My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Thursday December 27, 2001

Ducati World Racing Challenge Is Fun If Not Super Realistic

Unable to resist a bargain, and wanting a bit of variety I bought Ducati World Racing Challenge for my PlayStation (1) from a Radio Shack.

Although I can find criticism, I can't really say I've been disappointed with this motorcycle racing game, although I'm sure I will never "finish" the entire game as I can do easily with the Gran Turismo series. (Well, Gran Turismo 2 is a bit boring to finish completely, but it is easy). For one thing, Ducati World Racing Challenge does not indicate to you which races you have and haven't won.

In structure, the game is pretty much a total rip-off of GT. You have a mode called Quick Race where you unlock tracks and bikes by winning races, and another mode called Ducati Life which is "simulation mode". I mean, you even start (on day 1) with exactly 10000 units of money. There are license tests to pass in order to enter most races (a strange feature is that you "win" 500 for each test passed).

Money appears to be in short supply, except there is a dirty trick--almost a cheat you can use. The Ducati Life mode features a Need For Speed High Stakes type two-player challenge. So with two, or preferably three memory cards, you can arrange to beat yourself in those races and thereby get the bike you want for free into your "main game", to use and/or sell to make upto 75,000 for a vintage superbike. The game is careful to arrange that it won't give you the bike unless the loser agrees to having his save changed, but, like most games, you can make an arbitrary number of saves of the current game, so after you win you can then overwrite the "losing" game, and presto, you have an extra bike obtained at no cost.

Of course, it's impossible to properly simulate motorcycle riding without force-feedback (although the dual-shock rumble feedback for a wheelie-ing superbike is quite impressive), but the game is good arcadey fun. My reactions and accuracy are probably too bad to allow me to win many of the more advanced races, although I do seem to have only one more track and bike to unlock in Quick Race mode. But there is a nice variety of easier races in the Ducati Life mode to keep me going for a little while at least. And, somewhat to my surprise, I have been learning the tracks (watch out for the trick bumps!) and developing appropriate reactions which improve my racing results, so.... (But, really, there are far too many different series, and the game itself doesn't keep track of what you have even accomplished in Ducati Life mode, so on top of being difficult, it could be tedious to complete absolutely everything. I mean I'm still haven't managed to complete my highest level of license).

If you haven't gathered already, yes, every bike in the game is a Ducati. In most races you're racing against machines very similar, if not identical to, the one you're riding.

Like Gran Turismo many bikes you buy can be upgraded, but, unlike GT there is no tuning adjustment available pre-race.

The most annoying feature of the game is that you can only keep at most 5 bikes in each Ducati Life game save!!!! You can buy a 200,000 set of leathers (which is supposed to make you less susceptible to accidents, but I've been too cheap to try it yet to verify) but you can't even buy a bigger garage or even just a trailer to keep a few more bikes in!!! And a lot of the bikes are even harder to find than in GT. There is no new bike dealership with static stock--instead you have several different sources of different bikes; Vintage sales, Modern Bikes, Dealership, Ducati Magazine and Classified Ads. Vintage Bikes includes only old bikes, and Modern Bikes only modern, while the other three "sources" include a mixture. All the stock and prices are random; I believe it changes if you reload the same save again. Some catalogue of all bikes available would be nice--maybe I'll eventually make one. (I didn't find one on the net yet).

Oh well, you can use the 2 Player Race trick again to maintain multiple garages to keep handy bikes handy. But, boy, you could go through a lot of memory cards that way.

I shouldn't disparage the realism too much. Like reviews say, the game has a physics engine.

While side-to-side control seems unrealistic (the bikes seem to lack the proper amount of inertia), the physics engine is quite finicky about fore-and-aft control; you must get the bike appropriately stable or you will lose control over bumps in the track. This can be quite annoying until you figure out what is going on and learn the where all the tricky bumps are on each track, and how to set up for them. Having only 4 AI competitors in a race is unrealistic, but actually, given how obnoxious they are (weaving erratically from side-to-side, ploughing into you on certain corners, etc), it would be difficult to put up with many more.

The graphics are second-rate in many ways too; draw-in and pop-up are evident; difficult to hit an apex sometimes when it shifts as you approach it. Some of the scenery is very repetitive too, although there actually aren't very many places where you can't identify what part of which track you are on.

But, oh yes. The animation of the crashes is amazing. Not only can the bike slide out, or roll over either forwards or sideways, the rider can come off and go flying, rolling or sliding too.

It's too bad they didn't carry through in their GT homage enough to allow you to save replays.

As I say, well worth picking up cheap.

And, oh well, if nothing else, by buying the game I learned how to spell Ducati.