Sometimes, AAA-titles are released back to back in such quick succession that we forget about some of the really amazing titles we've already seen.  Trials HD is one such masterpiece, and the recently released Big Thrills DLC is a fantastic reminder that this game launched with an incredible amount of content, community support, and competitiveness.

For those that didn't hear of Trials HD, or might have it collecting virtual dust on their 360, the game is a physics-faithful and mistake-unforgiving motorcycle platformer.  The base game contained a variety of premade levels of varying difficulty (beginner, easy, medium, hard, and extreme), with tournaments being back-to-back marathons of these levels.  Additionally, the game included two bonuses: A fully featured track editor (with the ability to share tracks with people on your friendslist) and various minigames based on either talent or luck.  The Big Thrills DLC taps into both the core game and the bonuses by being a community-made endeavor: Red Lynx has created 30 brand new tracks of varying difficulty, but also included the top 10 community-made tracks (selected from their contest, which garnered a top prize of $5000!).  Without looking at the winner's list, it's impossible to tell which tracks were made by the community and which were made by Red Lynx, as all of them are exceedingly well done (and on the later difficulties, just as difficult and unforgiving as you might expect!).  All of the new content, be it the new tracks, or the new tournaments made of them, is leaderboard-enabled, which means that the competitive streak can be re-ignited against all your friends.

For those wondering just if this DLC is worth their money, for reference, the original game (at 1200 MSPoints) contained only 35 tracks (plus the bonus games); this 400 MS Points DLC contains forty tracks, which means that if you bought and loved the original, this gives you far more bang for your buck.  This steal-of-a-deal isn't surprising; after all, the first DLC, Big Pack, contained 35 tracks of its own at 400 MSPoints, which shows just how much content Red Lynx has been packing into Trials HD post-release.

While new ground isn't broken in this DLC, the original Trials HD was an impressive way to enjoy the Summer of Arcade 2009, and this DLC is a fantastic addition to the original game.  The DLC pack is already selling like wildfire, so you can be sure that you'll have a ton of competition on the leaderboards, and the three new achievements are sure to keep your attention fixated on perfecting your Micro Donkey skills!

DLC Score: 8.5/10 

~ Review by WDesm