Riding Spirits

"Hang On for the next generation?"

The days of the motorcycle games are starting to draw to a close in the world of the console systems. With the main focus of gamers paying attention to games such as Gran Turismo and NASCAR, it really is hard to go back to the days of Hang On. In Riding Spirits, you are transported back into the world of motorcycle racing on the back of sport bikes with controlled tracks and high speeds. However, you might find that there is a little bit of a problem in playing Riding Spirits in the form of visual and audio problems that just don’t seem to stack up to the next generation. If you’re a racing game fan, then you’ll find little to complain about, but if you’re a gamer who likes to play all types of games, you might find some gripes from the start.

The Game Play

The game play in Riding Spirits has a limited amount of modes and overall focus that you would expect from a racing game that is trying to compete in the market these days. There are a couple of modes that greet you from the start with either the racing portion of the game in which you compete for points against the computer or against a friend and then there is the training mode that shows you all of the technical options in the game play. When you get further into the game, you’ll find that there are some technical things that you can do to your bike, but the overall feel of the game isn’t caught here with the part replacement and it will show.

The difficulty of the game really isn’t in question, but more of what type of control that you have over the game in general. You’ll find that playing through the game requires you to have total control over the speed of the bike on all of the turns whether or not they are tight or wide. When playing, you’ll have to pay attention to the computer driven opponents as well, because they have a tendency to hand you your ass if you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in the middle of a race. The mere thought of simply beating your opponents to the finish line here will cost you the race every time based on the fact that the computer seems to have super-human control and speed with whatever bike they happen to have.

Much like Hang On, the collision detection that you have here is bad in the sense that you can come into contact just barely with another rider and off the bike you go. While this might not be much of a problem for those who don’t mind a little flying in their racing games, it gets old after the first ten times you run into it. The computer is ruthless when it comes to this and you might be starting out again, only to get nailed right off your bike by a passing rider. Frustration sets in about half way through the game when a simple mistake can cost you the race, so be prepared to throw the controller a couple of times if you have a short fuse.

Control can be a bit of a factor when you’re playing through the races simply because there isn’t a sensitivity on the analog sticks that can match what turning a bike is really like. You’ll see that going into the different corners and using your thumb requires you to use such a gentle touch that you’re hardly using the analogs at all. Not only that, but if you over compensate for the turn and the speed that you’re going, you’ll find yourself slamming into the ground at an insane speed. These small nuances in the control setup will make for a tricky time with the game and can either spell victory or disaster unless you’re able to work with the interface as it’s given to you.

The Visuals

Visually, Riding Spirits just doesn’t have much going for it in the way of visual locations or special effects. You’ll see from the start that the behind the rider view is easy enough on the eyes, but the locations seem pretty much the same after a couple of tracks. Differences in the color scheme of computer controlled riders will show you just where you stand on the track and the feeling of speed is present no matter where you are on the track. If you allow the computer to get ahead of you, then you can catch up to them in a clean view fashion that shows good distance scrolling. Details in the motorcycles are also top notch with plenty of references to some of the top names in sport bikes including Honda and Suzuki.

The Audio

Probably the killing point of the game, the audio sounds like something out of a bad jazz club that is located on the furthest side of the eighties. You’ll head the ear splitting sounds of a keyboard through most of the stages and even the main theme has that bad musical quality to it. When you put this together, the fact that the game is not a sound intensive game means that you can change out the game music for something that is on a CD player. The sound effects also have a dull sound to them, with little or nothing going into the sound of the bike or the races themselves, leaving you with a rather boring sound experience from start to finish.

The Verdict

Riding Spirits just doesn’t have enough going for it to make it anything special in the eyes of racing game fans. While the game does have a merit in the visual department, the rest of the game suffers from under-utilization of key features such as the two-player mode and even a story mode that helps to unlock other features. With racing games in the Play Station 2 library featuring super competitive computer controlled racers and cars that can be customized from now until the end of time, there isn’t anything in Riding Spirits that makes it interesting. If you’re looking for a motorcycle racing game to fill up your library, you might want to wait a while longer until something with more features comes along, because Riding Spirits is in last place.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/03, Updated 01/04/03