Extreme Pedaling

It's a rare thing for me to get into a racing game. In fact, for the most part I hate them. Especially the ones that use "realistic" physics and handling. Games like Forza or Gran Turismo absolutely bore the shit out of me. When I played the XBLA title Trials HD though, I almost immediately fell in love. It's not exactly a racing game I suppose, you basically ride a dirt bike from one end of a track to the other, driving over various obstacles and terrain. And yes, it's totally a physics based game. You have to maintain your rider's posture while at the same time taking into consideration the amount of throttle to give the particular bike you're on, and control your momentum as you move from one obstacle to the next.

This year, a sequel was released, Trials Evolution. It's even better than HD was, and when it first came out, I was hopelessly addicted. Eventually, I moved on, but have gone back to it once or twice since. Last week though, the first big pack of downloadable extra content finally arrived, and I've once again been playing incessantly. New tracks, new achievements, new mini-games, new tournaments, new gear to equip on your rider, and last but not least a new bike. Not motorcycle, BIKE. Like a BMX bike. That might not excite you, friend, but I was absolutely giddy. Why, you ask? Easy, you can tweak most of the colors on the rides in the game. What the addition of a BMX bike meant to me was I could create a replica of Cru Jones' bike from one of my most favorite movies of all time, the BMX cult classic "Rad"!!! Below is a pic of the bike, as close to Cru's as I could get it.

How freakin sweet is that?! I love it. At this point, I'm using it almost exclusively. One of the new achievements from the dlc actually requires you to pass one of the "Extreme" difficulty tracks while riding it. Well, being the achievement whore that I am, you just know I took my Cru Jones bike and gave it a shot. For those of you who have never played Trials, let me assure you that these extreme tracks earn the shit out of that name. The track in question is called "Back to the Attic", and you can see someone who is clearly WAY better at this game than I am giving it a run through in the video below...

Now, as you can see, this player faulted 22 times and finished in 2 minutes and 16 seconds. That may sound like a lot, but for every track the game allows you to fault up to 499 times and has a time limit of 30 minutes. People, my first attempt ended when I hit my 499th fault about halfway through. My second attempt ended when I ran out of time about 3/4 of the way through, at 370 or so faults. My Tourette Syndrome was in FULL effect throughout my 3rd attempt, I called the rider on this game so many names that I actually ran out and started creating all new ones. The thing was though, I pushed through and at the next to last obstacle, the large swing that you have to jump from onto the piano, I was sitting at 86 faults and was somewhere around 11 minutes. I got this, right? Well, take a look at the fault count and time remaining in this photo:

You want to talk about heart attack-inducing suspense? Yeah. My hands were pouring sweat and shaking, I was standing in front of the television, rocking back and forth like Rain Man, my heart was pounding in my throat, and when I finally crossed that finish line and saw the achievement pop, the adrenaline rush hit me like a nuclear bomb, causing me to break into a victory lap around my house that was the stuff of legend. I ran for what felt like forever. 

Was it worth it for a measly 10 point achievement? Damn right. Will I EVER play this track again? Hell no. But I got the damn achievement, and I'm proud of that fucker, even if it did take me 455 faults and over 29 minutes to get it.