Racing games come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Few indulge in taking realism literally to others that embark upon a route that treads along the arcade path. The Moto GP series have always entrusted on taking the former path by giving players a hyper realistic experience in the field of motorbikes.
Moto GP 2008 gives players the chance to race through a variety of seasons modes that are present in practically every racing simulation. These include the Championship, Career Modes, Exhibition, Time Attack and Challenge.
The Championship Mode offers a standard season mode where players can choose from a variety of motorbikes and burn rubber on 18 courses. The Career Mode on the other hand gives players the chance to customize their bikes and performance by tweaking quite a number of motorcycle parts.
Exhibition, as the name suggests, gives a rapid nugget of a race. Time Attack lets players beat their own best race lap time and Challenge lets players beat fifty individual tests.
Racing in the Career Mode awards the player with a number of points that allow him to tweak his bikes performance to the hilt. The best part of Moto GP 2008 comes in its races that are hyper-realistic to the core.
An arcade player found it rather difficult to adjust to this, since every turn needs to be calculated with precision and control, for the game does not allow even the slightest margin of error, sending players off the track.
The new developers, Milestone, have embarked on creating a journey that can be taken online and gracefully shown off to the majority of hardcore biking enthusiasts that inhibit the planet.
All wannabe Valentino Rossi’s will find the game a real treat when they witness the smooth tracks that are placed in Moto GP 2008. The game evolves with next generation graphics, providing stunningly realistic models of players and a robust bike details that rival most racing simulation released this generation.
There are however a few inconsistent bits about Moto GP 2008, the biggest and the most obtrusive being that the game hardly feels any different from last years’ game. There are certain modes in the play like building a detailed custom bike from scratch has been deleted, your opponents have been reduced from sixteen players to twelve.
Given the crisp visuals, we would expected to see a neat draw distance as well, however, this goes for a toss when awkward and random objects are present far and across the racing tracks. Moto GP 2008 feels often repeated in intervals with very little variety to keep the player interested and going on.
The Final Word: Moto GP 2008 offers lesser bangs for your buck if you have waltzed through the previous iteration developed by Climax and published by THQ. The game offers to be neat most of the times, but falls short when it comes to online play and customizable options.
Graphics: 8/10.
Gameplay: 6.5/10.
Sound: 7/10.
Budget pocket: 6.5/10.
Overall (not on an average): 6/10.
- By Neelesh Mukherjee