Games for Lunch: Honda Superbike World Championship
In a nutshell: A game for superbike superfans only.
6/26/2008 6:18 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3
0:17 Ouch. I bump into another bike's rear wheel with my front wheel and we both go flying. I feel kind of bad for the guy I hit. Sorry! It's my first time!
0:18 Another end-over-end crash. The shot of the empty bike bouncing down the asphalt is almost hypnotic.
0:20 The persistent whine of the engines is really getting on my nerves. It's made worse by the total lack of background music during the races. Is that not realistic enough or something?
0:22 After two more crashes and two more spin outs in lap three, I finish fifth. I'm already getting tired of the repetitive cycle of speeding down the straightaway, slamming on the brakes and drifting slowly through the wide turns. I know this could describe many other racing games too, but it's particularly galling here for some reason. I could call it an "extremely technical racer" if I was feeling generous, but I'm not. It's just dull.
0:24 I have to suffer through another 30 seconds of loading just to get back to the menu so I can auto-save, then 30 MORE seconds of loading to go back to race on the same course. What a waste of time.
0:27 Done with lap one of Race 2. Now that I know the course and know what I'm doing a little better, I've jumped to a nearly eight-second lead.
0:30 Even with a couple of spectacular wipe outs on the sandy edge in Lap 2, I still hold on to a slim lead. Either I'm preternaturally good, the game is tuned way too easy, or this 10/10 bike is way too good.
0:33 Lap 3 finishes without incident and without any interruption of the gas-brake-turn pattern. I win by a good 10 seconds in the end. If that was 15 percent of the laps, I'd hate to see what a full, 20-lap race feels like. I think I'd gnaw my own arm off just to get away from that.
0:35 I get to "Choose your prize" from five face-down cards. I unlock some "race videos" and "staff ghosts." Whoopee!
0:36 Race weekend number one is over and I'm second in the standings with 36 points. Australia and Spain are up next. Let's power through, I guess.
0:40 After one lap, I must say I'm liking the Aussie course much more than the one from Qatar. For one thing, this one actually has some gentle turns that merely require letting go of the throttle, rather than slamming down on the brakes. The tighter turns and shorter straightaways seem to mix up the pattern, too.
0:41 Wow. So I'm in 14th place, the back on the pack, and I accidentally slam into the 13th-place guy. Our careening bikes fly DIRECTLY INTO the guy in 12th place, taking him out, too. When the smoke has cleared, I'm in 12th place. So that was a good strategy, then?
0:43 My bike is getting all wobbly on the tight turns. Did I choose the wrong tires? What's more, do I care enough to find out? The answer to the first question is probably yes, and the answer to the second is definitely no.
0:46 A middling third lap leaves me in a dismal 12th place. So let's throw out the "preternaturally good" explanation from 0:30.
