The Isle of Man TT is arguably the world’s most dangerous motorsport event.

It’s a 37.5-mile race along public roads around a picturesque island sitting in the Irish Sea. But don’t let the serene countryside backdrop fool you. Since the event’s inception in 1907, the race has claimed nearly 260 competitor’s lives, even more if you include bystanders.

KT Racing have returned to the famous Manx TT event with Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2, the follow-up to their 2018 game. And with the real-life 2020 event cancelled, this game is the only way to enjoy the 2020 race.

The Isle of Man TT competition is held over two weeks. The first week is for practice and the second is the actual time-trial racing.

Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2 not only features the entire iconic island circuit, complete with authentic scenery, it also includes various races along public roads in the UK and Ireland. There’s even a free ride mode whereby players can take in the entire Irish location, at their leisure.

The game features three classes of bike: Classic, Supersport and Superbike. Each with a range of machines from the past and present motorcycle racing scene. The bikes are customization and can be setup according to riding style.

The game has all the usual modes. Career gives players the opportunity to work their way through various regional competitions to earn a place at the Isle of Man Event.

Quick race enables players to try out all the circuits as either a mass start or time trial event, selecting the about of laps, number of opponents, time of day and weather. The player’s position on the grid can also be selected.

Time attack has players racing their customized circuit selection against their own ghost bike. This is by far the best way to get the essential familiarization with the circuits.

Free roam, as previously mentioned gives players the opportunity to go for a leisurely ride around the Ireland. There’s also a tutorial mode which takes players through a section of the TT circuit, explaining the throttle, braking, weight distribution and gears.

Multiplayer is catered for both online and locally. Being time trial events, local multiplayer makes for a great “pass the controller” couch tournament.

The game includes plenty of content for players to get stuck into. There are ten sections of the 37.5-mile TT circuit which can be ridden as individual sections, as a customization series of sections or in its entirety. The United Kingdom has nine unique circuits and Ireland, eight. None of the circuits are short, the shortest being 2-3 miles. Some of the circuits take a good fifteen minutes or so for one lap, then you’ve the grueling Isle of Man circuit in itself.

The circuits are all very detailed and look really authentic, even if they are hard to take in when flying along 5m wide roads at 300 km/h! The visuals are, on the whole, very good. There’s no slow-down on an Xbox One X and it all feels very fluid.

Bike handling is responsive. I did have to reduce the deadzones to remove a bit of controller lag to stop me over compensating. There’s no way you can blame the controls for your crashes. That being said, Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2 is brutally unforgiving. Even after hours of play, I was only really comfortable on the relativity pedestrian classic bikes rather than the Superbikes.

The game caters for the novice, with automatic weight distribution, combined breaking, automatic gears and a racing line, with braking indicators. Even with all these aids, the sensitive control inherent in motorcycle riding games makes for a steep learning curve.

Just when I thought I’d got the hang of the game I’d wrap my machine around a lamppost, sending my hapless rider sliding down the road. Turning the racing line off was the first step to success, as apart from at the beginning of your racing career, the line is more of a hindrance, going against your own reading of the road ahead and becoming a hazard in itself.

The game really wants players to use manual gears, which makes sense as they allow for better speed control. Adding separated front and rear braking along with front/rear weight distribution and you are in for a tense bit of riding.

The real purists may also want to try riding with helmet view, which gives a realistic rider’s-eye-view of the road. Even though I have a motorcycle licence, this view was too harrowing for me, and I stuck to the arcade-style third-person view.

Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2 is a polished and very well-rounded motorcycle racing game. It offers players a lot of variety and is nice to look at. The learning curve is nasty. You will crash, a lot. But when you do have a good run, open up the throttle, and hear that authentic whoosh as you roar past trees and bushes, you may start to understand why so many risk their lives racing the Isle of Man TT.

The post Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2 (Xbox One) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Going into MXGP 2 I was actually a little excited.  Having not played a motorcycle or motocross game in a very long time I was really keen to see how these games may have come on over time. Unfortunately it just did not meet my hopes or expectations.

