If there is anything that can be gleaned from playing MotoGP 07 it is that the people who willingly decide to partake in the real life sport of competitive motorcycle racing are absolutely insane. Blazing along a track at high speed and surfing the razor's edge of traction and performance is thrilling—where the tiniest mistake can send your bike pancaking off the tarmac. In the series' long standing tradition MotoGP 07 captures the same racing intensity, speed, and skill that racing fans of all genres yearn for, but also does little to advance the franchise.
MotoGP 07 is essentially an update and face lift with upgraded graphics, audio, and an updated roster of drivers and tracks. The basic gameplay selections remain largely unchanged with the traditional championship and time trial modes. The championship mode differs slightly this time around however in that after every race you gain skill points to allocate to top speed, acceleration, braking, or cornering. The points can be redistributed at any time, making their use less RPG-like and more like tuning your rider for the style of the next race. The challenge mode has also made the cut, which pits you to reach a certain speed on a track, run a section of track under a specified time limit, or remain within a set distance of another racer. Finally, for those new to the world of two-wheeled racing there is a tutorial that runs you through the basics of how to handle your ride.
If you are one of those new players the tutorial may come in handy as the game retains the same flexible and slightly unfamiliar control scheme that has become a series mainstay. The left stick controls the balance of your rider, with pushing left and right on the stick letting you steer your cycle around the track and up and down allowing you to lean forward or backward in the seat to reduce or increase drag. Moving the right stick up allows you to use analog control to apply just the right amount of acceleration, while moving it down allows you to dial in the same amount of pressure to both your front and rear tire brakes at the same time. For the most part however the right and left triggers are used to control the rear and front brakes independently, such as how in many corners you simply need to slightly depress on your rear brake to help make the turn while leaving the front wheel spinning freely.
What this all amounts to is that nearly every gaming digit on both of your hands is guiding some functionality of your bike. While it takes a bit of learning to really get the hang of everything the payoff comes in the form of the feeling of accomplishment you get when you expertly make a turn, hit the apex just right, and stick to a great racing line while your fingers are working with the precision of a surgeon. For those who have digits less like fingers and more like flippers the game supports a fairly scalable simulation aspect represented in the form of a slider, allowing you to tune how realistic or arcade-like the title is to your satisfaction.
Ultimately playing the single player game and using it to learn the control scheme is merely the stepping stone to the multiplayer, trading in the AI racers and their utter lack of racing intelligence up for racing online against the enjoyably competitive online circuit. Playing MotoGP 07 on Xbox Live can lead you to some of the most fun multiplayer to be had in a racer of this generation, but it really hasn't been grasped by the majority of the player base which is a shame. It can be really tough to get a full lobby of players to start a race together, but if accomplished you'll find racers of all skill levels jockeying for position. On the negative side the title does lack any sort of skill identifier, so you never have any idea if the people you are racing against are either brain-panned or godlike on wheels before the race begins.
The bike and rider models look absolutely fantastic to the point that individual components can be picked out on the cycle, and racing in the beautifully rendered cockpit view only confirms the standing statement that motorcycle racing is insanity on wheels. The road surfaces look far from pristine and show years worth of tire marks, oil stains, and scuffs that one would expect from the title's numerous recreations of real-world racing circuits. However the graphics pale considerably once you look past the immediate environment, with background visuals that never really pop out at best and look boringly flat at the worst. Animated cheering crowds look great when whipping past them at high speeds but are far from easy on the eyes when seen up close, such as in the pre-race shots of your rider and his entourage.
The sounds of the cycles are well represented and listening to a pack of cycles whip around a corner at high speed sounds much as it does if you were standing on the track. Those aforementioned crowds cheering you on in full on Doppler Effect sounds great as you blaze past the stands, and occasionally amid the roar of engines you can hear helicopters above filming the race. The in-game music is one of the biggest reasons that you should learn to use the custom soundtrack functionality of the Xbox 360, with the soundtrack comprised almost entirely of bands few have heard of and tracks that range from merely uninspired to memorable in only the worst ways.
The biggest flaw for MotoGP 07 is that despite how well the control scheme works and how rewarding the gameplay can be the game simply doesn't bring much to the table in terms of progression of the series. It can be argued that the basic gameplay hasn't changed much at all since MotoGP 2 for the original Xbox, making it a questionable purchase for those who picked up last year’s model.
