Superbike 2001 Review

The game features 10 drivers and 13 tracks, three of them being new (Valencia, Oscherslebe and Imola), and two new bikes: Suzuki Bimota SB8R and Honda VTR1000SP.

The game itself looks perfect. The graphics are great, and what's more, it's not at all too requiring. I played the game on a low-end Celeron 400 equipped only with a good old Voodoo2 accelerator and everything went smoothly with a decent frame-rate. The track scenery is sufficiently rich to make even those who are not exactly big motorbike fans, glued to the screen. Only the trees (2D sprites) could be said to have somewhat worse textures with ugly yellow rims. The game also features numerous visual details, like the color of your tires changing depending on the surface you were driving on...

Particle effects look fantastic. Accelerating, flying off track and similar actions create but small yet sufficient quantities of dust, and when you fall, you'll see the tiny sparks. If we disregard the minor (?!) flaw that there is no smoke coming out of bikes' exhaust pipes, the game has a perfect balance in eye-candy. For instance, the lens-flare has not been over done; it's just there to obstruct visibility when you're driving straight towards the sun. As you pass under the trees and they cover the sun, the effect will fade of, and you'll only see the shadows of the passing trees. Driving in the rain leaves the best impression. Just watch those raindrops smash against your hood and slowly fade away...

The drivers (their models) have been done very well. The programmers "sacrificed" several stunts who had to perform various tricks in some studio; finally giving us realistic and detailed movements. We can see drivers prepare for the race and taking optimal positions according to their speed, trying to hold on to their bikes in perilous situations, and finally fall. No, I'm not a sadist, but I really enjoyed watching them fall off their bikes. You can occasionally spot some frames missing, and the game seems to have a bug, which prevents the driver from falling if you hit the fence directly, regardless of speed.

Bike models are exact replicas of real motorbikes. They all look highly realistic and detailed all with sponsor stickers. The only flaw of this engine is the complete lack of damage models. I wish they had not rushed this much... Still, they obviously had to leave something Superbike 2002.

The sounds are quite admirable. Engine sounds and other effects become the quality of graphics. The commentator will occasionally say something like: There looks like Kawasaki is down! And he won't bother you too much.

The opponents and their AI vary. I sincerely expected them to drive more aggressively and wisely. Either I'm that good (which I sincerely doubt) or they rally could try to win a bit harder. I got severely irritated by their inability to avoid bikes that stand straight in front of them. Our driver isn't much better either. When he falls off, he'll run to his bike as slowly as possible. If she were in the lead and fall off the bike, still having a chance to win, even my grandmother would run towards the bike like Ben Johnson with on heavy drugs, and she would certainly take the shortest route rather than going around the bike.

And once the computer opponents start to irritate you, you can always play a game against your friends. The game supports LAN and Internet play for up to six players and a split-screen mode for two players...

And there you have it... Superbike 2001 is currently the best biker game out there, defiantly deserving a place in your collection, but ONLY if you don't already have a copy of Superbike 2000. If you do have the old game, just pretend you didn't see the new one, and save yourself 40 bucks...