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If I wanted to be really lazy, I’d just post a link here to the review I wrote for Trials Evolution a couple years back and be done with it. But, “Whoa!” you say, “What about the updates and new features that they added to this demanding skill-based motor bike racer?” I’m sorry to tell you, friend, that the little changes RedLynx made to Trials Fusion only make it worse.

If you aren’t familiar with the Trials series, it sets you and your motorcycle out on a series of increasingly difficult courses that require you to tip the driver with the control stick and deftly maneuver the gas and brake to pass through a series of ramps, pits, pipes, and other completely insane obstacles on your way to the finish – eventually improving on each course to get better times and fewer flubs. It can get frustrating, especially as the courses start to require some high-level rocking and jumping techniques to hop up shear height changes and drive almost vertically. Generally, with a lot of work, you can surpass these difficulties and feel like a motocross stud.

In Trials Fusion, RedLynx tried to spice up their recipe a titch by adding in a few courses where you perform tricks and stunts while mid-air. This sounds like an obvious and cool idea, but the result is nothing special. The courses that make you do these tricks award points for pulling them off and landing them smoothly. Sadly, doing the tricks feels completely unsatisfying. When you are driving through the normal courses, there’s a real sensation of speed and of zooming up into the air; it’s rather invigorating. When you’re pulling off the tricks, there is no sense of connection to what your character is doing on screen or a real feel for how to do things better. I had instances of nailing some massive scores followed by attempts on the same course that were disasters, both results of doing the same motions as far as I could tell. The whole trick system just doesn’t have the pleasing oomph that the rest of the physics do.

One addition that I did enjoy was a 4-wheeler option that's unlocked pretty early on. Even though the controls and feel of the vehicle aren’t incredibly different from any of the motorcycles you can use, it’s different enough and felt fresh. The only downer is you can only use the 4-wheeler on the courses made for it, so its track time is pretty limited. Having this vehicle unavailable on most of the tracks, and being forced to use a trick bike on the trick tracks pretty much left me without any excitement about the bikes I could choose from. Sure, I could buy aesthetically upgraded parts and things, but I’d rather be able to try out bikes that actually drive differently.

By the time I slammed into the insurmountable difficulty wall later in the game, I had pretty much accepted that I wasn’t going to mess around with fancying up my bike any more either. It’s too bad too, since I’d like to have kept playing in one way or another, but I’m going to be honest with you: I do not have the skills to finish a Trials game. At least in Trials Evolution, I was able to make it through all of the Hard races without grinding my teeth down to smooth white nubs, but this time around, things got ridiculously difficult even earlier. I plowed my way through many of the hard courses after eventually figuring out what wicked skillz I needed to be using, but eventually fighting through those courses wore me out and I was done. Up until then, though, the races generally gave me a satisfying challenge to surmount, which made me more disappointed when my fun stopped and I had to force myself to get a little farther for the sake of seeing as much as I could.

There aren’t a whole lot of other modes to spend your time in once you reach the end of your solo career either. Online multiplayer is gone for the moment, although some new take on the idea is supposed to be added later. The community-created tracks on PS4 seem a little thin, and there aren’t any developer recommendations or featured tracks highlighted a couple of weeks after launch. This might just be an issue on the PS4 side, though, just like I suspect the crazy long loading and save times are. I bet the awful “Welcome to the Future” song that plays at the start is a constant across all platforms, though, which is a real tragedy. If this is the future of Trials, I want to turn back and replay Trials Evolution instead. A lot of effort was put into adding in some new features and concepts, but none of them worked out, and they damaged everything that was great about the series up until now. Playing through the first several levels of Trials Fusion is still a treat, but after that it all comes unraveled and not worth your time. So, fire up that old copy of Evolution or pick it up on sale and see what a great Trials game is like.