It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was sitting down in total frustration to write my review for last years release and I will fully admit that when it came to being offered the follow-up to review I wasn’t entirely overly excited by the prospect.
As COVID-19 currently does its best to close down public events, it seems that this years TT race is also on the list, so what better way to get your fix than play the official game? After all, taking to the famous 27 mile course yourself is better than watching others ride round it.
I’ve never really been a fan of Motorcycle racing games, most are overly technical and the physics within the games are awful throwing you off your bike more often than not and that was one of the major issues with the previous release, usually at the most random of times when you are riding along a nice flat straight the bike would twitch and off you went. Nacon needed to do some major work to make this years release at least half worth playing.
Luckily, it seems they actually have been hard at work with TT 2. Last years career mode was confusing at best with an overly busy main hub set up. This year it has been nicely simplified into a year long race calendar and each race weekend you can choose between 3 races to enter (easy, medium and hard). Throughout the year there are important races which you will need to enter in order to compete in the Isle of Man race at the end of the season.
TT 2 has undergone a serious overhaul in terms of the physics engine and boy is it noticable! At first I still really struggled with the bikes physics, in fact, it wasn’t until my second season that the game started to get really fun for me and I stopped crashing most of the time. OK, I did race the TT and was thrown off my bike more than a couple of times but after a few checks on the ingame settings I made the adjustments I needed, and I suggest that everyone look at them. At first my bike just wasn’t reacting to my control inputs when I wanted to turn.. there is a simple reason for this and once I realised that issue I was flying through the field in races. When I looked at the controls section in the options and scrolled down to the left and right directions, the sensitivity was automatically set to -10 with a deadzone. I adjusted the slider for both to +10 and eliminated that deadzone and problem solved!
The game isn’t enhanced for my PS Pro that I noticed, the graphics did feel and look rather similar to last years release and to prove that to myself I reinstalled the original although playing that did bring back everything that was terrible about it. It runs smoothly enough and I didn’t encounter any frame drops or crashes other than my own riders personal ones. As for the sound, that has been worked on, and hearing the scenery rush pst you at well over 100mph is great given that there is a depth to what scenery is passing you by. There is a different feel to hearing bushes and trees to buildings.
The career mode does go into more depth as far as bike upgrades go, the more you win, the more you can afford to upgrade the various aspects of your ride to make it lighter and more powerful. You can also unlock these parts within a challenge mode.
So, the game comes with a free ride option where you can fly around an open map of Ireland where a lot of races do take place, but the challenge mode uses the same map and the further you progress in your career the more challenges you can unlock within. Getting gold medals in here will give you more money as well as rarer parts to fit to your bike. These challenges range from high speed challenges where you have to stay above a certain speed on winding roads to time trial single player races. It all does add to the depth of the game very well. At the end of the day this game is all about risk vs reward. The faster you can push yourself to go, the more benefits you will reap, but the more likely you are to crash out as well, but don’t worry, the AI riders do the same at times.
Besides the career mode, there is online races as well, but due to receiving the game before its release I have been unable to test that out as no other reviewer seemed to want to try it out.
You do start the game with a nice tutorial to the game, but it just talks you through the very basics of controlling the game before switching you up to the harder level and having to control the power of the bike with a manual gearbox and not dropping the power too much so you get thrown off the bike as the front end comes up under power and off you fly.
As with last years release you have to remember that most races are on street circuits, not tracks. Put the rear wheel just slightly off the tarmac and pull back on the throttle, your rear wheel will skid on the dirt and off you come. Same when it comes to curbs at the edge of the road in towns, hit them and you’re done for. It does get rather irritating still, but just pushes you to be more careful with your actions. After all, this is a simulation game rather than an arcade.
Overall, the game is seriously impressive once you can actually get into it within crashing every few seconds and I’m glad that I asked for a review copy as I have been impressed with the improvements made. Again this game won’t be for everyone, but I am impressed.
For me the game easily deserves a 9/10 which is a huge improvement from last year.
**PLEASE NOTE** AIR Entertainment were provided with a review copy of the game. This has in no way swayed my views on the game as per our Review Policy
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