Publisher: Acclaim
Developer: Attention to Detail
Release Date: 1/30/2001
Date Played: 6/12/2020
Region: USA
Time Played: 30 minutes
What’d you think?: This game came out a couple years after Gran Turismo 2, and it’s pretty evident that they were going for that with motorcycles. There’s a big career mode with lots of different classes of vehicles to buy and race, as well as tiered licensing requirements gating entry to most of the races. Unfortunately, the Ducati-specific branding leaves you with just one brand of bike, and while I’m not a motorcycles guy, I gotta imagine a lot of motorcycle guys might want to pretend to drive motorcycles from Yamaha or BMW or something too. None of the tracks seemed to be copies of real-world racetracks either, though they were well-built and fun to drive in. The game was fun to play. The bikes drove well.
The AI opponents, on Hard difficulty, drive well. The game’s approach to balancing difficulty meant that on Easy difficulty, your AI opponents will frequently misjudge turns and crash into a wall, something you can even see happening on the attract screen that plays when you first boot up.
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yahg6kE5Uk
