Cool bikes. Pity about the graphics and the loading times.
SBK08 Superbike World Championship
Milestone
Xbox 360
Review by Simon Kemp
It's taken a while, but superbikes have reached the Xbox 360.
Previously, if you wanted a fix of leather-clad, knee-scraping action you had to opt for one from the MotoGP franchise, which, while being great fun, have always leant towards the arcade style of racing.
SBK08 is more of a bike simulator - think Forza rather than Sega Rally and you'll be in the right territory.
As with any simulation you have the ability to tweak every little setting on your machine - something that hardcore fans love.
All the options are there, from tyre pressure to gear ratios, along with tips to help you, but frankly, it takes time and I didn't really know what I was doing, so I chose one of the standard configurations and just went for it.
There are Quick Race and Instant Action options to get you on your bike straight away, but the best way to learn the handling and characteristics of your bike is to have a go at one of the challenges that are on offer.
These include time trials, braking challenges and catch-and-pass tasks - all of which, while fun in themselves, teach you how to handle your bike.
Once you think you've mastered things, you can move on to the Championship mode - a complete season of 12 races over different tracks.
Learning the tracks is vital, as you can lose all your speed, and all the places you've gained in a race, by running wide or braking too early or too late.
It's quite disheartening to battle your way to the front, only to see all the other riders in the race fly past because you put one wheel on to the grass - but, hey, that's superbike racing for you.
Alongside the simulation options there are also game settings to increase or decrease difficulty - brake assist, stability control,off-track assistance, etc - and with all of these turned on the game is a bit pointless.
Turn them off, however, and you'll struggle to get round the first bend without a long trip across the gravel to the advertising boards.
Unless you practise.
It's very easy to have a couple of races, decide it's too hard and turn it off.
But once you've learnt the tracks and, just as important, how to keep the bike on them, it becomes a different game - one that you actually enjoy learning to get right.
There's no commentary on the races, but, to be fair, I didn't miss it.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that let the game down quite badly.
The first are the visuals - compared to other racing games SBK08 looks, well, really poor.
The menus are functional, if a bit bland, but from the very odd-looking brolly dollys on the grid to the 2-D looking crowds and backgrounds the in-game graphics are a let-down.
The bikes look fine, as do the edited highlight replays, and you do spend most of your time concentrating on the road in front of you, but generally the game looks a bit below par.
The other main issue is the loading times - it takes ages to get from the menu to the race and then back again at the end.
No other next-generation game I've played, and I've played a few, takes this long to load.
It's not easy and takes some learning (not a bad thing), but SBK08 is not a quick pick-up-and-play game - something that will not appeal to everyone.
I enjoy simulation racing games and I was looking forward to SBK08.
After playing it, though, I feel a bit underwhelmed.
I enjoyed it and will carry on playing it, but I can't help thinking that it could have been so much better.
