SBK X: Superbike World Championship

Here are my impressions of SBK X that I posted at another site for those who are interested in knowing more about it.

1st entry
I have the hard-to-find US copy of SBK X and these impressions I have of the game are early. Up to this point I've only done about 50 or so laps at Phillip Island and another 12 laps at Portimao racing under complete simulation settings with manual transmission and manual rider weight movement on Time Attack mode. I haven't played Career mode and I haven't played on Live yet. The only rider I've used has been Ruben Xaus on his BMW S1000 RR in clear weather. So here I'll begin to ramble on some thoughts I have of the game so far.

First off, thankfully the controller input buttons are fully customizable and can be mapped any way the user likes.

The graphics in SBK X aren't mind-blowing, but they're good enough. The bikes and riders look great, but the tracks, roadside objects, skies, horizon, and background could be better. Now with that said, keep in mind that I haven't seen how the game looks in rain and also haven't participated in a race to check out the evolving track feature.

There are three different first-person views. Two of the views are the typical standard ones that has the road and horizon tilt in coordination with the bike as the bike leans. However, the other is ultra realistic one that resembles a true helmet cam. What I mean is that whenever the bike leans in the corners, the tilting axis of the road and horizon is separate from the axis coming from the vantage point of the rider. Pure awesomeness.

While the bike is being pushed to its limit in the corners the screen will shakes a little bit, giving a warning that the rear tire is losing grip. At this point of being at the verge of oversteering you'll risk completely breaking traction, sliding and maybe crashing if you're not careful with the throttle.

The handling model of SBK X is less forgiving on the understeering end as well. If you're too hard on the front brake when approaching the apex, the front tire will not be able to steer the way you like which could possibly lead to running the bend/corner wide or even going off track. If you're approaching a low-speed corner and happen to be late hitting the brake at the turn-in point and also notice that the bike appears to be on its way toward missing the apex, then you'll have to rely mainly on the back brake in order to correct your line through the corner. You'll no doubt run the bike wide at that particular corner which will cost you time, but at least you'll save it from going way off track and thus losing a whole lot more time.

The available bike configuration settings, telemetric data, etc. that are shown in the Pit screen are all superb. I was able to compare telemetric data from two different laps I ran at Phillip Island that I had accomplished under two different bike setups on the same charts and bar graphs. Great stuff.

I also took a brief spin on Arcade mode. And just as I initially thought before, this mode resembles Super Hang-On but on a track instead of point-to-point stages. There is a boost button that can be used as well as a button to do wheelies. There are no complex handling issues to worry about while racing in this mode. You only have to be concerned with accelerating to the max and braking or coasting in the slower areas.

Kruza

 

Entry 2
Now that I've finally played through a Race Weekend I'll post more impressions of SBK X. Here are some random thoughts of my experience.

I'm still running with Ruben Xaus in the S1000 RR. I think I will stick with racing at the Rookie difficulty level for a little while because there is a lot I have to learn about racing with consistency and also racing in closely contested packs without accidently running into competing riders.

At any rate, I finished a race weekend at Portimao. A race weekend consists of two free practice sessions, two qualifying practice sessions, three brief Superpole sessions, two Warm Up sessions, then two races set in Real number laps. Races in Portimao are 22 laps long. A player has the option to accelerate session time or even completely pass through a session without racing in them. However, be warned that the player will be automatically placed at the back of the starting grid if he/she purposely skips the Superpole sessions without posting a hot lap time.

The free practice and qualifying practice sessions are 60 minutes long in real time. If you crash your bike during a session it'll suffer damage. Then at this stage it becomes vital to roll into the Pit to allow the mechanics to analyze the damage and figure out how long it'll take to fix the bike up in order to get it back out on the track in top condition. That is... if you are healthy enough to continue riding. Yes, it's possible for the rider to become injured to the point of being forced into immediate retirement. Thankfully I didn't suffer any crashes during any pre-race sessions.

Concerning weather... I didn't encounter any rain throughout the race weekend. Just a lot of sunshine except for the second qualifying practice and one of the brief Superpole sessions where the skies were cloudy. So I still cannot comment on how it is racing in the rain on a wet track.

As I mentioned before, the Superpole sessions are short. So it's possible to end up starting in the back of the grid if a rider were to crash the bike while running hot laps.

In Race 1 I saw a little bit of this while racing during the 60-minute sessions, but now I can clearly notice that the evolving track feature is in effect. During the first race, the road in Lap 20 looked a lot darker in than it did in Lap 3. It was easy to identify where the high-grip areas of the track was in each corner and find out which line to take through them. There was little drama in this race as I was able to go flag to flag and stay out in front. I didn't make any huge mistakes, but I did make a lot of small mistakes which affected my lap times and kept a few CPU bikes within striking range of passing me if I were to screw up big. I finished about 7 seconds ahead of the second place rider when I probably should've been out further ahead.

However, in Race 2 for me got... interesting. Early on I was leading the race like I had in the first one, but things changed in a hurry in Lap 10. That was the lap where I briefly lost control of the bike and highsided while accelerating uphill out of a third-gear left bend. My bike suffered quite a bit of damage and ran okay, but it lost a lot of power and handling capabilities. Four CPU bike eventually caught up to me and passed me up in Lap 13.

So now I'm in 5th place racing nervous as hell because my tires are wearing out, my brakes are deteriorating, and my fairly damaged bike is getting eaten alive by all CPU bikes on the start/finish straight. My primary focus has switched to staying on the bike and maintaining my current place as opposed to pushing the bike to its limit. It has become extremely tough for me to take enough of risks in order to go fast enough to make a legit run at the leaders.

In Lap 15 I've become involved in a pack of three battling for 5th as two others that were way behind me have caught up. At this point I made frequent side-by-side contact and bounced between 5th and 7th positions (I gotta learn how to race in a pack without making contact with competitors).

Then in Lap 17 I highsided again at nearly the same spot as I did before. Now I'm f'n pissed because my bike has taken more damage and worse yet... I know for sure that I will not be able to make any kind of run at the leaders. But I can't let that anger deter me from regaining my focus to finish this race. Besides, at least my rider is still healthy enough to continue racing. I immediately fall to 7th place after the second crash and then to 8th by Lap 21.

On the final lap I was able to catch up to and pass the 7th place rider at the downhill right bend leading to the finish line. But my slow bike was limping to the finish line. So I resorted to blocking the CPU bike so it stays just behind my real wheel as we crossed the line. Heh, if this was a real race I would've been DQ'ed for sure. I crossed the line in 7th place.

I end up finishing about 21 seconds behind the winner who turned out to be Jonathan Rea.

In summary, this game is the ****.

Kruza