Urban Trials Freestyle review

Urban Trials Freestyle is Tate Interactive’s interpretation of the exclusive Xbox sensation, Trials HD and Trails Evolution published by Ubisoft and developed by Red Lynx Studio’s. With the huge success of this franchise, Tate Interactive felt the need to share their vision of this sensational game for Playstation fans. Did it live up to its competitor or leave us going back to our Xbox?

 Urban Trials is almost a complete copy of Trials from the Xbox with a few hit and misses. The object for Trials is to go as fast as you can from point A to point B. The faster you are able to complete this task the better the score you will achieve and ranking medal. Bronze, Silver, Gold and if you are good enough, Platinum round out their medals. Urban Trials will make you earn stars instead of medals. With its 5 star rating system, you race through levels to achieve the best score. What makes UTFS a bit different, is not every level has you racing through a time based level. Introducing stunts, some levels are designed for you to not worry about the time as much and award you for pulling off high defining stunts, whether you are to master the high jump, go the distance in a long jump or pull off the daring back flip, this idea of stunts and tricks are a nice addition of game play. 

There are leader boards posted at check points to showcase who has the fastest time or who currently owns each particular stunt. You are able to place your avatar from your Playstation 3 or it allows you to take a picture from your Vita. This nice addition adds great replay ability, with friends beating your score and taking over the billboards you find yourself trying to get back on top. 

Earning money to unlock new bikes and to pimp out your character are done by finding cash bags throughout the level. Some are right there for you to grab, while others are hidden and take some searching to find. Customizing your bikes and characters are rather limited with only a few T-shirts to pick from and maybe a new helmet or a pair of boots that fit your style. 4 bikes to pick from, each coming with their own riding stats to change you’re riding style. You can change out the engine and tires to help suit your ride for each level, but nothing for you to really make your bike stand out amongst the rest.

I found it a big disappointment that there was no cross-buy for this game as Sony pushes ever so hard for. If you own a PS3 and Vita you will have to buy these games separately if you would like them both on each platform. There is nothing that stands out differently enough for you to want these on each platform. Very minor changes from the PS3 and Vita version doesn’t warrant you enough to not allow the cross-buy feature. There are a few extra environmental elements within the background but from a core game play situation, nothing. They should’ve packaged a price break for getting both games perhaps, but they make you buy both separately in this case.

The bike mechanic needs improvement as well. In Trials Evolution, taking off from one jump and landing it properly is a smooth and exciting experience when done right. You fail to land properly, you know it is your own lack of skills that needs improved and not the game. UTFS on the other hand will have you face some jumps that will have you feel more as though you’ve hit a brick wall and not allowing  you to have a smooth transition from one jump to the next, instead stumbling off the first jump and still try to get to the next landing zone in a smooth fashion. I found the game to be lacking the level creator. If they were going to come right out and copy Trials Evolution, this feature should have been one of their biggest selling features. This would help generate more content and buzz for the game and keep it alive longer within the community.

 My closing thoughts on the game. Even though the game does have a few flaws, it is worth purchasing for one of your platforms, (not both) just to battle it out against your friends. I had fun playing and enjoy playing it more on my Vita. I look forward to hopefully having Tate Interactive improving on their next installment of this game and to see what they do next.