Motorcycle games for the PC are divided into three distinct categories, and an obvious front-runner dominates all but one of these. In dirt biking, Microsoft's high-flying Motocross Madness 2 leaps over the competition. For realistic road racing, you need look no further than EA Sports' incredible Superbike 2001. But if you're a fan of arcadelike motorcycle racing, in which real-world authenticity takes a backseat to turbocharged action, you'll find that high-quality games in this category are rare indeed. The latest attempt at one of these is Ubi Soft's Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing, an initially thrilling but ultimately tedious exercise that offers precious few innovations and even fewer reasons to continue playing once you've run through its tracks a first time.
In fact, Extreme Racing is merely a mildly reworked update of Ubi Soft's own mid-1998 game Redline Racer, which was a nice-looking but ultimately disappointing game even back then. Designed by England-based developer Criterion Studios, Extreme Racing looks a bit better than its predecessor and has a slightly more complex physics model. However, that's not saying much, considering the frightful simplicity of the first game. The fact is that bad computer artificial intelligence, ridiculous speeds, and a complete lack of depth and variety are not a good combination for any racing game. And since Extreme Racing has all three, it seems far more suitable for an arcade than for the PC.
Like Redline Racer, Extreme Racing seats you on a built-for-racing bike that moves far too quickly for the relatively narrow roadways you'll have to navigate. The game sports seven unique environments, which range from a big city street to a winding country road, to a snow-capped mountain, one of which is featured in each of the under-ten-minute events. Success in the "main game" season mode unlocks faster bikes, which you'll undoubtedly need to proficiently compete with the ever-increasing pace.
The real challenge in the game isn't in gracefully gliding through the gears or testing your balance through demanding turns, but in somehow keeping this wild and totally unrealistic machine on the track and off the roadside scenery. Fortunately, if you do collide with said scenery, it must be of adequate girth or protrude sufficiently onto the track for your speeding Suzuki to be impacted by it. Otherwise, your bike is unaffected by its surroundings, exhibiting no wheel spin and just a hint of wobbliness as it blasts over pavement, sand, snow, dirt, shoulders, and even small rock outcroppings. If you're really good, you can use some trackside obstacles in much the same manner as Olympic bobsledders use the walls of their tracks - to deflect back onto the racing surface. Is this authentic? No. Is it fun? Just for a little while.
Even if you do dump your bike, the repercussions aren't terribly serious. Sure, your rider will get the rag doll treatment as he's viciously propelled hundreds of yards down the track, but he'll be back in the saddle again and ready to go within a matter of milliseconds, none the worse for wear. Furthermore, the chances that your artificially intelligent competitors will gain significant ground on you during such a mishap are slim. That's because the computer-controlled drivers in Extreme Racing adjust their speed to your speed and slow down when you're driving poorly; yet, they suddenly surge when you're tearing up the course. The result? You'll rarely lose the leaders no matter how capably you ride. This sort of philosophy may be fine for a coin-op game, but not on the PC, where fast riders should be able to distance themselves from slower riders and where sluggish riders should suffer the consequences.
That's not the only troubling aspect of the computer drivers' behavior. In what seems like a throwback to the early days of PC racing, your computer-controlled peers are blissfully unaware of your presence, and they will drive into you and through you with wild abandon. Curiously, even hard bike-to-bike collisions rarely result in a crash, though you may well be knocked for a 180-degree spin while the legally blind guy who nailed you speeds off into the distance.
Yet, whether you're running a single race or contesting the multievent "main game," Extreme Racing's most damning problem may well be the lack of depth and planning in the game's design. For instance, how can a half dozen relatively similar bikes and just seven environments be considered satisfactory? How can a garage facility that consists of just three simple sliding controls - one each for "power," "steering," and "braking" - be misconstrued as interesting? Where are the qualifying sessions, performance upgrades, and replays? And why have mandatory checkpoints even been included on the tracks when they are quite capable of terminating your game prematurely, even when you're in first place?
Extreme Racing does offer some relief from the repetitive single-player mode with a split-screen two-player option and eight-player racing over the Internet, the latter of which is very easy to set up with Ubi Soft's proprietary "game service client." However, the game doesn't support force-feedback controllers.
Visually, Extreme Racing gives a great first impression. Sitting on your motionless bike at the starting line, you'll witness a beautifully rendered and colored world that looks very lifelike. The competing bikes are nicely colored and decked out in the same Suzuki racing trim you'd find in the real-world Suzuki Alstare team. Plus, the game's frame rate is very fast, and Criterion has implemented a convincing sense of motion blur.
However, you'll soon notice that the game's pretty environments are also unquestionably stagnant. Trees do not bend with the wind, leaves do not fall, and clouds do not slip across the sky. There is no fogging, there are no birds or airplanes, and the rudimentary depiction of lens flare - two translucent circles that dance about the screen - is more annoying than anything else.
Any visual racing effects are few and far between. Somehow, these inordinately powerful bikes are not capable of kicking up dirt or dust even at 300mph, nor do they spew smoke or flames when they get damaged. You will notice the odd near-microscopic spark when you've smacked another object, yet the bike remains in pristine condition even when it hurtles uncontrollably into a retaining fence or over a cliff. The rider is capable of just two poses - upright when he's punched the turbo button and crouched for the remainder of the time. And he never varies from those positions unless he is thrown unceremoniously from his mount.
The game's audio has far fewer redeeming qualities. The game's rendition of the furious whir of a Suzuki engine is disappointingly muted, as are the sounds of other bikes. Tire screeches are too infrequent, and the sound of howling wind is just a single continuous tone. If you crash your bike, you'll hear only a few simple blips rather than the slam-bang audio bursts you'd probably expect from such a collision.
All this goes to show that Extreme Racing isn't worth the price of admission. Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing is a bland alternative that can be recommended only to those who wouldn't tire of its simplistic approach.