Kicking straight into the game after the character/team selection is the tutorials.  Because this game is very much a motocross sim these tutorials were skippable, but really important if you have not played one of these games before as it taught you things such as knowing to use the clutch on tight corners and how to use it in game for example.

The next thing I noticed was graphically the game does not look exceptional. It is not bad but historically with racing games from big publishers I have come to expect them to be cutting edge and I honestly would have believed this was a console launch title.  It is likely it was my fault for having high expectations, but I could not help but be disappointed.

MXGP 2 is very much a motocross simulation game, sometimes to a fault.  They have taken a lot of time to include a variety of courses, countries, sponsors and bikes.  The customisation gets deep as hell which should appeal to most motocross fans, but to casual players looking to have a dabble that this is going to involve a lot of time being sunk in things you did not know about myself.  I personally found them to be a painful chore.

With them taking the sim side of things comes one very steep learning curve.  If you lean too far and you will come off your bike.  Also, mastering the use of the clutch and turning takes a long time to get used to, so if you have not played a motocross game in a while, expect to be beaten in races A LOT while you get the hang of the controls.  This is all fine, having a steep learning curve is not necessarily an issue, the problem is with this time comes two very frustrating issues.  One is I consistently went through bikes half the time and crashed into them at other times.  I could handle either but not knowing what was going to happen when an AI bike goes into the side of you or you into the side of them gets frustrating.

Another issue is how far off the track you can go.  When the first couple of dozen times I went off the track I would go about a meter before being plopped back in the middle of the track, which drove me insane because that jarring change really disrupts the flow of the game.  There were times I would accidentally cut a corner and right as I was about to land back on the track it threw me back into the middle of the track at a stand still.  On top of that the further I got in I found sometimes you would go even further off the track before being dropped in. Granted still talking a few metres, but again this is very disrupting of the flow, as you cannot predict how the game is going to react at times.  I can overlook annoying mechanics if they are consistent.

Honestly MXGP 2 is not bad. Once you get over the steep learning curve and get stuck into the career mode, there is a lot of depth and some fun to be had.  But with the bugs and weird disruptions to the flow of a race and some hefty load times, I just do not have the interest to spend as much time as I hoped I would with this title.

The post MXGP 2 (PS4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Following on from their excellent, if blandly presented Ride released in March, Milestone are back with MotoGP 15, adding a bit of glitz and glamour to the proceedings.

For this entry, the developer really seems to have really embraced new-gen technology to give us a two-wheeled racer seemingly running full throttle at 60fps. This affords MotoGP 15 with a level of precision unlike any other console motorcycle game available. It also manages to translate the break-neck speeds experienced on the track over to your TV screen.

The game features bikes ranging from classic two-stroke pocket rockets to arse-clenching 1000cc superbikes, all spread across a variety of different Championship classes. As well as taking part in this year’s and last year’s MotoGP, players can also choose to enter Championships or individual grand prix sessions across Moto 2, Moto 3 and historic MotoGP 2-stroke competitions.

You can find all your usual bread and butter race modes in MotoGP 15, allowing players to quickly get into a race, a Championship or their own MotoGP Career. There’s also time attacks and special events based on real-life situations from the MotoGP 2014 season to keep players busy.

Two-stroke fans can enjoy some additional challenges based on historic and fictional scenarios. Those that enjoy their gaming to be a little bit more social will be delighted with the game’s 12-player online and two-player split screen multiplayer modes.

Before you head online I suggest plenty of practice.

Racing on four wheels just doesn’t compare to the thrill of hurtling along a circuit on two wheels. Leaning a bike around bends and accelerating away is exhilarating. MotoGP 15 is fast and the controls very sensitive. This is exactly how a motorcycle game should be. But, unfortunately, for most of us at least, we are likely going to spend an extraordinary amount of time sliding along the tarmac.

Moto GP 15 is an unforgiving piece of work that certainly had me cursing like a trooper. And whilst the game is equipped with all the usual riding aids like assisted braking and steering, the moment you switch these off the difficulty level goes vertical.

