Urban Trial Freestyle Review
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5
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It is a rare occurrence when a relative newcomer can ride in and usurp the market leader. Urban Trial Freestyle is hoping to do just that, by trumping Red Lynx’s free-to-play offering of Trials Frontier from earlier this year. In order to do that, Freestyle has a long and hard climb to get to the top of the heap. Is it up to the task, or will slight missteps prevent the game from claiming the coveted title of “King of the Hill?”
First off, the controls are completely out of whack. The game features an on-screen joypad that is used to adjust the pitch of the rider. While perfectly responsive one moment, the next can render the pad’s reaction time sluggish enough to derail even the most seasoned of veterans. In a genre that is so dependent upon precision controls and pinpoint timing, the inconsistency will undoubtedly result in countless rage quits. Hopefully the developers see the problem and patch in a D-pad at a later date. This alone would help bring the control scheme more in-line with its peers and render the game instantly more approachable.
Another stumbling block is the layouts of the stages. There comes a time in most runs where the method to progress down the track can become increasingly unclear. In many cases the only way to discover that a particular path is insurmountable is through the ever-frustrating process of trial and error. Especially in cases where players need to stall their bike in order to slide backwards down the track, the lack of any direction is unacceptable.
Elements like competing against ghosts of friends, countless mini-goals scattered throughout, a time trial mode, and even a level designer, help make Urban Trial Freestyle easily the most fully-featured Trials experience on iOS. Unfortunately the core gameplay still suffers from a critical lack of polish, which ultimately makes it very difficult to recommend. Potential buyers may be better off hitting the breaks and waiting to see if these issues are addressed with a patch later on down the road.