The bike aspect of the racing games genre has been on a pretty good run, wouldn’t ya know? The folks at Milestone have been tinkering hard on their motorbike series and MotoGP has seen many changes in the two years since we last reviewed them.
So bar the highly requested Rider Transfer, how does this one fair on the esses?
Presentation
The game still looks incredible from their usage of Unreal Engine 4, with newly added media packages that the current MotoGP series also have in their live broadcast, which includes their own theme song and different podiums for their Sprint races, though for the sprint podium might have some bug or two but that could be patched later on.
The menus themselves feel slick with some reading menus that can get you racing with the riders within a few clicks (unlike a certain pinnacle of motorsport series in a rival company).
Besides all of that, it’s pretty much still the MotoGP game that most fans are used to since the transition to Unreal Engine back in 2020. Complete with customization options for riders and such, all in solid 60fps on Current Gen Consoles plus PC.
Gameplay
Now the real star of this new game is the Rider Transfers which are more dynamic than any of its peers, with the chances of riders from all three categories being able to climb up the ranks and letting some of the current MotoGP stalwarts retire from the sport as the season progresses. It can change up the field from the start of your career mode and that feels more unique to people’s playthrough after years of seeing a static grid.
And the fact that career mode also has set goals that help you go through the season with races having a set of goals to achieve to ride better bikes (like you need to be this higher level to ride the faster Ducatis when compared to the lower teams like Trackhouse or Honda) is also a cool way to tie in all of the mechanics into the racing aspect of the game.
This, coupled with their pretty robust Adaptive AI in all levels of difficulty makes sure that you, as the player, are always on your toes during the races that might switch up from dry to wets or even the odd Red Flag restarts that MotoGP usually does if a crash involving two or more riders happen (and it happens a lot in-game).
The handling model has also been greatly improved, perhaps thanks to Milestone’s sister series “RIDE” helping the dev team achieve the perfect balance of not only being easy to control but also having the agility to make the cornering and side-by-side racing that this series is well-known work flawlessly is still astonishing even after a full decade since taking over from Bandai Namco.
It’s by far one of the more flexible racers between the sleuth of yearly racing titles so far in the market and that’s great news for fans of the game series.
Content
Like their four-wheeled rival, the fact that rider transfers are a thing from the bottom class to the top flight makes the replayability of this game increased ten fold, so you could see the likes of many Moto3 riders that you have raced with at the start of the game join you within 2 to 3 seasons is why the likes of EAFC gets a pretty good fan base within their own Career modes to see how it fairs with real life.
There’s also a LiveGP mode where you can join in the fun of the real-life weekend Grand Prix to see how you fare as your favorite rider alongside its usual Multiplayer modes. So content for this year’s game is quite abundant.
Personal Enjoyment
The MotoGP games are more of a guilty pleasure for my racing game brain and it’s nice to see them improving year after year as their closest competition languishes in the foreground, and while it doesn’t really set the gaming world on fire, 24 does well to keep me quite entertained within my time with it.
As I’ve mentioned in the older titles, this pretty good price point for MotoGP games (and its frequency to entering sale prices or even both Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus Extra), it’s a pretty good way to try out this 2-wheeled racer and leave pleasantly surprised.
Verdict
MotoGP 24 does one better than the competition by being best at what the series is all about, best racing with the unpredictability of anything that can happen within a weekend and that’s all that this game really needs.
Played on Xbox Series S, Review copy purchased by reviewer.
MotoGP 24
Better than the competition by being best at what the series is all about, best racing with the unpredictability of anything that can happen.
- Presentation 8
- Gameplay 9
- Content 7
- Personal Enjoyment 8