To get the most out of MotoGP 15 players are going to need to be either really into their superbike racing or have a lot of patience.

Like the more casual and player-friendly Ride, MotoGP 15 is best played with all the training aids switched off from the beginning to meet the game’s learning curve head-on rather than letting the aids lead you into a false sense of security.

Keep your racing line on, but switch off the steering and braking assists, and even switch on independent control of the front and rear brakes.You can easily do this by simply switching to Pro Physics in the racing aids section of the options menu.

Manual control of tucking-in will allow for that essential bit of extra speed that comes by minimising drag. Also, some use of the game’s genius semi-auto gearing allows bit of speed fine tuning into and out of corners. If you decide to keep your training wheels on, you are in for one hell of a learning curve later on.

As with most modern motor sport games, it’s no good trying to go full throttle around a track.

Sure, on the straight you’ll be going great guns, but to win you must get into the rhythm and flow of the cornering. And it takes discipline. In control of such power it is all too easy to go full steam towards a corner with no hope of stopping. Motorcycle brakes are rubbish compared to a car and if you overshoot a corner you will lose valuable time.

Take it slowly.

Having played a few motorcycle racers before, I thought I’d be fine going straight into a full-on 1000cc MotoGP Championship. It was only after a few frustrating laps that I realised that this was not the case.

Whilst the tutorial does a good job of introducing new players to the control scheme, only practise is going to get you around the track. The game does offer that common racing game cop-out that allows you to rewind the race, but most of the time I found my riding error occurred long before the limit of the rewind function.

Starting again, this time swapping the performance superbikes for slower and of smaller capacity bikes, I was finally able to keep upright for a whole race.

The simulation aspect of the game is fully featured, with tyre wear, bike damage and weather that varies race-to-race. Accelerate too fast and you’ll wheelie, grab too much of that front brake and you’ll do an impressive, if usually catastrophic, stoppie.

With the Pro Physics setting the game give players full control of the bike allow you to shift the rider’s weight forward and backward as well as tucking in for better aerodynamics. The game’s brilliant semi-auto gearing means that players can, if they choose, time their change of gear themselves gaining further control of the machines speed and acceleration. This and independent control of the front and rear brakes leaves it up to the player as to how much risk to take on corners to gain some time.

Individual races, Championships and Time Attacks are all well and good, but for me the most fun was had in the Career mode. Here I could customise my rider, get sponsor deals and earn upgrades for my bike. Also, starting with a modest bike enabled me to really get to grips with the game. Taking the time to do practice laps and have my engineer adjust the bike according to my feedback was a much gentler introduction to the game than just jumping on a superbike and hoping for the best.

MotoGP 15 is a hard taskmaster. It’s a game that doesn’t pull its punches. But mastering the game’s tough learning curve reveals an exciting racer that offers a sense of achievement way beyond what you get from a lead-footed racing car game.

Milestone have been knocking out MotoGP games for years now and have pretty much got it down to a fine art.

The problem is that with their last motorcycle racing game, Ride, the developer was able to spread their wings a bit, away for the constraints of a licensed Championship, giving us more bikes, more customisation options and some more interesting circuits.

It seems that Milestone had a bit of fun with Ride, leaving MotoGP 15, in comparison, a very dry affair. By, quite rightly, catering to the MotoGP fans who expect authenticity, the game doesn’t have the same fun factor for casual players.

Comparing the game to Codemasters’ racing game catalogue, Ride is MotoGP 15’s Grid to F1 2015.

Regardless, MotoGP 15 plays exceptionally well.

The visuals and presentation, whilst very good sometimes lack a bit of polish; a similar issue that I had with Milestone’s Ride. Whilst Moto GP 15 has plenty of game modes, it isn’t quite as accessible as Ride, being more of a game for the fan than players wanting a casual dalliance with motorcycle riding.

If you are a hugely into MotoGP, then this is the game for you. If not, get Ride instead.

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