The MotoGP series has been pretty much the only choice for those looking for a halfway decent Grand Prix motorcycle racing sim over the years. Capcom returns at the publishing helm of this iteration of the series, MotoGP 10/11, promising some refined control systems to help ease newcomers into the genre.
The game offers two core gameplay modes, Career and World Championship. The career mode follows the modern trend of including pseudo-management tasks into progression. Players will not only have to earn money through winning races, and with that money buy better bikes and bike upgrades, but also manage a team of PR agents and bike engineers. The PR arm secures sponsorship deals and race rewards. The engineers research upgrades within a time frame dependent on their skill level, which can then be purchased for the player’s bikes. These employees will have to be replaced with more skilled individuals as the player progresses. This system walks the line between being an interesting way of implementing an old mechanic, and simply being annoying.
Out on the track, the player has a number of difficulty adjustment options at their disposal. These range from simple ‘easy’ to’ ‘hard’ type difficulty settings, to a more complex array of assist options. Players can decide exactly which elements of the racing they wish to be helped with, and which they would like to take in to their own hands. Everything from braking, ducking down for streamlining, customising racing line indicators, and how the bike controls can be fiddled with. This is a great set of features that should cater well to players of all abilities, if they take the time to set things up.
The handling feels a little twitchy and imprecise however. Turning accurately without overcompensating is a painful challenge as the left analog stick will have to be manoeuvred with the deftest of touches to perform precise leaning and turning. This is made all the more difficult due to the fact that the game expects you to simultaneously balance the use of front and rear brakes, acceleration and tucking in, all while scything into corners on the correct racing line. The layout of the controls is at least sensible and over time one becomes used to the control juggling.
One does eventually become accustomed to how things work after some time with the game. Personally having no bike racing experience whatsoever, MotoGP 10/11 seemingly does a good job of what I imagine is a sport demanding a high level of precision and lightning fast reactions to walk away from with skin intact.
On that note, the collision physics are lacking, and the crash animation fairly poor. Sometimes the slightest of touches with a rival will send one flying, while direct collisions have no effect at all; and if you’re going to come off, it should be fun to watch. Luckily for those of us that crash often, there is a replay and recovery feature that allows players to rewind to a safe point in the race from which they can continue and try to avoid disaster.
This does come with a penalty however. The game rewards players with money based on their performance throughout the practice, qualifying and racing sessions of each particular event. Rated from E to A, elements such as drafting rivals, following perfect racing lines, not crashing and how much the replay feature is used account towards the final mark. The better the mark, the more money one walks away with for spending on upgrades and new bikes.
Throughout all of this, a genial announcer with a British accent guides players through the various concepts and offers encouragement before each race. There is local split-screen co-op through which a friend can help out by completing team objectives – a nice touch.
The other side of the game is World Championship mode, which is essentially the same as career mode but with all of the management stuff stripped out. Having completed career mode, this is where most players will likely find themselves lurking. The game will be updating its stats as the current MotoGP season carries on, so fans will have an additional level of enjoyment. There is also an online multiplayer mode with up to 20 human participants which is rather good fun as a change of pace from the game’s AI.
If these two main game modes have worn thin, there are also challenge modes and time trials with which to while away time.
Visually, things come across as mediocre, leaning towards good. The realistic MotoGP universe is probably not the best place to find visually stunning levels, and things do look a bit bland and boring as a result. While the bike models appear detailed and accurate, the tracks themselves can seem rather boring and lacking in detail.
There are 17 tracks to become familiar with, and one really does have to be tremendously familiar if they wish to race against the best. For this reason the visuals begin to take a back seat to the gameplay, as players will likely focus on hitting that perfect racing line and tuning out all other distractions. As soon as you find a moment to consider the detail of the scenery though, one will find it lacking.
The audio is another fairly bland experience, but it’s to be expected – a cacophony of whining motorcycle engines punctuated with squealing tyres and the occasional crash impact. Unfortunately the area in which Capcom could have made up for this would have been with a great soundtrack, and this is yet another area that just comes off as boring and unremarkable.
Overall MotoGP 10/11 is a fairly decent Grand Prix Motorcycle racing sim with a great difficulty customisation mechanic to help all levels of player get into the game. It is rather niche and though it does come across as slightly rough around the edges in some aspects, this shouldn’t put off a proper motorcycle racing fan.
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