Review by Jon Donnis
You wake in a shipping container, groggy and disoriented, and the game makes you figure out a few things first before allowing you to get on a bike, the very first puzzle is a simple one, you need to remove your handcuffs, find a giant saw, turn your back to it, time it right and voila you are free, get it wrong and you are shredded to pieces. That blunt opening sets the tone. MotoTrials™ is a compact, 100 per cent physics-driven motorcycle platformer that asks one simple thing of you. Learn the machine. Keep trying. Survive the gauntlet.
Ricky is not a hero with a backstory laid out in cutscenes. He is a name, a body and a bike, and the environment does the talking. The concrete labyrinth is industrial and claustrophobic, full of moving platforms, flame jets, crushers and bridges that give way underfoot. The design merges tight, exacting sequences where momentum and balance matter as well as reflex and quick thinking. Everything is governed by the physics, crashes feel consequential and recoveries feel earned. That honesty makes success quietly thrilling.
Controls are the heart of the thing. The bike behaves like a real object. Throttle, brake and lean change outcomes in an immediate, tactile way. At first it is unforgiving, because the bike is twitchy and your timing will be off. Spend a little time with it and the reward is big. Landings that would feel like luck in a scripted game become obvious once you understand speed and weight, and those moments are where MotoTrials lives. Checkpoints are placed with an eye for balance. Instant respawns mean you are nudged back into the loop rather than punished out of it. The loop is short, sharp and addictive.
The decision to include on-foot sections is bold. I prefer riding, personally, but the occasional moment where you leave the bike to solve a small puzzle adds variety. It is not flawless. Ricky's movement on foot can feel slightly floaty, and that undermines the otherwise consistent relationship between input and result. When the physics that make the bike sing do not translate perfectly to the character, the contrast pulls you out of the experience for a second. Still, those small puzzles break the rhythm in a useful way and stop the game from being relentless in one gear.
Story and voice work do more than you might expect. Cryptic messages and unsettling vocal lines stitch a loose narrative into the gameplay. Ashley and Crusty are memorable in different ways, MOM and Silent Mike add flavour, and the Announcer keeps things eerily formal. The cast does not handhold. Instead, it hints and teases, and that ambiguity works with the environment to create an atmosphere that is quietly unsettling. It does not aim to be profound, just unnerving enough to make you keep listening on the off chance the next line will spell something out.
Visually the game is modest. Textures and models are functional rather than showy. Lighting and sound do the heavy lifting for mood, and they do it well. The soundtrack is minimalist and atmospheric, shifting as you progress and underlining the tension without getting in the way. Together with the voice work it pushes the small studio presentation into something that feels cohesive rather than unfinished.
There are rough edges you should know about. The graphics could be cleaner, and a few physics quirks crop up away from the bike. Some transitions feel abrupt. These are the sorts of issues you forgive if you care more about the loops and less about visual polish. For a project that, by all appearances, was made on a modest budget, the trade-offs are understandable. The core mechanics are intact, and that is the main thing.
Replayability is solid for what it is. Time runs, collectibles tucked into awkward places and a handful of hidden secrets give players reasons to return after the first clear run. It is a short game if you rush, a bite-sized challenge if you take your time. That brevity helps it avoid filler, which feels intentional.
I am pretty strict with Trials-style games. I expect tight, fair design and a feeling that every failure can be learned from. MotoTrials meets that expectation more often than not. It stumbles in small spots, but it kept pulling me back, which is the highest compliment I can pay. It is a lean, occasionally rough gem that rewards patience and practice.
Score: 8 out of 10. It is not polished to excess, but it nails the satisfaction of learning a machine and beating the course. I hope ProudArts gets the chance to expand on this.
Out Now on Xbox
