MotoGP 2007 Hands-On

Last year's MotoGP 06 was an exciting debut for THQ's two-wheeled motorcycle racing series on the Xbox 360. While the game preserved the high-speed action, approachable controls, and excellent online options, it wasn't completely devoid of problems. First among those was a sometimes shaky frame rate that, in tight corners, dipped down even lower than normal. Just ahead of the game's release in August, we got our hands on an updated build of the game we first played in March to see how it's coming along.

MotoGP 07's single-player game modes will be familiar to anyone who's played the series in the past: There's quick race, championship mode, racing career, and time trials. Quick race lets you fire up a race on any of the game's 18 real-life MotoGP tracks (including Italy's Misano, which is new to the game and home to the San Marino Grand Prix). Championship mode lets you play as any of the game's 22 MotoGP pros, including American riders like Kenny Roberts, Colin Edwards, and 2006 MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden. In racing career mode, you take your created rider (complete with your very own helmet, leathers, and bike design thanks to a flexible livery editor) through multiple world championships, upgrading your bike's attributes as you go. At each race event, you can choose to run practice laps, qualify for pole position, or jump straight into the race. New this year are some cool pre-race animations that show a bustling crowd of riders, mechanics, and umbrella girls, as well as post-race celebrations that show your rider on the podium, basking in the adulation of the crowd.

In addition to the standard bikes found in MotoGP 07 (all complete with updated liveries), the game includes an extreme mode that will let you take an entirely new set of bikes and riders on fictional courses that are inspired by the real-life locales of the MotoGP schedule. The rider leathers and bikes in extreme mode are a bit more varied than you see in Grand Prix mode, complete with speedy street bikes, as well as the more radical street fighter designs that look and sound remarkably different from your traditional Grand Prix rides.

Online, the big new addition is pink slip races and tournaments. With pink slip races you can put one of your extreme mode bikes on the line against a foe. This should add an entirely new level of intrigue to the game's already healthy online options. However, you'll do well to pay attention to your opponent's seed score (which determines a player's racing ability; the lower the number, the stronger the rider) before taking him on in a race. As they say on the television show, "Lose the race, lose your ride."

You'll be able to create extreme mode online tournaments along five different series: Open International, European Classic, All Nippon Series, Race Club, and Fight Club--all of which determines which kind of bikes are allowed into the tournament. For example, in the All Nippon Series, only Japanese-make extreme mode bikes are allowed; in Fight Club, only streetfighter model bikes can apply. While the tournament mode looks like a lot of fun, it's too bad you can only create tournaments for extreme mode bikes. Also, there didn't seem to be any way to choose a lineup of tracks to race in; instead, it seemed like you were forced to race a predetermined order of tracks.

Visually, MotoGP 07 has taken a nice step forward from last year's game. The frame rate still isn't where we would like it--once again things slow down in the tight corners--but because this was a preview build, there's still time for those kinds of things to improve. The amount of detail and motion on the sidelines as you zoom by is impressive. With roaring crowds almost everywhere you look, detailed background environments, as well as helicopters flying overhead, there's almost always something to look at in MotoGP 07, even if you should be focusing on the road and your opponents.

Controls in the game are as flexible as ever, and if you don't like the default control scheme, you can assign individual buttons to suit your style. The game's riding model is once again riding the fine line between simulation and arcade motorcycle racing, with an emphasis on the latter. Collisions seem to have been toned down a bit, though it's still easy to get scooped off your bike by an opponent crossing in front of you if you aren't careful. In some of the medium-speed corners, the rear end of the bike will wag back and forth like the tail of a happy dog. It's not entirely clear if this is intentional because there's not much in the way of force feedback to indicate a loss of rear-wheel grip. Powersliding around tight corners is still a big part of finding your pace in the game, and the same technique of double-tapping on the gas will put you into a proper powerslide.

If MotoGP 07 manages to fix the technical problems in the last game, new additions like the pink slip racing, tournament mode, and the new Misano track should be more than enough to get two-wheeled fans to the stores when the game is released in August. We'll be bringing you more on the game, as well as a full review, in the coming weeks.