No Rest for the Wicked – A Trials HD Retrospective

December 12th, 2009 will mark the 4-month “anniversary” of the release of Trials HD onto Xbox Live Arcade. As of this writing, the Trials leaderboard has registered 541,848 unique Gamertags. With few exceptions, Trials HD continues to dominate the #1 spot on Major Nelson’s weekly XBLA sales chart.

When I first heard about Trials HD in the Summer of Arcade lineup announcement, I payed little attention. In fact, I was skeptical. A 2.5D motorcycle game, sans racing? In these past four months, no single game (retail or otherwise) has dominated my play time like Trials.

At first, I was content with Gold Medals. Then I discovered the Global Ranking board.  I wondered how the top scores could be so high. Everything became clear when I unlocked the Platinum Medal goals. This is where my Trials journey truly began.

As I banged my head against the seemingly impossible Extreme courses, I started returning to more forgiving tracks. While fighting for Platinum times here, I would occasionally flirt with the Extreme courses, or turn to the community for new custom tracks.

I began to check my Global Rank with each new Platinum Medal. Slowly I crept up the ranks. I was on top of the world. With 275,000+ registered gamertags, I was sitting at 17th on the leaderboards. But behind the scenes, things were falling apart…

LOL

I had hit a plateau in my skill. Almost half of the Skill Games were shutting me out, and I just couldn’t shave any more faults in the final three Tournaments. I began my fall, each day losing ground to the ever growing pool of competition. I decided to take a break…to relax, chill out, and to look over there.

I turned solely to custom tracks for a couple weeks, and then decided to concentrate on Goin’ Up and Inferno II (the two hardest Extreme Courses). After finally eeking out Platinum on these two beastly tracks, I checked my ranking and proclaimed, “Mortimer! We’re back!”

I had jumped from around 160th back down to 98th! With renewed enthusiasm, I assaulted the remaining Skill Games one by one. Target hunter, Flip Hunter, and Hill Climb were the last hold outs, but even these pillars would fall. I was back down to 55th, with 496,000+ riders on the board.

And so the Tournaments became the final frontier.  The chase for Platinum on the final three Tournaments is harsh. I was able to improve my score by two faults on “World Championship”,  jumping to 48th on the leaderboards.  It was a bit of an emotional moment.

I have since slipped to a Global Ranking of 58th, despite achieving Platinum in the “Underground Cup” and shaving two more faults in the “Ultimate Endurance” Tournament.

Truly, there is no rest for the wicked!

This only becomes more true with the announcement of the Trials HD “Big Pack”, which Redlynx teased the other day with this trailer (no release date or DLC details yet):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTyp5Oh7aQ

Playing Trials HD has renewed my interest in time trials games, which was previously sparked by Mirror’s Edge.   What are some of your favorite time trial games?  I look forward to your comments.

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