It’s Sunday morning and the glint from the sun outside bursts through your motorhome curtains. It’s a lovely sunny day, with a gentle breeze, perfect weather for popping down to the coast, but you can’t think about that today, no you’ve got work to do.
You roll out of bed, and head for the shower. Half an hour later after a light high protein breakfast, you are pulling on your leathers and following your strict routine to make sure that you don’t incur any bad luck through the morning warm up. You hear some fans chanting your name from outside, although from the inside of the motorhome it all sounds like you watching it on TV. A quick look in the mirror, grab the sunglasses, crash helmet and the sponsors obligatory baseball cap and you take a deep breath and then head for the door.
You open the door and the light hits you as does the screams from the fans behind the safety barriers. You stop briefly to sign a few autographs and throw a smile and a quick wave at the female fans who have spent hours queuing up to get a glimpse of you before heading into the back of your pit garage before their rather large boyfriend gets jealous and tries to end your weekend before you’ve even got on the bike. Inside you pat all your mechanics on the back as per your pre-race day ritual, before heading over for a brief chat with the head mechanic about the way you are going to run through warm up.
He looks at you with a broad smile clearly amazed that you were able to drag the heap of junk that you currently call a bike through qualifying yesterday and managed to stick it on the front row. He’s whole life and his families life for that matter is dependant on your performance. The sponsors are in the hospitality area looking on for a good performance and without it the whole team might be down the job centre next week. The ear plugs go in and the helmet goes on, you now see the whole world through a letterbox size box, your world has suddenly gone into widescreen and the volume has gone into mute, nothing but the sound of your heartbeat.
You climb out of your chair and walk through the garage and climb on the bike which is already started, you feel a slap on your Alpinestars back hump from your engineer and you rev up the engine and cruise down the pit lane. Suddenly there is a strange buzzing noise. You frantically check the dash but find nothing, but the buzzing is getting louder and louder and then… you wake up. It was all just a dream.
I suspect all of us have at one point dreamt about becoming a world superbike superstar like Haga, Bayliss, Neukirchner, Checa or Laconi. But it’s certainly not an easy or cheap sport to get into. However for those of us with a PS3 or XBox360 it has just become affordable.
SBK08 is released on PS3, Xbox360, PS2, PSP and PC and delivers an ultra realistic trip into the world of the World Superbike paddock. This is your chance to jump aboard some of the worlds most brutal superbikes, and they prove to be as much of a handful as they should be.
The level of detail in SBK08 is absolutely amazing, from the carefully crafted tracks, right down to very intimate details like the sponsors badges on each individual riders leathers and careful detail that has been placed into creating the Alfa Romeo pace car. The time and effort that the studio has put into perfectly reproducing every aspect of the World Superbike championship should reassure enthusiasts that this game has been produced by fans for the fans.
Next Generation games consoles have opened a doorway of possibilities to game studios and it appears to be an opportunity that Black Bean Games & Milestone have taken great advantage of by providing hardcore petrol heads with a full fat Superbike game as opposed to a watered down arcade wannabe.
There are six different game modes including : Quick Race
Time Attack
Race Weekend
Championship
Challenge
Instant Action
Once you have picked you game type, you will have 22 bikes and riders to choose between all modelled in great detail and updated for the 2008 season. Each rider in the championship controlled by the console will have their own riding characteristics, so the samurai of slide will really be staring down your exhaust pipes.
There are a number of different views for the rider in SBK08 which include, chase, onboard and the various replay camera angles. The onboard camera angle is one of the best I have seen in a motorbike racing game. The camera will duck down behind the screen under acceleration and pop out again under breaking, you can even see the bike moving beneath you. It is like being on the bike, which is somewhat scary that a video game has managed to capture this.
The game allows you to get as in depth as you want. For advanced users there is the interactive pit area where you can completely configure the bike setup for different tracks, with a detailed telemetry section allowing you to pin point just were your losing that tenth of a second to Bayliss. However if you don’t have an engineering degree then the game still allows you to make some changes with the handy tips section, plus the additional rider aids offered in the novice section should make this game a success for all users. Of course if you think you have the basics mastered then feel free to turn the traction control off and get the rear end sliding as you exit such corners as the Parabolica at Monza.
If you find that beating the console is too easy and you have an internet connection then there is an online multiplayer mode where you will be able to log on and put your skills to the ultimate test against the world’s best SBK08 players.
SBK08 is scheduled to be released on Xbox360, PS2, PSP and PC on 1st August 2008 and then be released on PS3 on 1st September 2008 and from our initial impression it looks like its going to set a new platform for motorbike racing video games.
For further details about the game visit its web portal : www.sbk08.com
