The ones provided by the Game Giveaway project give a good impression as to what the game looks like.
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Conclusion:
Although a very basic driving game, I really enjoyed playing it and think it’s got some replay value, (though not a lot, lol). The downside to this game is that every one of the 8 levels is based in the same environment. It would have been nice to have seen several different venues. Also there are only 8 levels and two vehicles to choose from once you’ve unlocked everything. (You may be able to edit the games ini settings to open up all the levels if you find it difficult, but from my limited experience I doubt that you will need to once you’ve mastered the controls. Only the forwards and backwards keys are needed most of the time, though crashing through the red drums that caused explosions sometimes knocked the vehicle off it’s route, so maybe you should try to avoid these if you can by using the roll right and left controls. Every so often you are able to pick up nitro packs. Use these when you come to a steep incline as otherwise you may find you have to make more than one attempt at scaling the hill. There’s also air packs which I didn’t figure out the use for (though I suspect it’s used for the tyres to make them harder, which may affect the way the vehicle lands (or bounces).
I did enjoy playing this game, but think it’s only worth 6 out of 10 for game play. I’d have given it more but the bug I encountered and the rather low number of levels that you are given, plus the relative ease at which you can complete levels makes this a game that can be completed in less than an hour (easily). It’s certainly not worth the $9.99 that is quoted above (especially when you can get some great deals on other types of arcade games at the moment, for example; all three of the RIP games are less than $2 if you buy the full Meridian package available via Steam, or buying them without the full package only costs around $3 – you get 17 - 18 really cool arcade and FPS games for only $25, which includes Obulis a fantastic puzzle game, Larva Mortus (a previous giveaway), Pacific Storm, Gumboy Crazy Adventures, Chains, Alpa Prime, both Shadowgrounds games, Space Trader: Merchant Marine plus more). To take advantage of the this (Meridian deal you need to install the Steam client and create a steam account before the 6th July. Also via Steam you can pick up a brilliant 3D racing game called Smashing Toys for just a few dollars more or for around the same price as today's giveaway, two fantastic games called Driver: Parallel Lines (a Grand Theft Auto rip off) or Toca Race Driver 3. From good Old Games you can get a great Stock Car Racing game called Flatout for about the same. (Just Google GOG for details) To be honest, apart from Trabi Racer that we got over a year ago, this has to be one of the best vehicle based games we’ve been given to date.
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Other Info
The game is free standing which means it can be played from a memory stick or even from a CD, though playing it from a CD will probably get a lot of lag.
Music:
The in game music can be changed simply by exchanging the MP3 files found in the following folder, with whatever music you want to change them to. There are only two files called Level1 and Menu. You will have to change the music you are replxcing them with to the same names:
C:\games\MTTrials\Data\Music
Check out the Wheeled games thread for lots of free racing games. I’ve not maintained the thread for a long time, but there’s plenty to keep you occupied if your forte is racing games.
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2574#post-17105
