Realistic sports games have often fought and struggled to become mainstream to gamers.  Some people love them, and other people absolutely despise them.  SBK: Superbike World Championship is no different.  Superbike World Championship tried hard to create something special and bring the realism based game mainstream, but it just isn’t there. SBK is really just an average game in the truest sense of the word, and doesn’t bring anything new to motorbike racing genre.

At first glance, SBK: Superbike World Championship looks like a great motorbike racing game with some refreshingly realistic gameplay.  While it does have a great selection of motorcycles, riders, and sponsors, after that, it falls apart.  It had a few modes that seemed too similar.  Race Weekend puts you to the test with a series of tests and races, and Championship mode is pretty much the same thing with more challenges to do. It went into the same setup menu in most of the modes, and for players new to a racing game, it might be really hard to figure out how to get to the final race.  There are qualifying races and other little necessities you have to complete before getting to the actual race.  You can skip all of this of course, but it is a little difficult to navigate for new comers to the genre.

Although mostly average, there were a couple of good things you will see in SBK.  One of those things is the graphics and visuals.  You don’t always see good graphics in the racing genre, but you can see them in SBK.  The riders look realistic, the superbikes look ferocious, and the tracks look fantastic.  The only thing to watch out for with the graphics is the outside of the track looks pretty horrendous.  Other than that though, the graphics are right on.  Some of the features were the best parts about this title.  It offered practice modes that teach you how to race and use your bike to become a better rider. These were a lot of help especially if you want to win.  It also offers a “quick race” mode, as well, where the player can immediately choose a rider and be in a race in a matter of minutes.  This was convenient for SBK, because it works well for players who just want to get on the game and just play as soon as possible, arcade style.

Apart from that, the realistic racer starts rolling even more downhill with the gameplay. The gameplay along with the courses didn’t do anything different than in any other motorsport game.  The courses were boring and the controls weren’t the best in the world either.  The controls were definitely iffy at times making you wonder how you should go about racing your bike this time.  It seemed, even if you had the same bike, it wouldn’t do what you controlled it to do consistently.

Overall, this game does a good job by having the license and offering tons of riders, sponsors, and bikes, but the end product is just an average superbike racing game.  It doesn’t offer anything new and is just very boring during many of the races. If you are looking for a game under $20, this one might be an okay pick, but there are tons more games under $20 that are better than this one.  

Gameplay 5.0
Riding superbikes is fun, but only the first couple of times in this game.  Then it gets really plain and boring, and is not any fun at all.

Graphics: 7.3
The riders and bikes look beautiful and would work if the visuals of the courses and environment didn’t totally ruin what awesome visuals they started.

Sound: 5.0
The engine sounds are decent, but there is very little sound/music in the game other than that.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 4.0
This game tries to deliver a new and realistic style motorbike racing game, but instead it delivered a mediocre experience with nothing new about this game that players haven’t already seen before.

Multiplayer: 6.5
Multiplayer might be fun and functionality seems there, but the problem is finding players online at the same time as when you want to play.

Overall: 5.5
SBK really works hard on being the realistic superbike racer people would love to see, but too many gameplay and other flaws hold it back from reaching its true potential.