I've always thought of Namco as a company that knew how to put together a great looking package, but MotoGP shows impeccable design from the packaging down to the menus and actual in-game graphics. Everything about the look of MotoGP is smooth and elegant, very unlike the industrial look racing games have been pushing lately. Menus slide in and out of focus, highlight or change colors dramatically when selected; the navigation reminds me of a well done website using Flash or Javascript. Pretty...

The actual graphics are impressive, and small touches make the difference. Riders move fluidly on their bikes, and extreme lean will send a shower of sparks shooting away from the bike as metal meets pavement. All the track design is very nice, and not terribly busy. Replay movies are so good, you'd swear you were watching T.V. Namco gave away how much they like the replay mode by letting you save replay movies to watch or show off later. You can even see the camera shake at times when bikes roar by. Nice.

Unlike some racers that seem to want to be everything to everybody, Namco wisely decided that MotoGP should be about great racing and more great racing. So, the choices mostly fall between Arcade and Season Mode. Season, as you might expect, is an in-depth set of races leading toward placing among real-life teams as top rider. All the AI competitors are real racers, and there's lots of information on them in the manual. Each rider brings his favorite bike to the game and you can try all of them or build your own through custom mods. 2-Player VS Mode is great, and makes me realize there will come a time when people too young to remember will wonder why everyone was complaining about slowdown back in the day. Everything moves like lightning, and adding another human player doesn't phase the CPU one bit...or byte. 2 Player doesn't have the depth of other modes, but if you want more, Namco included a neat Time Trial Mode that lets you race against your best score and also the best scores of a real MotoGP rider or even the Namco R&D staff. You actually set up a 'ghost' rider that changes depending on whether you're up against your own best time or someone else's.

Possibly as a concession to those folks who like secrets and stories with their racing, MotoGP has a Challenge Mode. Taking a challenge means racing through a specified course or section of track under a certain time limit or with an objective. Also, some challenges can be opened up from Arcade or Season Mode by doing something special during a race. Most times, these goals are undocumented. The rewards tend to be pictures or bios on riders, and there are enough to keep even hardcore racers busy for decades.

Which brings us to difficulty. MotoGP is one hard sucker! Even in Arcade Mode, where dialing down the settings means you get guidance and don't ditch the bike so easy, it takes time to learn how to stay on the track. Luckily, Namco included tips in the manual, but some kind of training would have been nice. If you're expecting an arcade-style motorcycle game, this isn't for you. Although the level of simulation can be adjusted, the default setting with simulation turned off is wicked hard. Especially in Challenge Mode, everything is measured in hundredths of a second, so even a small glitch means you've lost.

Navigating through this game is a pleasure. Everything is set up to be pleasing to the eye and intuitive to use, and usually pictures or technical designs accompany any text. During the race, you'll see updates flash to the screen, but always quick and unobtrusive. Options for a bike begin with choosing which 500cc monster you'll be racing. All bikes are rated against speed, acceleration and braking or handling. These options come as different default values for every bike, but you can go into the shop and make modifications that better suit how you like to ride. Almost all the controller buttons can be changed to a particular function, and analog throttle is a must for MotoGP because all the bikes are so twitchy anyway. My biggest gripe would be with braking, which mostly doesn't seem there at all. The manual tells us that bikes unable to brake were just going too fast. You can pull off a power-slide once in a while, but hi-performance bikes (much like F1 cars) have hi-performance tires that don't make a habit of leaving the pavement. In the Challenge Mode, it's almost impossible sometimes to keep from running off the track and failing the challenge. Maybe this is true to the way bikes actually ride, but it starts to feel cheap, especially playing on Easy in Arcade Mode. Sheesh!

On a good note, Namco did a smart thing by including a detailed guide to the MotoGP tracks inside the manual. Going over everything from track history to how each curve should be run, this ought to be standard for all precision racers and is great for planning strategy. On the bikes, everything is strategic. There's no bump-and-run action here, since even the slightest touch can send two riders up into the stands. Instead, you try to draft behind the next guy in line and wait for the right moment to slide by gently. Everything in the game is about tact and polish, rather than brute force.

MotoGP fans are obviously taking an I.V. and skipping work or school to find more time to play this one, but it's fun for any race fan or motorcycle buff. The difficulty level demands a real commitment, more than some people are willing or able to make. With enough time, most will master the basics, but there's an elite level of difficulty here that only the few and proud will ever see. Maybe when PS2 goes online we'll be able to watch the replay movies THOSE hardcore mothers made.