EA Sports, a synonymous name to computer sports gaming enthusiasts, has now stepped into the genre of racing games. This new addition to their repertoire will certainly make a big impact to any racing fan. This review entails their two-wheeled racing product, Superbike World Championship. Are you ready to .. "Live to Ride... Ride to Win"

Ahh, those two-wheeled wonders that race about through a windy course at those mind blowing speeds on such a device, whether the course is dry or wet. Those drivers must have a great deal of courage there, so I must bow to those individuals who do this for a living, though I think you guys are nuts and insane! But I truly have a lot of respect for you guys. I mean for one, you don't have that much protection when you just happen to get into an incident on the track. You only wear the bare essentials for safety, such as a leather suit, boots and a helmet. I, on the other hand, prefer the protection of some type of four-wheeled vehicle. So I wonder how might it feel to be thrown of a motorcycle at any speed, yet some of can still walk! That's simply amazing. Another thing that amazes me is the speed you travel at when you are at a turn or corner. Those two wheels or even you must be screaming for deal life for traction, as a little dust or bump can sending you flying like Superman. Wow! The final thing at amazes me about you guys, is the weather on that track. When the track is cold, how cold are you when you are driving on the track? I don't think that leather suit can keep you that warm, or does it? You guys probably dress appropriately. Wait a minute, that would mean added weight to the bike's overall weight. There goes some added time. Shall we bring up the rain? I mean, usually when it rains, it pours and you only have two wheels for traction and your balancing act to keep the bike under control. Could racing motorcyclists be the masters of machines or could be fighter pilots? Hmm..

SBK is based upon a real life motorcycle racing organization, the Superbike World Championship, hence the name. The season modeled was in 1998 and all the tracks, there are 12 of them, that SBK raced. You also have the five types of bikes to choose from: Ducati, Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. Each having their own characteristics and sounds! SBK also features two types of physics, arcade and simulation. The latter being more difficult of the two of course.


CONTENTS

The SBK box is an eye-appealing work of art, detailing the beauty and technical the aspects of the game. EA Sports has really done a masterful job here. Interior wise, you get the SBK CD, reference card -basically an installation guide and troubleshooter, SBK manual, EA Sports brochure and registration card. The SBK manual was a bit vague in details, especially in the area of the telemetry, but you could still figure it out if you have some experience with other racing sims that used telemetry. The manual's lack of explicit was its only downfall in the category, other than that, everything is just flawless.


INSTALLATION

After you have read the reference manual, you are now ready to install SBK. I choose to install the big install of some 420MB, since I wanted the best performance of the game. Installation was flawless and fast thanks to the new Kenwood CD ROM, that will be reviewed shortly in the next coming weeks.


PHYSICS

All physic technical data and input were derived from SBK's 1998 Championship Ducati team and I must say from the simulation aspect of the game, it is modeled exceptionally. This is the best simulation of a motorcycle bar none! Driving and racing in sim mode takes a bit of getting use to, especially for those that are used to racing four-wheeled vehicles around the course. Just don't expect a bike to outdo a car, laptime wise at a particular course, just because the bike is lighter. If you do, expect to run the same speeds in the turns as you did with an automobile, say, "hi" to Mr. Grass or Mr. Gravel Pit for me. When you do happen to do some off-road chores, you will note the developers and the Ducati have done a superb job in modeling the terrain. This feat is also better than some highly noted simulations as Sierra's Grand Prix Legends. Traction is a big problem when racing bikes, as the wheelbase and the response time of the chassis is faster than that of an auto. The weight transfer from front to back and the traction available can be believable and I feel they are modeled correctly. You do have the ability to pop wheelie, lock the brakes up, the bike squirming under braking, skid across the track, flip over end-over-end. Now be careful when racing on the course as you might catch some air!

In the setup department, you are given all the setup options that your real counterparts tune in real-life. From rake angles, trailing arms, dampeners, preload, springs, sprockets, tire compounds to gears, you have them all available to you. Also, available for those tuners out there, is the ever-important tire wear and temperatures gauges! After running those laps, you can also view two laps at a time in the telemetry function.

When racing arcade mode, driving the bike around is a bit of breeze. So easy that you probably most of the time that you don't have to use the brakes! There is an auto-braking feature built-in this mode, which I really don't like that much. Maybe it just my preference, but I feel there should be some driveability available in arcade mode.

Regardless of any type of mode you opt to race in, you do have the ability to change driver's aid and realism features. SBK has a tons of features for you to tune your ability to the game. From sensitively on digital devices to manual sit up when under braking. This makes any racer progress at their own rate, good job here!

As for damage or crash modeling, I feel SBK is little weak. As the bikes don't really exhibit any damage to them as you crash and burn on the course. Perhaps it could that the real faction didn't want the developers to portray negativity on the sport? But there is damage modeling to the engine when you do over rev the engine.

From its six degrees of freedom physics, two modes of physics, setup options, the developer and Ducati team have done an awesome job on SBK! This by far is the most advanced motorcycle simulation on the planet today! The only weak point I feel is the auto-brake in arcade mode and the damage model.


GAMEPLAY

When you first launch the executable, you are greeted with a licensing splash screen - that also shows up again when you exit the game - then you must hit your ESC key to continue. I don't really like this, I really prefer for this to be in the credit area of a game. I feel it's monotonous to hit a key to continue. After depressing the key, you are introduced to a breathtaking intro of SBK. I must that the cut scene does get your adrenaline pumping as the video and music are first rate. From there you are introduced to a main screen that shows various types of play, once you have selected on what you want to do, you then are given a Simulation or Arcade screen. Click the proper area and now it's time for some fun.


