FIM Speedway Grand Prix

I’ll be the first one to admit that I have never heard of FIM until I played the game FIM Speedway Grand Prix, a new PC release by Big City Games. Basically, the game (and FIM in this title) revolves around dirt bike racing on oval tracks versus motocross or extreme dirt bike riding here in the U.S. The game itself contains over 10 licensed racing tracks and 22 actual circuit riders to choose from, so fans can play out the seasons of their top champion selections in either a single race, championship, or multiplayer split screen challenges.

There are a couple of neat things that were done here in FIM Speedway Grand Prix, one of which being the customizing options for the bikes themselves. While it’s not as deep or detailed as some other racing titles, and you won’t be swapping out gear heads and tweaking torque down to fractions or anything, you can switch out engines, chassis, and wheels and make minor changes to them as you see fit, and the simple adjustment and detailing will probably make it easier for younger players to figure out how to do a lot of it on their own. You will also need to make sure that you have some cash left over to do repairs too though, since racing around will begin banging up parts of the bike and will effect performance if left untreated.

The concept of FIM racing also is pretty neat, and is unique in the fact that you don’t race against hordes of people at one time like other titles or circuits. FIM is broken up into different heats, and so you generally race against four other bikers, then the overall scores an times are tallied up at the end to determine the overall result of the competition. This helps in a couple of ways … first off, if you mess up or lose a race, you don’t have to go back and start the whole thing over because you didn’t get enough points to advance. Secondly, it also gives you a chance to race against some different competition, so if you come in third on the first heat, you may do better than the other three in the second heat and place first.

While there are some neat things that have been done, there are also some other things that I didn’t particularly care for or thought could have been improved on as well, the first of which being a pretty straight-laced rule system that cannot be turned off or tweaked. This presents the problem of NEVER being able to leave the track, which I could understand if I were heading to the bleachers or something. Basically this sets FIM up to be very unforgiving if you make a mistake, and doing something like cutting a corner short and accidentally going into the grass just a little bit automatically disqualifies you and causes you to lose the heat. This also goes for accidentally hitting the starting tape, since rather than starting the heat over … you’re out.

There are also some issues with overall AI challenge and detection issues here too, the most prominent one being the fact that AI riders seem to be almost 99% perfect in what and how they race, even with the difficulty being set to the easiest level. Bumping into one usually will cause you to fall off the bike (and you’re out when you crash, just like with the tape and the cutting corners thing) and even tapping the back end of their wheels will cause some flipping or crashing as well. Also, they don’t budge if you bump them … at least not for the most past … and often times you will find yourself skidding off the track and out of the heat once again. I even saw one of them slide off the track and into the grass after I bumped into him, but unlike me he didn’t have to stop and just zipped right back in line again.

Lastly, the game itself just didn’t really seem, well, exciting enough to me. Every race was the same thing … four laps in a number of heats around an oval track … and that’s it. While I understand that there are differences between FIM versus motocross and extreme racing, which is really popular here in the states right now, every track was an oval dirt course and the only real difference that seemed to stand out was in the looks, so single player tracks were more picked by what I thought looked neat vs. the layout or whatever, and it got really repetitive really quick.

Graphically, FIM Speedway looked pretty good. There were some good modeling and animations that were done, and little things like exhaust clouds at the startup and flying dirt from the bikes as they zipped around was decent. The riders will also flop around and roll and whatnot when they fall off the bikes and it looks pretty sweet especially on the replay. While in replay mode, you can also go in and watch the races and heats over again complete with changeable camera angles and the option to change riders to keep an eye on what they did for the race, so you can get pretty close to the action.

The sound for FIM speedway was also decent for the most part, and very simple. There is no background music except for the options screen, but the bikes and the engines sounded good, and they even added in some grunting and moaning of riders who crash off of the bike. There is an announcer who also is present, but mostly he just says things like “Looks like so and so was late off the starting line” and then he’s pretty quiet until something like a wreck or a finish happens.

Overall, I have to say that FIM Speedway had some enjoyable qualities to it, but there were too many things that could have been done better in my opinion to really make it more enjoyable or really even for me to fully recommend it to everyone who enjoys motorbikes. If you’re a racing fan, you might get some fun out of this title, but I would still suggest checking it out first. If you’re more into extreme dirt bikes or motocross style games, this one will be way too quiet for you and I would suggest looking for something else or trying a demo before you buy.    

Gameplay: 5.8
While there are some neat qualities to FIM, like being able to do some minor adjustments and alterations to your bike or racing in heats vs. starting all over again if you lose, the game is far too rigid on the rules and there is no option to turn them off causing more lost races and heats simply due to mistakes … not to mention an unforgiving AI. There is also nothing more than small, flat oval dirt tracks to race on, which may be what the FIM is all about … but it just doesn’t seen that exciting and gets very repetitive quickly. When you add all of these things together, it really doesn’t make you want to play it anymore after a while. 

Graphics: 7.0
The graphics to FIM Speedway were decent, and it shows that the developers wanted to make something that was pretty close to what you might actually see in real life … complete with exhaust fumes and flying dirt as you run around the track. The crowd also looked nice, and while they were 2 – D animation … there wasn’t too much repetition. There were some collision detection issues here and there though, with bikes vanishing halfway through barricades or the rider’s legs blinking in and out during replays.

Sound: 6.0
Not terrible, just not a lot to it. There is no music while you are racing, and the track that plays during the option screen is just a generic looping filler for background noise. The bikes sounded good though, and little additions like the crowd cheering and chanting were nice. There is an announcer, but he mostly just says who was late or got a good start, then will chime in when something happens vs. doing a play by play and tends to repeat himself a lot.

Difficulty: Hard
Even on the easiest difficulty setting, it took me a LOT of tries to actually make it around the track, not to mention actually finish a heat due to the fact that I seemed to get D.Q.’d for everything from going off onto the grass about an inch to falling off the bike. Add in the fact that the AI is almost flawless (one race had one of the riders go out and not me), and it can get very frustrating.

Concept: 6.0
While the whole concept behind this kind of racing is unique to its style and is not meant to be like other motocross circuits, having some options to make it a lot easier, turn the rules off, or even have an unsanctioned stunt track or something would have made this game a lot more exciting.

Multiplayer: 5.9
There is a multiplayer option, but it consists of a four player split screen and everyone playing off of the same keyboard. I don’t now about you, but my keyboard is only so big and that would make me feel very claustrophobic after a while. Adding in an option to play online against other people or even on a LAN setting may have been a little more enjoyable. The box does say that a 56k modem is required for internet play, but after 30 minutes or so of searching, I still have found no option to get online with it.

Overall: 5.8
While FIM Speedway has it’s good points, the overall rules and the things which take away from really enjoying it stand out and affected the whole feeling of the game. After the first 30 minutes I played it, I was actually somewhat bored and just walked away to find something else to do. After I got the hang of it the game it got a little better for a bit, but then got repetitive once again and I found myself trying to go the wrong way and play “Road Rash” by intentionally trying to knock people off their bikes just to find something a little more exciting to implement into the game. If you’re a motocross fan or a fan of bike racing, you may find some enjoyment. Either way, I would suggest that you download a demo prior to making the commitment to buy.