Vicious Cycles | MotoGP 14 Review

It’s not very often when motorcycles are front and center in a racing game. They’re generally their own circuit or a side option in more car-focused games, but they always feel tacked on or they control much to similar to cars and lack a distinct feeling to be significant. Enter MotoGP 14, which focuses only on the two-wheeled beasts, and you get yourself a solid racing game that makes riding a bike much more unique and challenging than ever before.

MotoGP 14’s bike handling is difficult to grasp at first, but once you begin to master it through continuous play, each turn feels rewarding. There may not be as much action and passing like in a car, but it makes each pass of another rider so much more significant. Because taking turns and passing requires constant focus and attention, even simple actions you may have not even thought about in other racers become key to eating away distance and inching closer to a higher finish.

MotoGP offers a great mix between realistic simulation and a hint of arcade gameplay to not make the game overly unforgiving. This allows the sense of accomplishment from taking more technically advanced maneuvers to still be present, while also creating an entry point for novice players to understand how to become more competent with motorcycle racing. There’s a colored arrow on the track that will show you the best path to take on the track, and its color will help you with the right speed you’ll need going into a corner. If it’s blue, feel free to haul; if it’s yellow, it’s usually best to take caution or lower your speed; if it’s red, you must slow down or risk taking a nasty spill.

Much like Forza and other racing games, MotoGP features a rewind feature to allow re-dos when you have a misstep, and it’s absolutely essential, because it’s especially easy to lose control of your motorcycle and wipe out. Since it’s so easy, I found myself using this feature almost too much, even when I became more adequate with my turning. Instead of being a nice option to wipe away mistakes, it became an integral part of the game, effectively taking away the natural flow of racing.

Talking to the engineer before races opens up options to change your bike depending on certain issues you may encounter like poor corner handling and instability. It’s a great way to shore up your own personal shortcomings on how your ride, or to try out different styles of riding. Also looking at the track layout beforehand to determine your bike’s specifications can help give you that extra edge that may put you over the top and onto the podium.

MotoGP 14’s greatest blunder is the environments and tracks you race on. Bikes and riders look pleasant enough, but the tracks are just too bland or too eerily similar to other tracks to really offer a sense of immersion or even progression through the game’s career mode. Not only are the tracks banal, but so are the crowds that inhabit them. They’re mostly static or are so low resolution that it’s hard to trick yourself into believing they’re a part of your race rather than just being a set piece on the track.

I also found the amount of gameplay options within MotoGP 14 to be a little underwhelming compared to most racing games. This is probably due to a lower budget, and while the game is only 40 bucks, it’d still be nice to flesh out some modes so the game doesn’t feel like a broken record hitting the same notes over again.

MotoGP 14 is a solid racing simulator for those who are engrossed in the sport. The parity of controlling a motorcycle as opposed to a car is a nice change of pace from what almost every other racer offers, and it makes every single turn challenging and rewarding. Some dated visuals and bland track designs diminish the immersion and unfortunately makes racing for long periods of time seem monotonous, and there’s a decent bulk of modes, but compared to other racing games, it feels a little bare bones. These issues certainly don’t stop MotoGP 14 from being a great racer, it just holds it back from being an excellent racer.

This review is based on a review copy of the game MotoGP 14 by Milestone S.r.l., distributed by Bandai Namco Games.