Moto GP 07 is a niche racer for hardcore players. Seriously, no cliché here. It’s probably the best motorcycle racer to date. Not that there is a whole lot of competition out there. Hang-on and now this!
It’s really a difficult game. You have to go into it expecting to get beat up a lot. The biggest disappointment the game has is that it barely changed from Moto GP 06. What they really did was clean up the game and add some details here and there. Otherwise, most of the tracks are still the same and the game-play is virtually identical. What they did do was trim some of the fat from 06 and that’s very important. Before there were multiple classes and difficulties in the Extreme Career mode. Now it’s just one career with multiple bikes. Believe me, it’s much cleaner and easier to use.
In Moto GP 07 you’re given two types of games in one. The regular championship career is the simulation part of the game. Everything handles very realistically and goes through the entire 2007 season. As you win races your racing seed drops from #100. At certain levels you will unlock reverse tracks and new championship bikes. There are only about 7-9 bikes. Again, Climax Studios, thank you for simplifying it.
Extreme Career is where I’ve managed to spend most of my time. Rather than giving you multiple bike classes, this time you have a single season with the difficulty you choose. Now the player can purchase bikes instead. This is where 07 is superior to previous versions because it lets you pick bikes from different manufacturer’s and each manufacturer has 4 kinds of bikes. That’s where the classes went. But they also added customizing options as well. So you might buy a low-end bike, but you can put the parts in it to make a mid-range bike. It at least gets you through Rookie and Pro which also make the seasons go by without much trouble. The upgrades include exhausts and tires, swing arms and even lighter wheels. They’re basically just stat upgrades though.
The AI changed very little overall. You still get wedged between the other bikes and the track on wide turns. When that happens you’re probably going down. (Just raise the bike upright and slow down to get out of it.) It’s frustrating because the AI usually doesn’t move off their lines on the track. So you just have to work around them. They aren’t aware you are there and they play the track the same all the time. That’s part of what makes it pretty difficult is the AI can race the track perfectly. That means you have to do the same. Rarely does the AI crash.
The track design in the game is pretty fantastic. I find that you’re not going to get a better variety in simulation and arcade styles all in one game. The real world tracks are challenging and offer a lot of difficult lines. The extreme courses offer a lot of elevation changes and wider turns. Both can be a blast to play. The challenges add some more replay value but as far as that goes, it can be the toughest part of the game depending on how you look at it.
Online is also pretty hardcore. I haven’t seen pink-slip matches yet (where you gamble bike against bike), or ranked races. It is a tight community though, and you’ll probably see the same people online every night doing player matches. It’s fun, and not too laggy.
The game is definitely not for newer players. It’s very punishing and the controls have a big learning curve. It’s not a car on two wheels, you really feel like your racing bikes and thus the weight shifts and turns are all pretty much done realistically. But there is a lot of depth and fun to be had with it. If you’re willing to invest the time into the game it’s definitely worth it.