MotoGP20’s visuals are improved fractionally on 19, especially in wet weather conditions.
The creation suite returns with the addition of livery customisation, helping to make the game feel fresh as you progress through the seasons and change up the look of your rider and bike, which removes some of the visual fatigue other titles struggle with in similar career modes.
Friday practice sessions are more valuable than ever as you earn points to develop your bike through the season during them. Earn upgrade points during practice sessions by completing test programmes and take part in winter and mid-season tests to trial new packages and determine development paths of your team.
Upgrades, while not visual on the bikes themselves, do make a difference. but don’t always cut your lap time immediately. A fully upgraded Moto3 bike, though, brought race-changing improvements, as the size of braking zones decreased and lean angles grew more extreme as engineers worked on new parts.
One issue that has carried over from the previous titles, however, is the poor damage model and lack of feedback following collisions. Inconsistency with crashes after contact with AI can frustrate and no dedicated damage indicator leaves you in the dark as to just how much damage you have to your bike.
Playing with the anti-wheelie, traction control, engine braking and power functions mid-race make battles feel tactical. Without any explanation though, newer players will likely be overwhelmed.
A minor problem that can cause an off or two is the dropped frames every so often. It isn’t a regular occurrence by any means, though did happen on several occasions on PC. The issue was limited to a split second from the freeze frame to resumption of the action, and will likely be addressed with patches post-release.
The punishing handling and physics models make for a difficult game to master, but an ultimately rewarding one at that when things finally do begin to click for the player. Practice sessions feel useful rather than just another box to tick and unprecedented customisability options both in terms of player creativity and assists and difficulty makes MotoGP 20 a fun experience.
Fans of MotoGP will thoroughly enjoy this latest entry as Milestone’s newest game builds on last year’s solid offering and is a welcome challenge for any racing game fan.