MotoGP 07 is the epitome of a niche title. Everything about the game screams “MotoGP circuit,” from the driver biographies in the manual, to the cultural and locale cut scenes of each track in the circuit, to the load-time stills of the drivers with an item of two of pertinent information (and you’ll get a good look, because the load times can be very long). It’s amazing to watch these drivers lean until they’re almost parallel to the ground as they scream around the curvy tracks, and MotoGP 07 expertly captures this essence.

The graphics are colorful and pretty realistic for the platform. The drivers, venues, tracks, and weather effects look great. The draw distance is excellent, as there’s very little to no “pop-up” graphics as you fly around the tracks. The sense of speed is very credible. However, when you are racing around the track, the driving surfaces do get a little grainy and suffer from some flicker.

There’s not much audio in the game, save the buzzing whine of the motor cycle engines, some crowd cheering when you pass the bleachers, and a generic menu soundtrack. It’s all serviceable, except that when you max out the RPM’s or crash your bike, the audio gets a little “crunchy.”

You can jump right into a tutorial as soon as you load up the game, but the tutorial doesn’t do enough to help you get a feel for what to do. Basically, you’re thrown on to a track, and as you try to ride, exclamation points appear telling you that the game has some advice for you. At this point, you have to stop the tutorial to read the tips, and then resume riding. I would much rather have the tutorials teach you how to lean, accelerate, brake, and pass with videos or small racing segments. The best way to learn to ride is to try to complete some of the one hundred tasks the game offers in Challenge mode, as many of them are geared towards maintaining your speed, braking correctly, and keeping a proper racing line.

It takes incredible skill to drive a motorcycle around these tracks at great speeds, and it also takes great skill to successfully do the same in this game at the more difficult levels. How much and when you lean, when you brake and accelerate in relation to a turn, and how and when you use your front and back brakes are all critical to keeping your bike upright at sufficient speeds to compete. It takes a deft touch on a real bike and a deft touch with the sticks on the controller as well. Unfortunately, for the precision necessary using the Simulation riding mode, the controls just aren’t sensitive enough, because there is too much play in the stick. At times, it almost feels digital as opposed to analog, making your rider lurch back and forth instead of smoothly leaning in and out of turns. It would be nice to have a sensitivity or trim setting available for adjustment. Lastly, it seems kind of awkward that you can’t use a trigger for accelerating.

In Arcade or Advanced riding mode, however, there is enough forgiveness with the controls to make dumping your bike or spinning out less frequent. You can also adjust the level of the computer competition separately from the riding mode, so most gamers should be able to find the right balance of challenge and accessibility to have fun racing on the tracks. You’ll need to practice a bit before you’re ready to race, and using the Time Attack mode (it lets you set your best times for every track) is a great way to learn the tracks and develop your skills.

The Championship mode lets you compete in the MotoGP 07 series, using any rider you like from the get-go. You can race from six to all eighteen races on the circuit, and for each race, you can choose to run just a few laps to running the actual number of laps in the real race. Before you start your season, you can choose the riding mode, AI difficulty level, and whether or not to use an automatic transmission. These items can’t be changed once you start on the circuit, though, so you need to choose wisely. You can choose to run practice laps, and toggle whether or not you need to qualify. You can also compete in Championship mode with a friend, but you’re limited to six races and only six computer-controlled opponents. Online play isn’t available.

Before each race, you do have the option to set up your bike. For a pretty hardcore motorcycle game, there aren’t a lot of tweaking options, however. You can choose different tire types for the front and rear tires, and you can also move three different sliders that control the suspension, turning speed, and gear ratios for your bike. Given the variety of track types, it does help to make minor adjustments to your bike to make it more suitable for the venue.