Your first time on Moto GP online is one of those unforgettable gaming moments – 16 people chatting away in the lobby before the host hits start and you appear on the grid with 16 others revving away beside you. The lights go green and you all scream towards the first corner together (and the inevitable pile up). It was certainly enough to persuade me to lose an inordinate amount of time to the first game in the Ultimate Racing Technology series until what I felt was a slightly disappointing Moto GP 2 arrived. But whereas GP2 was really a tidied up effort with a lack of innovation, despite initial impressions to the contrary, GP3 actually provides some interesting new content.
Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 sits very much on the simulation side of racing games – like in the real world, your aim is to tame an outrageously over-powered bike so that you can zoom around various tracks. If you've not played one of the previous Moto GP: URT games then you'll find it's a real effort at the beginning to stop the bike chewing you up and spitting you out over the top of the handle bars four or five times a lap, unless you're happy to pootle around slower than Bournemouth high street on pension day. Bikes obviously handle quite differently from cars – it takes a long time to turn in/out of a corner on a bike, not to mention the fact that bikes have two brakes (one for the front wheel, one for the back), each of which have quite a different effect - and GP3 has it all modelled very nicely.
The main attraction of GP3 is participating in the 2004 Moto GP bike series against all the other real world riders, with their real world bikes and liveries, on the 16 real world tracks. You get a nice video introducing each race, and when you complete a race you get a few minutes of highlights and driver interviews from the real world race. The whole game has that sort of perfectly slick presentation applied to it – I wish that more games could at least feel like they've had that sort of attention given to them. As well as the Moto GP championship you can also compete in the all new for GP3 'Extreme' street racing championship. The 'Extreme' championships take place over 16 all new, fictitious tracks, in one of three different power classes, and allow you to earn money to buy new bikes as you go along. The new courses are all excellent, having much more of an arcade feel to them, and although the hard barriers aren't as forgiving as gravel traps when you go wrong, the courses aren't as hell bent on making you get every line through a corner perfect – they’re wider and they just let you race.
I've already mentioned that the game has the whole Moto GP experience modelled nicely, but there is a down side to this – the bikes are hard to control even with practice. Most normal humans will struggle to get round the tracks in anything like a good impression of a Moto GP rider. You can win the championships easily enough by putting the other riders on a low skill setting, but it won't make you feel big or clever - while the opposition lap round taking the perfect line through every corner (albeit slowly), you'll charge ahead of them until you crash and are overtaken by the tightly bunched opposition, before getting back on your bike and overtaking all of them on one straight. I'm all for realism on the higher skill levels, but poorer players should be given some gentle helping hand instead of being patronised by the AI riders. Actually, I'd say that the game punished untidy riding at every opportunity. For example, I'd like to be able to have the ability to do a controlled power slide out of a corner – the bikes are quite capable of it in real life, and you see a lot of riders come hurtling out of a corner with full power and opposite lock on, yet if you attempt it in game you'll get tossed off of your bike 9 times out of 10, and not actually gain any benefit the one time you do get it right (and it doesn’t feel much like a powerslide anyway). And should you go an inch off the tarmac and you'll be subject to a timer rapidly ticking up penalties to add to your lap time, as well as grass that seems to share the same speed retardant properties as warm caramel. Simply put, I'm a Moto GP fan, not a Moto GP rider – there's a reason I'm not out there in real life tossing a Moto GP bike with inch-perfect precision through the corners, but it’d be nice to be able to do it in a game.
Having said all that, as I've already mentioned, the Extreme courses are a lot more forgiving, and on the lower powered bikes competent gamers will enjoy themselves a lot - the upside to the difficulty level is the sense of reward when you do start getting it right regularly. The Extreme courses are quite pretty too – they undulate a lot more than the real world tracks, and have plenty of scenery around the outside. Abundant on all the courses though is the high speed motion blur – supposedly added to increase your sense of speed, all it usually does is obscure your view of the next corner – it's particularly bad on the Extreme tracks such as 'Autobahn' where some of the corners have grey barriers, which merge into the grey fuzz of the track thanks to the motion blur.
Despite my gripes though, it's quite obvious when playing online that some people are able to master the game. The Xbox Live mode is very slick, and there's a very varied skill level of friendly players available. The voice comm is clear (although in race you can only talk to the players immediately in front and behind you), and you can get 16 players on the track at once (10 on the Extreme tracks). It sticks out as one of those games that you should try online at least once if you have Xbox Live and haven't played a previous Moto GP game online.
All in all, Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 is a good game – nice to look at and rewarding to play – the best motorbike racing game yet I'd say. If you relish a challenge from a racing game then it's a must have, but if you want something simple and easy to pick up you're better off elsewhere.
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