OXCGN’s Trials Evolution: Origin of Pain DLC Review
Like riding a bike with no saddle
by Chris Fox
©2012 Chris Fox
Origin of Pain adds more content to everyone’s real favourite Xbox exclusive with 36 new tracks (both regular and Supercross), brand new costumes for your biker, new skill games, a new vehicle and extra track creator objects in the triple figures.
With all that value, you’d expect this hefty chunk of DLC to cost you an equally hefty figure.
Save that loans website for later; Origin of Pain will only set you back an unbelievably reasonable 400 MSP.
Why, Ubisoft, are you trying to seduce me…?
This very generous amount of new content is all contained on Paine island which houses exciting new environments for Trials fans to lose their shit in; from a circus to a giant toy box.
There is a particularly incredible Call of Duty inspired track and fans of Stargate will be happy as well.
Along with these new tracks comes new character deaths at the finale of each track, which are as entertaining than ever.
That’s right, sadistic developer RedLynx “reward” the player for finally making it through an incredibly hard course by brutally murdering them.
What did we ever do to you, RedLynx?
Trials by fire
Origin of Pain matches the difficulty curve of the original Trials HD i.e. easy equals ball-breakingly hard and Extreme equals brain implosion time.
The skill level that some of these tracks require means mastering them will take a good while, only increasing the value for money this DLC pack really is.
A brand new set o’ wheels comes with Paine Island; The BMX. This newcomer handles, as you’d expect, almost exactly the same as his petrol powered cousin.
That being said, the BMX is much lighter and therefore a lot floatier during jumps, and can take some time to get used to.
After a while with the BMX, I found it to be more of a novelty than any serious racer’s choice, much like the rickshaw in Crazy Taxi. Another thing the BMX shares with the rickshaw is some awkward in air pedal animation.
Ten new Supercross tracks come bundled in with Origin of Pain, including an incredible Cloud City homage, but sadly the option to play online with local friends is still not an option. Of the two new Skill Games, Adrenaline Cannon stands out for its sheer difficulty.
At first I thought it was broken, like many gamers think before they begin to get any good at the task in hand. It turns out it was I who was broken.
Any one who manages to get higher than a bronze on this please write to me telling how. And please pack in some Valium.
I am an island
With this new DLC comes a whole new island for track creators to play around with. Add to that one hundred new items and obstacles to use and it’s evident that Origin of Pain is bursting at the seams with content.
On that subject, OOP is not the only reason to revisit Trials. By this point, there are hundreds of incredible user created courses up for grabs in Track Central. If you haven’t played the outstanding Terminator 2 track, please go and do so now.
The Trials addiction remains. Not wanting to stop playing the same track for anything until crossing the line before my (ex) friends’ smug gamertags do has once again become a regular occurrence for me.
The same insatiable hunger is there; one try on Trials is never enough. Hell, this review would’ve been done a lot quicker if my ever so slight OCD nature would let me leave a single bronze medal on my profile, but no, they all have to be gold, don’t they Chris?
When you unblinkingly repeat the same track for over an hour you know a game has it’s hold on you. The sheer value and excess of content on offer here puts other DLC to shame.
More Trials Evolution can only be a good thing. Origin of Pain is a great thing.
“9/10
©2012 Chris Fox
Filed under: Console gaming, Downloadable Game reviews, Game Impressions, New Game Information, New Xbox 360 Games, XBLA News-Reviews, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 3rd Party Games, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 3rd party exclusives, Xbox Community Network, XboxLive Marketplace Tagged: | Origin of Pain DLC, Tirals HD Origin of Pain, Trials Evolution, Trials Evolution: Origin of Pain review, Trials HD, Trials HD review, Trials Origin of Pain, Ubisoft
