Moto Racer 3

When I heard there was a new Motorcycle Racing game coming out I did a double back flip, I Love 'um. When I heard it was being distributed by Infogrames, I did a double backflip, Infogrames has been involved in some really awesome games. When I heard that the new game would give you not only speedway bikes, but motocross, supercross, trials (yes, that's right, TRIALS, when was the last time you saw any game with trials bikes?), and street bikes, I nearly wigged out, it was too much, I had to have it, I needed it, I craved it. Well, I got it, so lets open it up and take a look....

First lets take a look at the opening video, wow, very cool, a super bike takes you for a little tour, looking through the handlebars. That was pretty impressive. But from here on everything takes a left turn. First there are six different racing styles, Trial (trial bikes, stadium), MX (motocross), SX (supercross), Freestyle (stunts), Speed (super bikes), and Traffic (street). Then you have different modes, Practice, Competition, and Friendly Race. With all of that you only get a total of 15 different tracks, and 32 bikes, that's pretty slim picking's for that many styles of racing. Gameplay is very linear, meaning you have to be able to win with the smallest bike before you can go to the next track or buy, yes BUY, a better bike.

Now lets look under the hood, ahh, I mean cowling. Upon beginning to play this game I was struck by one thing, it is sooooo arcadish, the same old tired motorcycle engine whine that has been used in every arcade bike game for the last 15 years was there in full crescendo. I almost found myself looking for a slot to stuff another quarter into. The controls were adequate, but nothing special, nothing new. The graphics were also very arcadish. My system meets every minimum requirement and far surpasses many of the requirements for this game, yet I had several problems trying to get certain modes to run. I found that some modes are highly sound oriented and the sounds took so much resources that it actually slowed the Gameplay to a crawl, after turning most to all the sounds off, the Gameplay did return to a playable level. I suspect that your system, especially your video card will have to be much much higher than the minimum requirement to get decent play out of this game.

I really wanted this game to work, I tried all my tweaks, but to no avail, all I got was lame arcade sounds, choppy Gameplay, and so so graphics, not the photorealistic they claimed. Top end systems may not have the problems I had with this game, but we all can't afford new comps, now can we? I do have some upgrades to my system planned, but on this system as it is now, this game was a disappointing experience.

Installation: Easy

Gameplay: 5.5
Gameplay is very linear, complete this before you can go to that, and you have to BUY upgraded bikes. I did like the selection of multiple riding styles (if I could get them to all play smoothly) but again, even with multiple modes, there was nothing really special to stand out. We have seen it all before.

Graphics: 4.5  
Very disappointing that this game would not play consistently on my system, would love to see the photorealistic terrain they advertise on the box.

Sound: 4
 The most arcadish sound I have heard in any new release in a long time. Also the sound levels at default were all wrong, too much voice, not enough ambiance, and the sounds did seem to make the game "Hang" on me, especially in Competition mode where there was numerous models running.

Difficulty: N/A
Never was able to get far enough to assess the difficulty of the game.

Concept: 7.5
I really liked the concept, lets take all the Bike Racing styles and put them together in one game! No more loading different games for different styles.

Multiplayer: N/A
Again I was unable to assess the multiplayer modes in this game. It does connect to gamespy.

Overall: 5.5
I think there are some sound related issues with this game that could use a lot of attention. The game was also a bit weak in the number of tracks available for each racing style.  This is one game that my processor and tweaks could not make up for my small video card, even though the video card was within the system minimum requirements, and my processor and RAM far exceed even the recommended requirements. The game may run better on top end equipment with 32MB Vid cards or better, but not on mine. I do have a 64MB GF2 Vid card upgrade coming, but it didn't make it in time for this game.