Trials HD loves to form an emotional bond. Ready to seduce players for one more go or break their heart with an inevitable crash, it’s Live Arcade’s version of a female playing hard to get. While you control the manliest of bikers, who storms across outrageous courses towards the finish line at heart-thumping speeds, the game sits back expectantly waiting to see you fail.  One minute, you’ll be lavishing this simplistic beauty with praise, begging for it to keep challenging you to improve. The next, you’ll be hurling your controller towards the ground and storming off as if it had cheated you out of certain victory. Either way, this love-hate relationship is definitely a healthy one, as it fuels the fire for what becomes an inexplicably addictive downloadable title.

Bike physics games are somewhat of a novelty on Xbox Live, especially when you consider how popular they’ve been across the Flash based realms of the Internet in past years. A quick search and you’ll be inundated with streams of similar, free browser based titles that echo what Trials HD manages to pull off. Fortunately, this is the best of the lot, as Red Lynx transfer their renowned series to the console world with some deft-defying confidence.

The premise is simple. Players take control of a stunt biker who is tasked with overcoming impossible courses (and indeed, hundreds of deaths) in order to set the best times and earn medals. Reincarnations aside, it’s a straightforward mission of throttling your way from A to B with the least number of spills. It sounds easy enough, and for a while you’ll think it is, but once the medium difficulty set of tracks are unlocked, you better get a real helmet on, as you’ll soon be bashing your head against the wall with road rage. Success is all about shifting your weight at the correct time, as players are forced to work out solutions to each of the behemoth jumps, intricate ramp set-ups, pipes, and of course, unpredictable rock formations. It’s also important to quickly learn when to add throttle and when to slow down, as overpowering your bike can often result in an embarrassing yet mildly spectacular back flip into the explosive laden abyss below.

Trials HD’s excellence shines through most at either end of the success rate. If you’re comfortably completing tracks, you’ll be treated to an effortlessly entertaining ride of huge feats and even bigger leaps, as you take your rider across all sorts of challenging 2D environments. While the title has a 3D appearance, you needn’t worry about direction, as you’ll be traversing across the screen in a side-scrolling fashion. At the other end of the scale, failing doesn’t result in a painfully slow reloading process, as your dignity can be redeemed with haste. Everything here is instant. Slammed head first into a wooden plank at the start of a track? Press back and you’ll reappear at the beginning in under a second. Fallen off but don’t want to lose your hard earned progress on a particularly difficult course? Hit B and continue from the last checkpoint. It may be an insignificant point to make for the untrained eye, but when the amount of crashes is this frequent, Trials HD’s instant retries are a godsend and a saviour to our patience levels.

And it must be said, the range in difficulty here is staggering. Although casually fun at first, if you want to complete the second half of tracks in a reasonable time with minimal falls, then you’ll need to invest some hard work to gain the rewards. Each new difficulty setting provides a short tutorial, and highlights how hardcore players will need to manipulate their bike for sensational results. If you’re anything like me, you’ll even struggle through the hardest tutorial, needing many tries in order to capitalise on what can become overwhelming set of hurdles. Once it gets serious, it’s not for the faint hearted.

As stuntmen are famed for their daredevil antics, and not necessarily completing obscure (and highly impossible) courses in amazing times, there are a handful of challenge games to have a blast at. Whether it’s attaching skies to your bike for an insane jump, hauling explosives as far as possible, or seeing how many bones you can break in a single crash, these are great fun, and definitely worth a go if you’re veins are pulsating from the pressure of the main game.

The only real puncture in the entire product is the lack of multiplayer. We’d love to tackle friends online, either through split-screen or ghost effect on the track. It’s certainly possible, and for the developers to miss this out is a great shame. Instead of direct competitive play, your lap records will be planted alongside those of your friends. This not only forces players to complete tracks quickly to avoid embarrassment, it also calculates how many crashes you’ve had on your best time. It’s hugely possible to have the fastest lap of your friends and still be near the bottom of the table, as your fall count ramps up way higher than theirs. It’s an intriguing game of risk and reward, as the faster you race, the more likely you’re legs will nose-dive over the handlebars. The leaderboards provide the competition worthy of learning each track individually, but overall, the multiplayer experience hasn’t been delivered anywhere near its potential.

If you’re looking for an extended set of levels once you’ve gotten as far as your nerves can reasonably take, then at least user content has been included. Players can download and try out each other’s courses, as long as the creator is on their friends list. It would be nice to have the option to download and rate tracks from players whom you aren’t associated with, but right now it’s limited to friends only. Editing a track is simple, and if you’re peevishly inventive, can result with some phenomenal challenges for your most ambitious contacts.

You’ve got to hand it to Red Lynx. As the summer of arcade excellence comes to a close, it would have been easy for Trials HD to get lost in the mix. When you consider this has turned my attention away from Marvel vs Capcom 2, Battlefield 1943 and Shadow Complex, the developers should be applauded for their effort. It’s beautifully structured, deceivingly deep, and damn-right good fun. Unfortunately, there are a few rough edges that stop this from becoming a must-buy, but these creases can easily be ironed out in an update or, inevitably, a sequel. You better get used to a relationship of relentless ups and downs, as Trials HD has already moved in and made itself right at home with the Live Arcade’s elite residents.

Grade: B+