MAIN SCREEN

QUICK RACE: This is basically a fast way to get racing quickly that automatically picks a bike and track for you. You will be right at the Starting Grid. This type of racing also uses the all current settings that you running for the game. So if you chose 10 laps, you get a 10 lap quick race.

SINGLE PLAYER: Here you can either select a single race, championship and mulitplayer. You also have the option in selecting a bike and track. The latter if you are just doing a single race. You can also chose Practice at any particular track. This mode of play will help those of you working on those setups and driving lines in simulation mode!

MULTIPLAYER: SBK supports IPX, Modem, Direct, and TCP/IP. You also have the option of including AI in your multiplayer races.

SUPERWORLD: This area entails the details of every driver, bike and tracks that are raced in the SBK. Also, included are some very nice images of the Girls of the SBK!

But before you can continue playing, it is better to set your options in SBK. SBK does not fail here neither. From here you can configure, gameplay, controls, graphics, realism (in simulation mode) and sound. You can set the weather or you can have it set at random. So don't get shocked to be racing in the rain! SBK is very explicit in this area, in fact so explicit that it puts other types of racing games to shame.

Racing in either mode depending on the driver's skill to maneuver on the courses can be either a bit of challenge or just plain dominance. But racing is at it's hardest and closest, you are certain to have some great racing experiences. My heart was pounding hard and fast, sweat trickled off my forehead as I did battle on the track. SBK just builds my passion in racing in more. When running a season in simulation mode, pay attention to your track temperatures! As the temperatures changes from session to session.

There are several views you can race from, head camera, cockpit camera, shoulder camera and behind-bike camera. I chose the first view, which quite awhile in getting to use. I just love this view as your head swings from side when tilting the bike from side-to-side. This view gave me a better perspective when racing, cause I felt the bike better as I moved from left to right.

I will tell you this, if you decide to manually do the Sit Up when braking, good luck! It's a bit of chore and it's quite hard and very challenging. I tried turning of this setting and I found the wall a couple of times. OUCH!

Overall the balance of gameplay is above average. With 12 tracks and several bikes to choose from, you are certain the longevity for offline play will last for quite sometime. I didn't get a chance to play in multiplayer mode yet.

There were several areas which I didn't like much. One was when saving a setup, the filenames are a bit to decipher, it seems when you save a setup, they are all compiled into one file for one track. This I did not like, I rather prefer to have setups to be saved individually with their own name. Another problem I encountered was the ability to view replays. You could only save replays after you have completed a race. It would've been more beneficial if you have the ability to save a replay during practice, qualifying or warm-up modes. This would be a great asset for those of us who not only would like to compare telemetry files but also replays. Hmm, to have the ability of the telemetry and replay combined would be great!

These areas only hurt gameplay when one decides to send in their setup/replay to a site. I had to deduct some points.


ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Depending what you settings are for your competition, they did exhibit some very intelligent behavior. They weren't just your typical drones running about on track, but they have intelligence as they do race on another and do race the human player. At the AI's highest setting, they were very tough to race against. At their lowest and slowest setting, you could easily dominant a race regardless of what mode. Just don't be surprised to get a hand gesture during a race when there has happens to be an altercation during the race.


GRAPHICS

SBK supports Microsoft's Direct3D API. I ran the game with the following graphics cards; 3dfx Voodoo2 and NVidia TNT chipsets. Image quality edges goes to the TNT card as the 3dfx Voodoo2's image had washed out colors and blurry textures. The TNT truly exhibited photorealistic textures and colors. All images here were taken with a TNT based graphics card. When viewing a replaying, I was totally shocked of the beauty of SBK. Special effects include lens flare, dynamic skid marks, smoke, water spray, lighting and shading. The latter two were exceptional as you raced around track. SBK, by far, is the most accurate track detail I have ever encountered! If Rockwell was alive he would be very proud and impressed with the artistic talents by the development team. I'm in bliss!

From a performance perspective, frame rate suffered a little depending on view you raced or viewed in the replay in heavy traffic. But, this drop in frame rate didn't last long on my P2 450MHZ system. Overall the performance was fast! Resolution ranged from 640x480 to 800x600. I ran the game in the latter resolution. I just hope in the future for a patch to increase the resolution more, SBK is too beautiful to locked down at this low of a resolution. Please, EA Sports?


SOUND

All sounds in the game are first rate and very well done. Each bike has their respective engine sounds. The Ducati sound the most nasalistic and the Suzuki sound more akin to a F1 engine. Aww, beautiful sounds to my ears. Music, again well done with booming bass to them. All music match appropriately to the game. I would've been nice to have support for A3D 2.0 or EAX 1.0 3D Sound APIs.


FORCE FEEDBACK

Yes, there is force feedback in the game. I used AVBTech Force Feedback Wheel to try this out. You could feel the jolts as you shift, but there was a lack of sensation as you moved the bike on the track. There were no vibrations as you drove around the track, no loads against the wheel as you tilted the bike as you made a turn. When you went offroad, there was no feedback I encountered, yet could feel it when you ran over the curbs.


BOTTOMLINE

SBK is the baddest, the most awesome motorcycle game in the past several years! I have truly fell in love with it! Kudos to the guy at EA Sports for bringing out this masterpiece. There is a new standard in motorcycle racing games and probably games of this genre I highly recommend SBK to any racing enthusiast out there. This is as real as it gets.