Trials HD was hard, and its sequel, Trials Evolution, looks like it will be even harder. The core gameplay remains the same, in that it’s still a side-scrolling motorcycle game where your controls are gas, brake, and adjusting your bike’s angle. What’s changed are the environments and hazards you’ll face.

In Trials HD, the environments were predominantly all based around the same thing: a warehouse, and with limited variety in the obstacles. Evolution really ramps it up with a variety of themes, such as constuciton sites, storm drains, and logging facilities. And the obstacles are all suitable contextual depending on the level, such as collapsing gates in the construction yard, or giant sawblades in the logging facility.

Perhaps the largest difference though is the gigantic improvement made to the visuals. The game simply looks stunning. It’s hard to see how much of it is due to technical improvements, but the new environments look absolutely fantastic and lend the game a much greater amount of detail than a mostly barren warehouse. And the animation, of course, is as excellent as always.

As mentioned, Trials Evolution looks to one up its predecessor in terms of difficulty. There were sections that I had to repeat a dozen or so times...and these were only the early levels! The less said of my performance on the more challenging levels, the better. Mercifully, checkpoints are scattered about more liberally than I remembered in the first, which eases frustration when you hit a wall--both figuratively and literally.

Trials Evolution seems like a very promising sequel, expanding the challenge of the original while immensely improving the presentation. Trials Evolution will be coming to XBLA sometime this fall.