Moto GP 07

Posted June 6, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

You’ll have to search long to find a man who doesn’t like speed or bikes and of course the gaming world pays attention to that. MotoGP has been scoring pretty well the last couple of years on both PC and X360, but does Moto GP 07 manage to keep up the pace? Let’s see…

Moto GP immediately confronts you with the big work, the Grand Prix. Of course it’s best to learn to walk before running and therefore you best go through the training first. This is very well done and every step has a short movie that shows you which move to make when.

Once you’ve got the hang of things you can start with the real racing. First up you get two naked bikes which you get to dress up. Just about everything is possible: colors, stickers, national flag, … Also your character can undergo a similar treatment but in the end this does remain just a nice extra.

What we’re really curious about are the driving style, the circuits and the riders. Here you’ll immediately find some positive as well as negative points. The starting is really nicely done and you’ll truly experience the speed thanks to the rumble feature when going high in gear. Next to that also the going flat in curves feels nice and different depending on the bike your driving. Also a skillpoints system is present and this makes that you can upgrade your character.

The physics in a crash on the other hand are a lot less. It totally does not look realistic and it’s like a puppet is thrown on the floor. If you then see your bike driving through your character the idea of reality gets blown to pieces completely. Although this isn’t so important for the gameplay as such, it does remain unfortunate for the immersion.

The circuits and drivers are really cool. You’ll find a lot of famous names in the game like Rossi, Stoner and many others. Also the circuits are taken from the real world and some examples of these are Qatar, Le Mans and Turkey. These tracks are almost perfectly remade and are combined with nice weather effects that influence the soil and make you adapt your driving. A circuit with a lot of curves will of course not be taken at full speed and that’s what makes Moto GP 07 more realistic. In the GP-mode you have to complete 20 tracks on different circuits and this makes for about 4 to 5 hours of playing time.

After GP and the accompanying extras you’re not completely done with this game as the developer also added an Extreme-Mode to keep you happy. This gets unlocked after you finish the GP-mode and you’ll not get pure racing bikes but rather street models at your disposal. Here you also won’t be driving on circuits but through city streets and beautiful nature. There’s little other difference between both modes but it does offer a nice extra.

The game has very tight textures and good surroundings but also the bikes are enjoyable. The game has five camera angles during the racing but the best one is easily third-person. The cockpit view has the fun feature that you get to see the HUD on the dashboard though but personally I preferred driving when seeing bike and driver.

When driving around you’ll of course need some decent sound and in Moto GP 07 that’s done nicely and differs from bike to bike. The accompanying music is rock and metal and this fits perfectly with this type of game.

In multiplayer there are several ways to join an online game. First up you can of course just go through the menu where you can choose between online or split-screen, but the fun part is that you can also play online in combination with split-screen. When you select a circuit, you can also go from there on Xbox Live and then you’ll get to see a number of lobbies that are currently playing that track.

Moto GP 07 doesn’t have a lot of competition but it certainly is a good game. There’s enough variation, although the single player can be finished quite quickly, and if you’re a biker fan you just have to get this game. We are already looking forward to the next one!

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