SBK Superbike World Championship – PS3 – Review

Realistic sports
games have often fought and struggled to become mainstream to gamers.  Some
people love them, and other people absolutely despise them.  SBK: Superbike
World Championship is no different.  Superbike World Championship tried hard to
create something special and bring the realism based game mainstream, but it
just isn’t there. SBK is really just an average game in the truest
sense of the word, and doesn’t bring anything new to motorbike racing genre.

At first glance,
SBK: Superbike World Championship looks like a great motorbike racing game with
some refreshingly realistic gameplay.  While it does have a great selection of
motorcycles, riders, and sponsors, after that, it falls apart.  It had a few
modes that seemed too similar.  Race Weekend puts you to the test with a series
of tests and races, and Championship mode is pretty much the same thing with
more challenges to do. It went into the same setup menu in most of the modes,
and for players new to a racing game, it might be really hard to figure out how
to get to the final race.  There are qualifying races and other little
necessities you have to complete before getting to the actual race.  You can
skip all of this of course, but it is a little difficult to navigate for new
comers to the genre.

Although mostly
average, there were a couple of good things you will see in SBK.  One of those
things is the graphics and visuals.  You don’t always see good graphics in the
racing genre, but you can see them in SBK.  The riders look realistic, the
superbikes look ferocious, and the tracks look fantastic.  The only thing to
watch out for with the graphics is the outside of the track looks pretty
horrendous.  Other than that though, the graphics are right on.  Some of the
features were the best parts about this title.  It offered practice modes that
teach you how to race and use your bike to become a better rider. These were a
lot of help especially if you want to win.  It also offers a “quick race” mode,
as well, where the player can immediately choose a rider and be in a race in a
matter of minutes.  This was convenient for SBK, because it works well for
players who just want to get on the game and just play as soon as possible,
arcade style.

Apart from that,
the realistic racer starts rolling even more downhill with the gameplay. The
gameplay along with the courses didn’t do anything different than in any other
motorsport game.  The courses were boring and the controls weren’t the best in
the world either.  The controls were definitely iffy at times making you wonder
how you should go about racing your bike this time.  It seemed, even if you had
the same bike, it wouldn’t do what you controlled it to do consistently.

Overall, this game
does a good job by having the license and offering tons of riders, sponsors, and
bikes, but the end product is just an average superbike racing game.  It doesn’t
offer anything new and is just very boring during many of the races. If you are
looking for a game under $20, this one might be an okay pick, but there are tons
more games under $20 that are better than this one.

Gameplay 5.0
Riding superbikes is fun, but only the first couple of times in this game.  Then
it gets really plain and boring, and is not any fun at all.

Graphics: 7.3
The riders and bikes look beautiful and would work if the visuals of the courses
and environment didn’t totally ruin what awesome visuals they started.

Sound: 5.0
The engine sounds are decent, but there
is very little sound/music in the game other than that.

Difficulty:
Medium

Concept: 4.0
This game tries to deliver a new and realistic style motorbike racing game, but
instead it delivered a mediocre experience with nothing new about this game that
players haven’t already seen before.

Multiplayer:
6.5
Multiplayer might be fun and functionality seems there, but the problem is
finding players online at the same time as when you want to play.

Overall: 5.5

SBK really works hard on being the realistic superbike racer people would love
to see, but too many gameplay and other flaws hold it back from reaching its
true potential.