Trials 2: Second Edition

A Fundamentally important part of the early '80s was a TV show called Junior Kick Start - a primetime motorcycle trials competition that encouraged viewers to actively hope beyond hope that children riding on heavy pieces of machinery would fall from a slippery log headfirst into a muddy ditch. It was like a delayed gratification version of You've Been Framed, and had a brilliant theme tune.

Trials 2: Second Edition is Junior Kick Start the game, but what with this being the modern day the poor rider is invariably crushed, broken, burnt and dropped down chimneys Blofeld-style rather than coming a cropper while driving over some hay bales and a clapped out VW Beetle. It shares a very similar world-view to TrackMania with taxing, acrobatic courses, stopwatchbaiting gameplay and a one-more-go mentality that rarely lets you go.

The tracks themselves are often wonderful: flaming, looping pieces of joy that get ever-more challenging - and on the few dynamic levels, the physics is generously extended to the environment, providing even more ways to cripple your modern-day Eddie Kidd with tumbling barrels and see-sawing planks. What's more, the nature of the beast means that extra levels and crazy YouTube videos of people far, far better than you completing courses are unavoidable.

Control comes through the always helpful cursor keys; up and down provide acceleration and brake duties, while left and right have your doomed biker lean back and forth. 2D acrobatics in a faux three-dimensional world is the order of the day, and it's honestly harder than you think. Your poor ragdoll motorcyclist doesn't automatically reset his centre of gravity, and more often than not you'll find yourself desperately swivelling head over heels with a looming increment to the ghoulish 'bones broken' tally at the top of the screen.

As is the fashion, meanwhile, Trials 2 automatically logs you on to a worldwide rankings system - not quite matching the likes of TrackMania and Audiosurf but still successful enough to let you know that you're a desultory 2,OOOth best in the world at a certain track. Achievements can be nabbed, groups formed and nations compared in their two-wheeled abilities (UK currently leading by a country mile).

Trials 2 shouldn't cost twice the price of Audiosurf, and it would fare better on Steam come to that but this is an update on an ancient arcade sensibility that should not go ignored. Gentlemen, start your engines.