I’m used to racing cars rather than bikes so this game did take a little while to get used to, but it’s worth it. I expected this to be similar to the F1 games but with Superbikes instead of cars, looking at a screenshot would give you that impression, but racing on two wheels is a lot different than 4, it’s more of a challenge! This is why the racing aids come in handy. There are several different racing aids which a novice bike racer, like me, will find very useful. First off, Traction control is a must until you get used to the bike… unless you want your back wheel to go AWOL during a high speed corner.
I was unfamiliar with the circuits so I found the trajectory line aid useful to help get into the right position for the corners. There are several other racing aids including Auto brakes, steering assist and more which you will find useful. I found the Auto braking aid slowed me down a bit too much so that was turned off. The aim would be to turn each of the aids off over time to become a true pro racer. Another “in-play” racing aid is the ability to rewind a few seconds. At first I felt this was cheating so didn’t really want to use it if I had taken a bad corner. I quickly found out that it does come in useful when a wife, child or pet decides to stand in front of the TV, resulting in an your rider suffering an asphalt face-plant.
When racing, the feel of the bike is very realistic especially with the ability to use front and back brakes independently. The depth you can go into to set up the bike to your needs is pretty amazing. You have the ability to change almost anything on the bike, from the basics such as tyres and brakes, to some more in-depth tweaks like the handlebar angle and gear ratios. This reminded me a bit of the in-depth tweaks back in my Gran Turismo days, spending more time tweaking gear ratios than I did racing. You can just simply use to the default setup if you want to jump straight into the race.
There are several game modes for you to choose. Most players would probably dive straight into career mode which is the usual situation, start with a low end team and work your way up. The riders gear, bike and name can all be modified so you can try and make the riders profile match you, unfortunately there’s only 6 images of the riders face and none look like the average office worker/gamer in his early 30’s. The ability to upload an image of your face would be great here, hopefully one for future development?
If you get tired of racing in career mode you can try reliving some memorable moments in racing history. Select the memorable moment and you are thrown into a race based on the real life situation, you have to try and perform the same overtake/win that happened in real life. This is a really good idea and sets out some great challenges! Some of them are very difficult and it makes you realise, if it’s this difficult on a console it must be a million times harder in real life without the racing aids and replay function. So, respect to the racers!
If for some reason you get bored of a racing career or the challenges, you can try some time trials as the safety car. It’s not a race but it’s a nice break from bike racing, I tried it but was I back on the bike 10 minutes later.
The tracks are exact replicas of the real life circuits and the graphics are pretty good! Stands, crowds and scenery look good and smooth on all of the tracks, but the game is so fast paced that you don’t really pay any attention to anything outside of the track boundaries while racing. If you do start looking around during a race you’ll find yourself using that rewind function.
Overall I really like this game. It was a nice change from racing cars. Graphics are smooth, it’s fast paced, exciting, and keeps you interested with the different challenges on top of the career mode. The amount of tweaks and changes you can perform on the bike is huge, great if you like to tinker with things. A mandatory purchase for any racing fan! Thanks to Xbox for the game.
