|
The Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology series is one
with a very questionable path. With industry regulars either
praising the title for its inherent sense of using the most totally
realistic approach possible, or simply passing it off as an
uncontrollable mess. Clearly, the latter comments come from those
with no appreciation for the adrenaline-pumping pleasure of
belting down a winding road at over 100mph , cranking it down for
that hairpin, and then opening it up as you come out of the bend
onto the straight – right up and over 170mph. Now, I’m not
exactly a sports bike guru myself, but I can appreciate the fact
that, in a Moto GP sprint, running with nineteen other racers
at over 250mph into a ninety-degree angle can be a little
hair-raising. With the announcement of the series next instalment
appearing on Xbox360,
high-hopes are held out for this version.
First things first, Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 is
not Super Hang-On. Got that? Good. Then you’ll be
pleased to know that handling the hot metal is also totally
different. Yes, left is still left and right is still right, but you
will find the opacity of the Analogue Stick is not at all what
you’d expect – having been developed to represent the heavily
customised control style of Moto GP, it’s unlikely that you
will have played anything similar before. Turning a ninety-degree
left bend will invariably result in viewing a rag-doll cut-scene
featuring your avatar in immense pain, without practice. Once having
become accustomed to the flickering controls – seemingly lifeless
at one point and career-death-dealing at the next – the system
works in harmonious balance with your racing line, should you be
able to stay on it!
The title features a minimal selection of offline modes; the
usual Quick Race and Career being both selectable and predictable.
With  sixteen tracks selectable from the start, Mirror Mode and a
further sixteen Street Tracks unlockable, Moto GP: Ultimate
Racing Technology 3 has a fair amount of variety, and is fully
licensed for the 2004 season – offering you the likes of Valentino
Rossi and Max Biaggi as playable riders and bikes from a huge
variety of manufacturers including Yamaha, Suzuki BMW and Honda. The
Career Mode travels through the basic sixteen tracks offering a
small amount in the way of unlockables, and even less in the way of
rewarding gameplay, whereas Quick Race – well, it does exactly
what it says…
In an unprecedented move, Moto GP: Ultimate Racing
Technology 3 seemingly disregards its
only-just-slightly-above-average Single-Player option with a swift
rev of its accelerator, moving quickly onto XboxLIVE!. And
this is where the latest title in THQ’s Moto GP: Ultimate
Racing Technology series shines.  Challenging online rivals is
almost always a plausible argument to the split-screen of
yesteryear, but in Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 we
now see arguments against watching TV, buying your own sports
bike or simply leaving the house. With a player-rating system on par
with that of the mighty Halo2 – before players learnt how
to corrupt it – it’s always easy to find a player online of
similar ability, or twenty. Featuring no Lag, a plentiful supply of
variable racing and bike options and a straight-forward Menu System,
Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 is now closing the gap
between watching your mates race virtual bikes online, and watching
the actual Moto GP. Add to this an extremely large collection
of unlockables which can be earnt online, and you’ll never be
seeing that Single-Player Menu again.
Graphically, Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3
doesn’t
sparkle. Backgrounds are often sparse and lifeless, and the track
animations are, obviously, minimal. However, somewhere around that
250mph barrier a special blurring effect comes into play. As your
acceleration increases, so does the effect. Racing through the
Street Tracks at night shows exactly why the GPU’s power has been
diverted from the polygon-stingy rider models and lack of animation
within the backdrops, and has been a trade-off that may not be to
everyone’s tastes, but has been worth the effort. There’s a
whole host of camera perspectives available and the XboxLIVE!
spectator option is really as dull as, in all fairness, it should
be. In a continual effort to show THQ’s mastery of the current
generation, the bikes rev and hiss with an accurately authentic
ting, as though they’d been recorded trackside and had little
editing since.
Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 tries to do
everything right, and succeeds at least half the time. Pushing the
boundaries of online play as much as any first-party Microsoft title
would dare to whilst, without an Arcade Mode, the handling of the
title makes the game virtually impenetrable to those without some
negligible knowledge of how sports bikes work. Some minor AI
assistance such as that seen in F1 05 would have been useful,
but never-the-less will make the title more endearing to its target
audience. As a sports bike simulator, Moto GP: Ultimate Racing
Technology 3 is miles ahead of the field, however without this
entry-level assistance the aforementioned target audience is clearly
limited.
 
|
