Something about Trials HD on Xbox Live Arcade stuck with people. Maybe it was the acute physics-based dirt bike handling. Perhaps it was the goofy edge that made us uncontrollably laugh whenever our rider would get lit on fire, flung off cliffs, and slammed into walls at the conclusion of races. Or it could've been how it gave off a nostalgic Excitebike feel, taking players back to their childhoods spent building tracks on the classic NES racer.

Whatever the reason, Trials HD wasn't just a success on XBLA. It was - and still is - an institution, as it continues to be among the most popular titles on the service a full two years after its release. Its sequel, Trials Evolution, has been a frustratingly long time coming, but it's finally almost here, so we strapped on our protective cup, straddled the dirt bike once again, and headed back to the track for near-unlimited access to a jam-packed early build of the game.

To answer the burning question in the minds of all Trials fans: Evolution takes nothing away from the first game, except maybe a bit of sharpness off the difficulty curve. Trials HD quickly morphed into a ludicrously challenging experience - which is what endears it to many of its die-hard fans - and all of those, uh...trials are still here, waiting to melt your brain and have you pressing B to reload your most recent checkpoint 200 times over. But the descent into Hardville isn't as sudden or as steep this time around.

"We're focusing a lot on keeping a balance [between] the new players and the extreme players," says Microsoft producer Robby Zinchak.

And the game backs him up. The early tracks are almost too easy for Trials veterans, but that's where the renewed quest for gold and platinum medals helps maintain your interest. Also keeping you on the hook are the new track set-pieces that are either entertainingly silly - such as "Ridinghood," where you half expect a werewolf to leap out at you from the blood-red night sky and its full moon - or curved courses like "Mind Bender," which twists gravity and physics in M.C. Escher-esque ways.

Also returning are the hilarious mini-games. Our favorite from Trials HD involved launching your crash-dummy rider over the handlebars of the bike as far as you possibly could. In Evolution, there are now two of these events, along with ones where you have to balance giant boulders, fly UFOs (yes, really), ride with a stuck accelerator, and more. It's all under the Skill Game Circus banner, and we hope there's a lot more of it in the final version.

Evolution's other major revamped feature is its track editor. Though it existed in HD, it now comes in two flavors: standard Track Editor - a sort of "training wheels version" - and the Pro Editor, which pulls out all the stops and is, in fact, the same editor the game's designers used to make the courses in the game.

But the real win is how you can now easily share those custom tracks globally instead of only with people you know. An in-game download center will let you grab user-created courses with ease, keeping Evolution fresh for months (years, even) after it's released. "Being able to share those tracks with everyone as opposed to just those on your Friends list is going to be huge," Zinchak believes.

Even if it's a bit overdue, we're stoked to finally have some fresh Trials back in our lives. Everything that was fun about the first game seems to have been enhanced - new challenges await those who dare, while those of you who simply want to laugh at your rider as he's maimed and tortured will have plenty to look forward to as well. Says Zinchak: "He's definitely still getting his insurance compensation."