Quick Look: Trials of the Blood Dragon

Bradical!

Man, with this and Mighty No. 9 there's so much negativity on this website. I'd say both games are at least serviceable, if not brilliant.

I can't read As If! without hearing Alicia Silverstone >_>

yeeeesss #SKATE4

This actually looks pretty cool! The music sounds great too!

Shame this turned out to be so crappy.

Man I feel like you can't make an game published by Ubisoft with an identity. They treat all their games as toolkits and then they plug stuff that works in stuff into other stuff in which it theoretically sounds like a good idea but everything feels like a bad mixup or damn generic in the end. Like that Shadow of Mordor game was so crazy overrated. It was 90% Ubigame + 1 new mechnic. Awesome, that mechanic now gets in other games and so on.

Don't know about PC, but there's a bundle of both the game and the soundtrack on PSN.

I paid $15 for just the game, and while I think it's OK at best, I will admit to getting my money's worth.

(and yes, that is Michael Biehn)

Brad, why do you hate Michael Biehn so much? Lay off, holy shit. lol

@ectoplasma : Also, if you listened to this weeks Bombcast, you'll remember that the GB crew pointed out that this game's "we missed the joke by about two years" premise might be as much the result of RedLynx developers saying "...well, we know how to make Trials games. Lets just keep doing those ad nauseum" as much as it could be eeeeeeeeevil Ubisoft demanding that they keep making Trials games.

Is it really a shame though?

Well, Jeff may not like it, but I am enjoying this game quite a bit. Sure, it may not be as good as the other trials games, but its still pretty cool and fun in my book.

@mmarsu: Far Cry, Ass Creed, Southpark, Watch Dogs but I might be talking out of my butt (what?) because in my brain Shadow of Mordor was an Ubi game. Looking at their list they also have Grown Home, Valiant Hearts and Anno which probably don't share any elements (haven't played them). So I might need to change my sentiment. But at least it holds true for this and Far Cry: Blood Dragon. They plainly took a thing that worked in that game and put it in this game. And looking it from an economic angle it might also explain the unfitting pastiche of glitch effects (emulation of form to resonate).

Yo Ubisoft! Bioware wants their Mako back!

Goddammit, this thing should've been a slam dunk. :-(

What typical Ubisoft elements can you find in Southpark?

Yes, Far Cry blood dragon was least its own thing. This seems to be trying too hard to be like something else.

I really want more Kung Fury either in video or videogame style.

I think Evolution was the best one. They kind of lost me during fusion with the dumb tricks. Think I will pass on this one.

This is awful. The platforming sections are horrendous and the grappling hook is... I hate this game

Which is a shame because a lot of the visuals of the levels, and some of the tricks they do with bike orientation, is super cool

@ectoplasma:Trackmania, Trials (excluding this one), Grow Home, Rayman, Valiant Hearts, Child of Light, Might & Magic, Anno, Just Dance, Zombi. A lot of Ubisoft games follow the same formula, but you are doing them a great disservice if you think that's true of everything they do

The voice acting sounds like the kid in the Simpsons everyone thinks is slow but he's just from Canada.

Just wait until they do the Rhythm Heaven Megamix QL. Knowing how much people like Jeff and Alex love those games, I'm certain that will get more praise than what Mighty No. 9 or Trials of the Blood Dragon have gotten.

I like Blood Dragon as an idea and the Far Cry one was an awesome game, but I feel like Trials was definitely not a good pick for this idea. They just tried to do too many things that Trials isn't good at and it just ends up being frustrating to play at times. Now some kind of Assassin's Creed: Blood Dragon, thing now that could have some real potential to be really cool.

I'm enjoying moments in the game. However, those moments seem to be few and far between, and tend to be bookended by sections of platforming that is just godawful. This game is just not meant to have on foot sections. It doesn't work in the slightest, only leading to incredibly frustrating sections.

But when you're back on the bike, and just hitting big ass ramps, it's a damn good time. It just sucks you have to suffer through everything else to get to it.

So I bought this and beat it, and honestly got my money's worth for $15. Sure, it's far from the best Trials game, and the platforming is pretty generic, and they would've been better off scrapping it. But there's nothing offensive about it, and the game does have some really sweet moments with the grappling hook and shooting from the bike mechanics.

Ewwww, the jump accelerates for a bit after it starts, that's bound to feel like arse.

The Hotline Miami part even has the 50 Blessings logo (the ultranationalist terror organization that gives your orders in HM) on the phone. This better be licensed.

The style of this takes a STEEP nosedive when the animated cartoon sequences start.

I miss my old blood dragon

I'm not really hostile to this, and I got more out of Blood dragon than Jeff did. I would have been more interested perhaps in a further try of Blood Dragon as an action/ rpg. But that might have simply not been enough, and they wanted to try something different.

Also, after watching the whole QL, I could see people liking this.

There's also a building called Bless 50. I hope for the sake of Dennaton Games that anyone at Ubisoft asked them if this is okay, as it pretty clearly goes beyond just referencing the style of Hotline Miami and instead contains some pretty explicit callbacks.

@ravelle I've never seen Kung Fury, but I do know that there is a Kung Fury game on Steam!

I think the reason they couldn't pin down this game's style is because it's supposed to be "Vaporwave"

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/tumblr-and-mtv-killed-vaporwave

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/jerome-lol-video-interview

The guy in this video is unbearable. Apologies.

Uhh, the Cyber Dwarf's face should be basketball-skinned. What the fuck.

I'm sick to deeeaaath of this kind of faux-retro irony stuff. Vaporwave can eat it.

Man they aren't kidding about that opening logo treatment. The blocky UBI Soft logo is the one they were using back in the 80s when they were developing and publishing for home computers in Europe. I have to disagree with Brad though, the best custom logo is still the C64-styled Rockstar North logo from Vice City.

@humanity: Ideally I'd like games to be good.

Well at least the music is pretty rad.

I think they might be overselling how bad the on-foot stuff is. It doesn't look like super great or anything but it looks inoffensive enough.

Cyber Dwarf? Did a Ubisoft game really just reference Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden? Hot damn.

All things aside, I LOVE the music here.

If blood dragon is a parasite on other Ubi games, I would be interested in seeing a Blood Dragon Assassin's Creed.

I love neons, chromatic aberration, lens flares and visuals inspired by Signalnoise (the guy who did the cover art for both Blood Dragon games), but for some reason this game is rubbing me the wrong way.

I looooove Trials, and I love the graphics and music of this game.

But it's truly awful and one of the most disappointing purchases I've made on ps4, in part due to my high expectations.

There's a lot of Saved By the Bell in that menu.

could they... blood dragon Blood Dragon?

Maybe now's the time for them to return to pathway to glory.

Anyone else think this soundtrack sounds EXTREMELY like Kavinsky?

@ectoplasma: its called synergy, and bussiness men value it more than life itself.

@demoskinos: have you played it? because it's really bad. there are points where its inoffensive enough and you're just going from one point to another, but then there are some levels where it becomes really frustrating. and don't even get me started on the jetpack

it sucks because the bike levels are good and i love the grappling hook, just way too much of the game is ruined by the other shit

This doesn't look nearly as terrible as Jeff and Brad make it sound. This is very similar to the Might No. 9 QL, where the game seemed solid, but there's nothing but negativity from the crew. I won't play either games because I'm not a fan of either franchise, but they still don't look that terrible IMO.

This looks way more fun than the guys are making it sound. Despite them knocking it the whole time, I kind of want to play it now.