You're reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro. Trials Evolution might just be the perfect video game. The subject matter doesn't seem worthy of the adjective, as it mostly involves a subject colliding with matter face-first after being catapulted from a motorcycle into an unimpressed log. It's just a simple, repeatable exercise in balancing a bike, which you steer through an insane obstacle course for no reason other than to succeed and see some flashy fireworks at the end.

So, perhaps it's not the greatest or most important creation to emerge from an industry packed with intelligent designers and bold artists. It is, however, a perfect encapsulation of what drives any good game. Trials is like a transparent cube - a simple shape to house and display the same gears that turn within more elaborate machines. (It also costs $15, so a comparison to one of those gaudy, see-through Swatches from the '90s might be more apt.)