This year was a strange year for sports all around the world. Events were postponed while some decided to go ahead despite the lack of roaring fans. Watching from the television was merely a consolation prize for most amongst us. Luckily, Sports games weren’t affected by the pandemic (besides some small bumps in release dates here and there). MotoGP 21 tried to make the best motorcycle race game out there and might have just succeeded.
Handle with care
Right of the bat, I had a great time reviewing MotoGP 21 and I’m mostly not a big race game fan. I’m always looking to broaden my vision when it comes down to games of all sorts. That’s why I gave this one another try and I’m glad I did. Full disclosure, playing MotoGP 21 on the Playstation 5 with the haptic feedback triggers in full effect might have contributed a fair extra bit to my overall fondness of the game. MotoGP 21 builds further upon the great work done with previous iterations. The tweaks done to the experience are noticeable but don’t change the game drastically. Everything is done with the intention of making the Motorcycles feel authentic. Going into a curve at the exact “apex” and speeding up beyond the perfect “exit point” felt awesome.
Getting to that point of precision felt next to impossible at my first attempts. MotoGP 21 has a definitive learning curve. With handling aids options in full effect, I still struggled to keep up with the AI. It was only through practicing and tweaking I started to get a feel for the bike and could occasionally pull off a millisecond saving awesome turn. MotoGP 21 can be daunting at first but never felt unfair. I knew I made a braking mistake on the many occasions when I ended up overshooting a corner. I knew I straightened my bike too fast when I lost my momentum coming out of a corner. I was defiantly reckless when I crashed yet another time. But with each failure, I learned and eventually got to a point I could compete.
Get a feel for track and bike
Just like in real life, MotoGP 21 isn’t about just riding alone. It’s about figuring out each track and making small adjustments. Configuring the right settings for your bike could potentially smoothen out your experience on one particular track. The same configuration might be totally wrong for another. Testing out the tracks in the practice rounds and adjusting is an integral part of the game. Making small adjustments is being followed through with the riding itself. Being too abrupt will surely spell out disaster for your race. Smooth use of the throttle and smooth handling of the brakes is key to maximize your speed. The haptic feedback from the DualSense controller made you feel how in control (or lack of) you were with the bike which was an awesome extra feature.
Long lap penalty and Bike retrieval
MotoGP 21 has a neat feature of offering the intended roster of races for this season or the actual roster. Due to covid, the calendar got altered here and there and some races were skipped in favor of others. Besides this small adjustment, the main differences are the inclusion of the long lap penalty and bike retrieval. The long lap penalty is a rule implemented since 2019 but is only now included in the game. Riders who take liberties with the track and cut corners too short will have to take the long lap as a penalty. Crashing into other riders or wiping out will feature more realism with the bike retrieval mechanic. The option disables automatic resets and makes you actually run towards your bike while losing precious seconds. These inclusions offer more realism but can easily be disabled for those who don’t want to bother with them.
Managerial career
MotoGP 21 can be very rewarding if you try to go through the ranks from the bottom of Moto3 all the way to the top. Rewarding as it may be, some might’ve wished for even more stuff to do. The managerial career can be their next challenge. Having full control of every aspect of a team felt daunting to me but I can fully see the appeal for hardcore fans. When just playing a normal career there are a few critical choices to be made which felt more than enough for my liking. Having to think about other riders, analyzing race data, and picking every staff member ups the realism and inclusion even more but was not for me to dabble in. I’ll keep focussing on my riding abilities for now.
Conclusion
Building on a well enjoyed previous entry, MotoGP 21 delivers a smooth racing game. Although quite hard to master, there are plenty of tutorials and riding aids to help out newbies get into the game. Be prepared to put in the hours if you want to compete with the big boys online. With enough dedication, you might actually become good enough to attempt eSport MotoGP. I’ll just try to keep my bike on track for now…
