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MotoGP

Score: 6.5 / 10

Namco’s Moto GP series is up to its fourth installment on home consoles, but they’ve finally shrunk it down and published it for the PSP. Take note that this is not an arcade-style racing sim - if you’ve never played motorcycle racers before (and they are rather scarce), riding these things is a bit different from a car.

The biggest change from your typical car racer, other than the obvious size difference, is how you handle corners. You need to balance your speed just perfectly and turn at the right instance, or you’ll end up on the grass. In spite of its realism, Moto GP is generous when it comes to your errors, so it takes a lot to

 

- Racing Game Reviews - Games Published by Namco-Bandai

really wipe out- for the most part, you only barely nudge your fellow riders when they come next to you. But getting used to this is the key to placing high in the rankings. Perhaps keeping this in mind, Namco implemented an auto-brake feature that slows you down before entering the curves. It makes the game infinitely more playable for newbies, although some kind of tutorial to train would be racers 

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how to do it right would’ve been equally as welcome. Still, even on the game’s  easy setting, it’s hard to break into the top four rankings, which is required to  win the Season mode.      

Moto GP also emulates the slipstream effect, in that you can ride behind opponents to reduce wind resistance, then use the extra speed to pass them. You can also customize your bike by balancing how it handles, or fixing acceleration versus top speed.

Like most racing sims, Moto GP offers a standard single race mode (Arcade), career (Season) and time trial modes, as well as multiplayer for up to eight people. It’s somewhat barebones in its presentation, but it’s functional. There are only eight tracks in total, which makes the experience somewhat brief. However, single player is fleshed out by a total of fifty challenges, which unlock various goodies based on what goals you’ve completed. Most of these include mostly useless trinkets like helmets or video clips, although there are official racing teams to be uncovered as well.

For the most part, Moto GP has made the transition to the portable systems rather well. While the scenery is fairly bland, the racers themselves are well detailed. The framerate is usually quite smooth, at least when there are only a few drivers on the screen - it gets a bit choppier when you’re surrounded by fellow racers, but never becomes intolerable. Most races take about fifteen seconds to load, which is perfectly tolerable, and the controls hold up as well as the PSP allows.

Like most PSP games, Moto GP is pretty much the same as the Playstation 2 version, just smaller. While the translation is very well done, there’s nothing interesting and worthwhile unless you really need it in a portable format. Still, despite its lack of bells and whistles, it’s a solid, if unexciting, racing experience.

- Kurt Kalata

(January 5, 2007)

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