Castrol Honda Superbike World Champions Developer: Intense Simulation Games Publisher: Intense Simulation Games Category: Simulation Motor Racing System Req: PII 266, 64Mb Ram, 66Mb HD, D3D/3dfx card, Win95/98 Might look like: ? Date posted: 29 October '98 Written By: Bjorn - This game was tested on P166, 32mb Ram, Voodoo Graphics, Win95 - A little Introduction Its A Racing Game! The Manual! Pretty decent. Short but powerful words I should say. :) Indeed this manual is sweet. It has basically all the information that you could ask. No need to bother the technical support team of Intense, just look in the manual and thy shall find what thy need. Every course is described in detail with even techniques on how to master them efficiently. Great. First Impression A new game from the fellows from Intense Games. But this is not just a game. No sir, it's a motorcycle game! Wow! You don't find much motorcycle games on the PC platform. Of course the best motorcycle game made is still Motoracer from Delphine Software (and soon the sequel) but other than that ... we have Motorcross Madness from Microsoft (soon on review here) and the ugly (sorry to say but I didn't enjoyed it a bit) ManX TT from Sega PC. Oh I also forgot to mention Redline Racer from Ubisoft which was pretty good. (already reviewed here) So, that doesn't mean that this game called Castrol Honda Superbike World Championship is just the same as those previous games that I just mentioned. No, Superbike is in fact a Simulation game. A Sim game? Oh, boring you would think. Well, hehe, your absolutely wrong about that because I had so much fun while playing this title I barely could stop. And I'm not nuts! Forget Arcade, this is Simulation-only! So gamers that rather would play Arcade motorcycle games, this is not quite your game then but I can assure you that will have fun if you give it a try. I did, so? Superbike is absolutely a simulation game which stands apart from any other motorcycle game which were all Arcade based. Here you will need to use your brain more efficiently if you want to take that left- or right corner without hitting the bushes or even the crowd. It's very, very and I repeat VERY realistic. It's probably the most realistic sim game based on a motorcycle ever! Of course Intense Games, who designed and also published it, didn't quite do the job all alone. No, lucky for them they got the chance to work with the Honda RC45 team. And after all, doesn't they know it better how a motorcycle reacts, how to handle it and so on because they are Pro's. Of course you won't win every course the first time that you play this game. You will need to practice alot on every track before you can memorize the corners and know exactly when to brake or shift a gear down ... otherwise you really don't have a chance to win it. It's not easy but it's not impossible either. So, what does it offer me? Well first of all, Superbike doesn't eat much HD space. As you could read this in the info at top of this review, the minimum installation just need 32 and the full just 66Mb. So, an excellent racing game that doesn't need much space? Wow, they really become rare. I just hate that when games takes up about 300 or 400 Megs each of your hard disk. Ok, they are bigger then 10 years ago with the Doom generation ;) but some are way to big if you compare at the quality of the game.    The interface is not complicated at all and its very easy to work ehm, play with it. Except for the background music which is ehm ... I will get to that point a bit later. Before you actually race, you need to decide what game type you want to race on. There are alot of different options. First of all you have the 'trainer' mode. In this mode you can follow another bike through the different courses which is great to learn when, where and how you can use your brakes more efficiently. Secondly, there is the 'weekend' mode. This mode is just another name for a plain single race. Nothing more, nothing less. You can race here on all the tracks. Options included are number of laps, how much bikes to render, etc. The most common mode and the most used one too. This game also offers the '2 (split screen mode)'. Same options as the weekend mode but here the screen is divided in half. If you choose this mode, I must admit that you will need more horsepower then the minimum that is here mentioned. Probably a PII +266 would be fast enough with at least 64 MB Sgram. If that doesn't work , ehm save your money for a more powerful pc. Next we have the 'Championship' mode. Nothing new to us right? Gaining points and be number 1 at the end of all the tracks. Finally we have the 'practice' mode. A bit different then the trainer mode because here you can't follow a biker. You're totally alone and you can select every track. It is not limited like in other race games which is a good point. So, no need to use cheats here to get access to all the tracks ;). On the other hand, practice mode is fun but not for very long because you don't really race with other bikers. It is just being used for memorizing the corners and the places where you need to shift down a gear and use your brakes. The most important thing that gamers search in a game is the ability of playing it in a 'Network'. And, yes, Superbike does have support for this mode. You can choose between joining or hosting a game. When hosting, you can set your own parameters. When someone joins it is by your parameters that he plays. Next Page Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. 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