Urban Trial Freestyle 2 (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Motorcycle stunt games have served as a light and short game experience since what feels like forever. There are many fond memories that involve playing these sorts of games with friends during computer science lessons back in school, and trying to compete with one another over who could get the furthest or do the most cool and awesome tricks, while trying not to get caught by the teacher… Not that they didn't know that no one did their work... They always do, somehow...

Nostalgic high school memories aside, when starting up Urban Trial Freestyle 2, the first thing that stands out is that the genre has not evolved a lot since those days in the computer lab with the classmates, and after some minutes, it is apparent that the biggest issue with the genre is how safe it has played it for too long, which has made it stale and age poorly.

The gameplay is exactly like it is remembered from those free Flash games (also played in the computer lab) nearly a decade ago, save some graphical improvements. The goal is to finish the level and perform some tricks along the way, such as long jumps, high jumps and flips. It has some new things going for it, though, with a neat and open level editor.

This level editor is most likely the core feature of the package. While the stages in Urban Trial Freestyle 2 are sometimes challenging (some far more so than others), it gets stale after a while, especially when the difficulty level curve starts to get some annoying spikes. Thankfully for this game, then, there are few limitations to the fun that can be had with a good level editing tool. If this was available back in high school, no one would have received a passing grade in computer science.

It is sadly not the 00s or early 10s any longer, though, and the genre has lost a lot of its appeal. Nowadays, games that play on physics as the main point to be fun have evolved a lot, and just driving a motorcycle and doing tricks with a physics engine in a 2D environment is not cutting it anymore, especially not when the physics engine can be a bit quirky at times. Urban Trial Freestyle 2 is a game that gives rise to a lot of nostalgia, but it feels old, and it has only just been released. There needs to be more interesting and fresh ideas than a level editor to stay exciting and keep a player's attention.