SBK ’07: Superbike World Championship Hands-on Preview

SBK-07: Superbike World Championship 2007 from Milestone has a lot to live up to. It’s been a while since Milestone worked on a Superbike title, but they are the team responsible for the excellent EA published series of the late 90s. Now with a licence to develop Superbike games for five years, do they still have what it takes to compete in the highly competitive racing genre?

SBK isn’t due out until mid-May, so some last minute spit and polish is no doubt being added, but early impressions are mixed. Numerous game modes are on offer, allowing you to jump straight into a race, go for best lap times, play with a friend or take part in a full season, and plenty of settings let you tweak the ride to suit you. Even with all these game modes on offer, it’s hard not to be put off by the rather early-PS2 quality visuals.

After heading straight to Quick Race my first impressions weren’t good at all. Colours are drab, textures are dreadful and trackside detail is nothing to write home about. Thankfully the game is already running at a smooth frame rate and gives a good sense of speed, but it should be when the visuals on offer are so basic. Hopefully the final few weeks of development will be used to spruce up the presentation and tidy up a number of visual glitches that are currently present.

Bike handling falls strictly into the sim category (although various options let you increase or decrease just how much of a sim you want it to be) with independent controls for front and rear breaks and realistic bike physics. It’ll take a bit of practice to get the hang of things, especially if you want to take part in 100% race length events without crashing out after a few laps.

The one major problem evident in this preview build is the inability to fully customise your controls, meaning that hardcore bike riding sim fans will likely find their hands contorted around the controller in order to get the best set-up. At the moment it’s also unclear how the PSP game (and future PC and Xbox 360 versions) is shaping up.

On the track then, things seem to be coming together well, but only time will tell if the final game will be able to rival the likes of MotoGP from Namco (Capcom in the future) and THQ – two series that have consistently delivered solid racing experiences.