The Other Guys
If you so feel like spreading SBK’s “joy†elsewhere, you and fourteen other players can race each other. You can gain levels, as testament to you having absolutely no other games to play or things to do with your life – since here, SBK laughs at you. See, the levels don’t offer a bonus or anything substantial to the experience: it just asks you get higher and further.
Like the flag-bearers, the other players are sometimes clones of each other. We can excuse it by saying they’re wearing uniforms – but we’re again talking about exactly the same movements, exactly the same bikes down to the placement of insignias.
It’s a nice touch that they try to add specific characteristics to driving and specific players to match or beat. For example, you can change what kind of style of racing you’re character uses. They try add some form of individualism since almost nothing else indicates individuality.
Even crashing your bike doesn’t offer the usual sadistic satisfaction, which has been one of the most important reasons for driving games’ existence since Nintendo. Guy McBiker kind of glides off like a butterfly and makes out with the ground; or he awkwardly falls off when turning the bike very slowly. There is no crush or thump. The bike remains perfectly unscratched.
Of course you will have to make repairs if you decide to continue through the Career Mode. Indeed, as you progress, you can make additions to your bike and so on. This means you can win more, which allows you to go further – but not so much further that you will start beating championships.
Instead, it employs the winning formula of drive, win, earn tokens which can be exchanged for improvements to your machine. Gran Turismo has been the series best displaying this type of gaming. You want to make better bikes than you’re opponent, but you also want to win because of your own skills. Of course, one could argue your skills have simply gone into improving your acceleration and painting your handle-bars bright pink.
Stretching the Line
Like many racing sims, there is no real end. Of course you want to aim for first in the championship. But, essentially, there is no end. Like Michael Schumacher’s version of hell, racing-sims never end. SBK is no different: there are endless combos, endless races, endless customizations and ways to play.
There is certainly longevity. But longevity is meaningless if what you’re extending is useless or awful: then you only extend the awfulness.
I find little reason to start this game, let alone continue it. It’s boring and bland, unexciting and really can only find some form of affection from obsessive racing-sim fans, who need a go at two-wheels instead of 4. With its flat landscape and environments, you have a flat game, hollowed out but propped up by its history. The SBK games were considered excellent, being not only officially licenced but also, in themselves, good games.
But this bland entity is not worth focusing on, unless there you are desperate for a racing-sim, like F1 racing but focused on bikes. There is plenty of customization, race-tracks, goals and opponents; an online feature; and of course very realistic handling and sound. Everything else, in its presentation, graphics, environment and focus is either terrible or lazy. It’s hard to believe graphics and presentation can still be handed out, at this stage in gaming – with games like DiRT 3, Forza, Blur, GT5, and others out showing excellence in racing – which for casual and hardcore racing enthusiasts. Sure, these aren’t all strictly bike games but it only highlights the competition and how much SBK 2011 is lacking.
Scoring:
Gameplay: 5.0
A barely acceptable racing-sim. Bland, boring and uninspired by everything else it does, there is little motivation to even continue playing or even start. But what it sets out to do, on a purely minimal level, it accomplishes. That doesn’t say a lot considering there is much finesse and style that should accompany simulators: being (more) boring than the actual reality it simulates is a sign of failure.
Design & Presentation: 2.0
An insult to next-gen gamers. I didn’t purchase a PlayStation 3 to get PlayStation One or Two graphics. The menu lacks substance and is confusing. The graphics are patently awful, with basically 2D images and clone bikers and audience being creepy on the sidelines. You’ll find more love for art in a three-year-old’s finger painting.
Value: 4.0
By next year, everyone will forget this game exists. You might get some value in having a game everyone forgot about, but other than that you’re better off saving your money for better sims. Unless you desperately want a licensed biking-sim, which allows you to tweak and design your bike and style, and there is nothing else to spend your money on (like charity), then go ahead.
Overall: 4. Add two points if you’re a die-hard bike sim enthusiast.
SBK 2011 is not so much a bad game as it is insulting and quite boring. Perhaps this does make it bad, but I would say a bad game is one that fails to accomplish its goals. Here, it’s obvious SBK 2011 set out to make a bread-and-butter racing sim. It did that. But nothing else. It’s insulting because we have not come this far as gamers to receive such abuses to our vision, since Janet Jackson’s nipple slip.
Last Updated: July 22, 2011
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