Personally, we can't wait for a Wild Hogs game adaptation.
09/10 cannot be faulted in terms of its fidelity to the license; sporting a bevy of bikes, riders and venues. Interestingly, 09/10, as its moniker suggests, includes all the MotoGP details for the 2009 championship and incorporate content from the 2010 season by way of downloadable content. The game’s core single-player options include an arcade mode and time trials in addition to the championship.
Speaking of the ‘career’ mode, that on offer in 09/10 is a lengthy, in-depth creature, requiring a good mixture of solid racing skill and effective, strategic micro-management for success. The basic structure of practicing a certain track, qualifying for the event, and then winning the subsequent race is fairly predictable, yet satisfying. Events outside the main races are given importance due to the fact that the player’s reputation is built within them; it is through this reputation-garnering that lucrative sponsorship deals and better bikes are made available. Slick riding, including capitalising on other riders’ slipstreams, earns reputation points, but sloppy racing and colliding into other racers does just the opposite. It is a fairly unforgiving system, but adds a mite of variety to the slightly predictable flow of the mode. Hiring team members, including managers and engineers to develop upgrades for your bikes, aids in player-immersion, but this aspect never develops beyond a surface-level. Overall, the championship mode is where most players will spend their time in 09/10, and it is definitely the most solid and fleshed out of the game’s components.
Eyes on the road, and off my arse, buddy.
The trouble is that the racing model itself is fairly unexciting, with the twitchy, terrifying, yet satisfying controls of past iterations foregone in favour of a more rigid, arcade-based driving model. Rubber-banding and a decent sense of speed ensure that most races in 09/10 are competitive fights to the finish line, but the experience feels slightly inauthentic and less dangerous than hurtling over 100km/h on a motorcycle should. The revised handling model may increase the series’ accessibility for newcomers (although the intricacies of tucking and following racing lines will probably elude the most casual) but it seems unlikely that the unwashed masses will flock to 09/10 over and above the bevy of superior arcade racing titles on the market. By pandering to the masses, Monumental Games has arguably missed the point, and risks alienating the most ardent followers of the franchise.
The terminal lack of excitement referred to above is sadly aided and abetted by a visual presentation utterly lacking in panache. Track-side detail is lackluster and sparse, and nothing looks as sharp or vivid as it should. Bikes and riders are animated without much flair, and a weak physics engine renders collisions and wipe-outs far less visceral than one would hope. Weather effects are fairly good, however, and sell the changing conditions effectively, and the frame rate is fluid for the most part. The sound design in 09/10 similarly fails to convince; the bikes sound like nests of angry hornets instead of fuel-guzzling beasts, and the licensed soundtrack comprises a dozen or so songs from a variety of artists with which we are unfamiliar. The music fits the action surprisingly well, but we suspect that the lack of variety will lead most players to supplement their listening experience with their own music library in short order.
The gameplay is about as exciting as this screenshot; track-side scenery is nonexistent.
09/10 supports twenty players online or two players via split-screen, and these multiplayer options offer only rudimentary thrills. Joining a race can often take more time than the duration of the race itself, and frequent connection drop-outs mean that 09/10 is never going to find itself in the rotation of the devout online gamer. Like so much else in the game, Monumental Games has ticked the necessary boxes without necessarily pushing the bar in terms of inspiration or innovation. 09/10offers a fair amount of content for those willing to stick with it, but it is not destined to be a long-term prospect.
So while 09/10 is functional, faithful and generally includes everything one would expect of a MotoGP simulation, it does so in a passionless way which seems to dare players to care. Faithful followers of the sport will probably enjoy themselves, but even they will be hard-pressed to ignore the game’s humdrum nature and ham-fisted concessions made in the name of accessibility. Sink your teeth into the championship mode, take time to acclimatise to the stiff handling, and you may not regret your time with 09/10. Just don’t be surprised when it slips from your memory in a matter of weeks, destined never to be fondly recalled. MotoGP 09/10 is competent then, but will never raise your pulse like any good racer should.
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