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 SBK
Superbike World Championship
(Playstation 3)
Players can race sophisticated competition motorcycles across exotic
tracks in SBK: Superbike World Championship, the latest racing title from
Conspiracy. The PS3 edition offers a fine selection of game modes that
allow for either arcade-style quick action or deeper simulation modes
where you can adjust many aspects of your bike through a season's worth of
races. Once you get on the track, SBK offers a challenging experience that
requires you to time your corners, anticipate rivals and watch your bike's
position. A dozen real tracks, authentic riders and decent visuals make
for an exhilarating and polished racer that delivers exciting racing
action. |
Taking place on more than a dozen different
courses including well-known tracks from Japan, England and Canada, SBK
Superbike World Championship allows players to compete in the worldwide
SBK series with the actual riders, bikes, courses, manufacturers and
techniques used in the competition. Before each race begins, players can
choose from a variety of different game modes including Tutorial, Time
Attack, Quick Race, Race Weekend, Championship, Challenge and Online to
name a few. Tutorial mode is fairly self-explanatory and consists of a
series of lessons that help you learn the basics. Going through these will
help your performance on the track, so they're definitely worthwhile. Time
Attack allows you to race for the best time against the clock which means
the outcome is solely determined by your skill. Players who don't want an
extensive section on tuning or mechanics can choose to play a quick race
and jump right onto the track. This is fun if you want to start off
quickly without messing around with the menus. This offers arcade fun, but
there's also some depth in SBK. In order to reproduce the feel of a real
race, you can select the Weekend mode where you can run a series of
qualifying and practice laps to earn position before you enter the actual
race. Players can also compete in a full season's worth of races in the
championship mode, earn bonus points by completing certain challenge modes
and can also challenge other players by competing in the online mode.
These various options give SBK plenty of depth and variety, which makes
for a fun game that delivers both fast action and a surprising amount of
depth under the hood.
Once you've selected your race mode, you
can then move along and tweak your bike's performance before each race.
For beginners, the game provides default configurations for either arcade
or simulation modes. You can also go in a bit deeper and adjust different
parameters by themselves. Before you do this, you can consult with your
race engineer, who will give you tips on performance and handling. Once in
the shop, you can choose from a variety of different bike attributes
including brake sensitivity, tire grip, gear ratio and chain tension (understeering
or oversteering) to name just a few. SBK Superbike's extensive
customization features come in handy and the smallest changes can make the
difference between winning and losing a race. It's important to pay
attention to how your bike is set up, since it plays an important role in
how long you need to decelerate before turns and how much torque your bike
can handle without crashing over. Players don't need to go through every
single aspect of the bike before each race, since the game offers
automatic settings for the main situations, which include qualifying and
race configurations. There are many different teams in the game as well,
including Suzuki, Ducati, Honda and Kawaskai, and each driver on these
teams has their own strengths and weaknesses, which in addition to the
bike's themselves makes another key difference in how the game performs.
With all these options at your disposal, it would be easy to dwell on the
menus, but once you get on the track, SBK delivers solid racing action.
 Depending
on which course you select, you'll find that memorizing and anticipating
the curves ahead is the most important thing you can do in order to
succeed. Most of the courses feature different types of curves, ranging
from S-types to hairpins. A key strategy you need to learn is to break
ahead of time, slow down as you enter the curve and accelerate once you're
near the end of that section. Getting the hang of the timing is a bit
tricky, but you can use the races ahead of you for guidance and get into
the race gradually. As you gain more experience, you might want to try a
more aggressive racing style, but you'll need to adjust your bike
accordingly or you'll find yourself crashing off the track. This isn't an
issue in the more action-oriented modes, but in the simulation modes,
you'll need to be careful not to damage your bike since this affects
performance and too many crashes will total your bike, and end your race.
SBK's opponent AI ranges from somewhat predictable to very difficult and
the aggression and speed that you face can be changed at the start of each
race. While the initial stages are a bit difficult, you'll gradually find
yourself moving up the ranks as you gain the skills and experience you
need. This makes for a surprisingly challenging racing game that feels
much more technical than many other racing titles, though this shouldn't
be seen as a bad thing, too many racing games these days put the focus on
flashy visuals at the expense of real driving skill. The approach used in
SBK: Superbike World Championship requires some persistence and skill on
the part of the player, which makes it a throwback to the older style of
play where gamers had to earn their stripes.
While the controls are fairly
decent for the most part, the bikes themselves can feel a bit touchy and
over-sensitive if you configure them the wrong way. This can make for some
fairly frustrating races if you don't pay attention. The mitigating factor
in this is the realistic performance and feel of actually racing a complex
machine that SBK effectively creates. One of the factors that greatly
affects performance on the track is the tire grip and what type of tire
used. This can have a big impact in how far you slide when cornering and
whether you can barely get through a turn or find yourself holding on by
the slimmest of margins. Players can configure the PS3 controller to use
either the analog or d-pad to steer and can use the shift or standard face
buttons as well. During the race, you can choose different camera angles
and turn the speed and position indicators on and off. This flexibility
makes for a more appealing game overall. While the racing mechanics and
bike physics are SBK's main draw, it's visuals are fairly decent and
deliver a decent sensation of speed and momentum as you race along the
tracks. The character/rider animations are nicely done and the tracks
themselves appear realistic and authentic. Overall, it's a smoothly
polished racing title with good graphics. In closing, all the elements
combine to make SBK: Superbike World Championship a solid performer. This
is a fairly decent title that delivers a solid and exciting racing
experience. It's not as simple as you might expect, but the added realism
and depth creates a challenging and sophisticated title that offers a
surprising amount of entertainment and depth under the hood.
- Michael Palisano
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