Permabanned
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2004
- Posts
- 9,204
So im flying down the straight, Valentino Rossi riding hard on my tail, the scenery is a blur of mangled pastell shades and post processed effects. I can hear the whine of his imposing engine through the thick protective layering of my helmet. A medium right hander looms in the distance and i plan my aproach like a tiger, carefully tracking his lunch. I lean in gracefully, right on te apex.........slide into the gravel pit, fly from my bike, get run over by the 50 odd racers behind me and end up dead last. This is corner 1.
Sigh
So after that prolonged and pointless intro why do i like the game? Well you see, the above is how i felt about it the first few times i played. After some frustration at my pathetic inability to even stay on the track, let alone compete, i came upon a revalation. "I've never played a bike game before!" Ive raced cars of all shapes and sizes, space ships, Pod Racers, Chocobos, even a bunch of black dudes in some forgotten olympic sim. But NEVER a bike.
To this end i began to perciviere through the difficulty and attempt to re-learn racing attitudes, no mean feat when hundreds of hours of GT3 and PGR3 scream "just drift it" in your head while your hand fumbles mindlessly for something called a 'brake button'. After some practice i began to find just a glimmer of skill in it, applying enough brake, not clipping the kerbs or grass. Powering out of corners right on the line. Sure i still mess up, LOTS, frustratingly so but thats only right isnt it? I mean did you conquer your first beat em up right away, or your first platformer? hell-no! In this world of sequels, carbon copies and genre saturation i had found something NEW something that i wasnt already good at from some long forgotten habit. It's kinda nice.
I'm not saying its an awesome game, it isnt, its GOOD but nothing amazing. However at its core its a new challenge, one fit for any one of us, and when you put that throttle in, just at the right point of the turn, and you feel the bike pull up straight and start to tear down the line right in the perfect spot, all of a sudden you realise that you really are racing, riding the terribly thin line between success and failure. The success, when it comes, is oh so sweet!
Sigh
So after that prolonged and pointless intro why do i like the game? Well you see, the above is how i felt about it the first few times i played. After some frustration at my pathetic inability to even stay on the track, let alone compete, i came upon a revalation. "I've never played a bike game before!" Ive raced cars of all shapes and sizes, space ships, Pod Racers, Chocobos, even a bunch of black dudes in some forgotten olympic sim. But NEVER a bike.
To this end i began to perciviere through the difficulty and attempt to re-learn racing attitudes, no mean feat when hundreds of hours of GT3 and PGR3 scream "just drift it" in your head while your hand fumbles mindlessly for something called a 'brake button'. After some practice i began to find just a glimmer of skill in it, applying enough brake, not clipping the kerbs or grass. Powering out of corners right on the line. Sure i still mess up, LOTS, frustratingly so but thats only right isnt it? I mean did you conquer your first beat em up right away, or your first platformer? hell-no! In this world of sequels, carbon copies and genre saturation i had found something NEW something that i wasnt already good at from some long forgotten habit. It's kinda nice.
I'm not saying its an awesome game, it isnt, its GOOD but nothing amazing. However at its core its a new challenge, one fit for any one of us, and when you put that throttle in, just at the right point of the turn, and you feel the bike pull up straight and start to tear down the line right in the perfect spot, all of a sudden you realise that you really are racing, riding the terribly thin line between success and failure. The success, when it comes, is oh so sweet!
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still when i have the time ill crack on with it.
) and fly round the corner. The lighter bends can be taken fairly quickly, but again, take it at a steady pace to start with. You'll eventually learn which corners are fast ones, and which are slow ones.
