It is a fine balance between man and machine. You and your bike, hammering down the lap times as you fight the Suzukis in their home turf. Corner after corner, holding on the edge as your tires are about to give away. This is racing at its purest.
MotoGP has been quite an interesting series to look at since its first entry way back in 2013. From its humble beginning during the 7th generation of consoles to its current iteration now on the most powerful consoles to date.
So have they caught up with the times as well?
Presentation
Out of the gate, you’ll see the team at Milestone incorporating the MotoGP broadcast overlays within all of the game. From replays to even the in-game hud.
Its addition to the game helps sell the feel of you being a part of the circus within the series rather well.
And on the graphics side, the game looks quite well, both on the last and current-gen of consoles. The speed of the bikes is now fully felt thanks to the current-gen versions, and I couldn’t iterate how important it is finally to have 60fps on this sort of racing series.
The last-gen version is presentable and fully playable, mind you, but I feel that the jump to a higher frame rate is quite important as we head into the realm of faster loading thanks to the power of the SSD.
Audio has received quite an improvement too. Now the bikes sound distant to one another, from the whine of the KTM to the heavy metallic sounding nature of the Ducati, it is something diehard MotoGP fans would enjoy getting to enjoy the sights and now sounds of these machineries.
Gameplay
It is a case of “what isn’t broken, don’t fix it” for this year’s career mode. It is quite similar to last year’s iteration, albeit with some new coat of paint. But I do feel the addition of the “2020-like start” option is quite a neat touch.
It makes me wish that the game would follow a certain other racing series and make champion seasons customizable or even shorter. Food for thought, really.
But really, the career mode feels quite stale past the 2nd season, even with the ability to own a junior team and watch their races, and the bike development part within the career mode feeling quite dull.
Perhaps a revamp of the stuff like the practice modes or the aforementioned customization seasons could revitalize the mode a bit more.
That aside, the handling is by far the best in the series. Milestone revamping the suspension system makes riding the bikes exciting and even on the edge at times when you’re racing with the AI, all the while juggling all the wear in your brakes and tires.
Speaking of which, the AI is quite amazing to fight it, with them making mistakes on the same worn tires as you do, making races always interesting to play out.
There’s also two new addition to gameplay loop. One of which is the Long Lap Penalty system, a real thing that was introduced in the real thing last year and it works as its intended.
It doesn’t really come up within the single-player modes but expects a lot of them to go around it when the eSports lobbies start up.
Then we also have the after crash system. So if you tumble from your bike, expect to run towards it like something out of “Road Rash”. Fun in concept but the AIs doesn’t do the same for now (that’s coming in a later update), so I advise you to skip this until the next title update
Content
At this time of review, MotoGP 21 has all of the riders from all three main classes of the series, plus the Red Bull Rookies Cup and the electrified Moto E (also coming soon). A quite substantial list of teams and riders that you’ll be racing across the 21 tracks (plus 3 classic tracks) in the season.
The ability to customize the rider’s signature nicknames (like you seen within the races) and rider number returns as well. Not really a step up but helps make your rider feel more personalized within the other riders within the game.
As stated, the career mode feels quite fun to play at first but it gets rather boring. At least you have the classic bikes to play with.
And when the eSports series kicks off, perhaps more players will populate the Multiplayer lobbies for practice. But really, it is a solid effort for the first game launched in the Next-Gen era.
Personal Enjoyment
I’ll be frank but the Current-Gen versions on the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles feel to me like the superior versions of MotoGP 21. The 60fps just sells the speed and action that fans come to expect from the developer and series. Its handling and bikes are already pitch-perfect, it just needs the frames to get it.
But really, if the career mode has more stuff like the ability to do the Rookies Cup (like they used to before MotoGP 18) or the MotoE series, I’ll be more than happy to play through those in my career mode.
Verdict
In short, MotoGP 21 delivers as the quintessential game for this series about fast bikes going fast. Its cheap price tag doesn’t hurt and if you have a Next-Gen console, it is one of the best benchmark 60fps racing games that you can have on the market right now. And that is good enough for me.
Review code provided by Milestone.
MotoGP 21
In short, MotoGP 21 delivers as the quintessential game for this series about fast bikes going fast. Its cheap price tag doesn’t hurt and if you have a Next-Gen console, it is one of the best benchmark 60fps racing games that you can have on the market right now
- Presentation 8.5
- Gameplay 7.8
- Personal Enjoyment 8
- Content 7.5