9.0 or 7.0? Depends if you're a racer or a hardcore gamer.
When the game loads you find yourself in a really nice-looking menu that will be very familiar if you played Superbike World Championship (SWC), easy to navigate and self-explaining, but this time you won't see your bike on a rather empty garage, instead you can see an exhibition with the bikes, paddock girls, the -handsome Alfa Mito and good background 'racing' music. Nice details that add to the atmosphere of the game without even starting it.
When going to the realism setting you'll find a lot of sliders and on/off switches to play with, and this is possibly where you're going to love this game because there are so many options you'll always have a game suiting you. Default realism settings are extremely arcade, and if you're and experienced rider, gamer or both you wont have any problem winning your first race, but Realistic settings are just impossible if you're not a good gamer AND rider, the good thing is that as I said, there are a lot of things to make the game perfect for your style, whatever it is.
If you don't care about settings you'll go straight to the 'Single Player' menu, There is a new Quick Race option that lets you chose team, rider and track (unlike the old instant action option), the now-classic Race Weekend option, Championship mode and training mode.
As you enter Race Weekend or Championship mode you'll be in the box with your bike and team, a lot like the previous game but with more... live characters and basically better looking, here you can adjust A LOT of things on your bike but if you played SWC you'll miss the basic mode to tweak things easier. The game will show tips about the track and your performance that are also a nice detail and even useful sometimes. As in SWC you can ask the engineer for advice or let him chose the best setup for your bike but there are'nt really any more new interesting things to do on the menu.
When you jump into the track you'll instantly notice the difference between SBK09 and SWC, the well designed tacks and bikes are still there but you'll see an helicopter following you, buildings around some of the tracks, light posts on Qatar and a lot of things that the previous game lacked. Small details that make the game experience more enjoyable.
I've been around bikes and games for a considerably long time so I started my first race with the most realistic settings (not the best idea). I chose a BMW to run on a rainy Monza circuit and as you might expect I ended hitting a barrier on the very first turn (d'oh). But to my surprise, when I was on the bike again I saw mud on Troy Corser's gear and when I looked behind, the front of the bike looked scratched and dirty! Details that people might consider stupid but if you're as crazy as I am you'll spend three days crashing and falling to see your bike dirty and then make a review about it.
After you go through all practice, qualifying and superpole sessions the race starts with a rather short cutscene of you waving in the grid and then the warm up lap, I miss how the other game showed every rider in the grid but that is not really important to the game.
Races, as you would expect are intense, exciting and fast. If you chose the right difficulty/realism settings, the AI is good and the driving feels almost the same as in SWC but with minor tweaks that you wont find until you spend a long time playing both games. If you're lucky or good enough to win a race you'll see a short cutscene of the podium with the rider's national anthem playing in the background, another small detail that adds a lot of feeling to the game.
If you're a "racing game guy" like me you'll love SBK09 realism and graphics, enough to give the game a 9.0.
If you're a hardcore gamer waiting for a technically perfect game with the most amazing graphics and perfect programming this is not it, but it's pretty enjoyable and you're going to like all the small details, and won't be disappointed either by fun gameplay, enough to give it at least a 7.0.
Racer? Hardcore-Gamer?
Everyone might enjoy this game, just think before buying it. If you want to have fun racing this is for you. But if you want the perfect game you better rent it first and see if having lots of fun is enough to get this great racing game.