Peel off the stickers and it's just plastic underneath

Rossi brakes late and hard...

MotoGP 07 is a confused title, as it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It covers the MotoGP 2007 season adequately enough, with all the tracks and riders replicated in all their televisual glory; it includes slipstreaming, bike setups, even a racing career (albeit a fairly naff one). It's a pretty accurate model of the sport of MotoGP... so what's the Extreme Mode for? Formula One racing games don't have Mario Kart; GTR didn't include RC racing; FIFA 08 doesn't have fat-dads-playing-with-their-bored-kids mode. It's almost as if Climax Studios think that MotoGP isn't interesting enough by itself. This isn't to say that the Extreme Mode is bad - it's improved quite a lot from its first inception - but Doohan's danglies, make your mind up Climax and THQ about what you want the MotoGP series to be.

One can't blame the game's failings on it being a console title as well because most of the same issues are just as prevalent on the Xbox 360 version as they are here (although there are some clear console-isms in the PC version, such as on-screen commands that do nothing). Sadly, the game is likely to sell well enough for THQ to retain the MotoGP publishing licence but it really needs to go to some fresh blood, a company who is willing to bring the technology of the sport into the game. That's all ifs and buts, and for the future though. Ultimately, MotoGP 07 is like a one night stand with a famous hot model: you went with it because of the name, but after a brief fiddle, you're left disappointed by the fact that, underneath the gloss and glamour, it's as shallow as a kiddie's swimming pool.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent	Not specified
Memory	512 MB
Graphics Card	Shader Model 2.0 and min of 10 interpolators
Graphics Card Example	ATI 9800 or similar
Free Disk Space	18 MB (min) / 4.2 GB (full)
Net Link	LAN or Broadband WAN

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 2800+ / Intel Pentium 4 520	AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ / Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Memory	1024 MB	1536 MB
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon X700 128MB / NVIDIA GeForce 6600 128MB	ATI Radeon X1800 256MB / NVIDIA GeForce 7900 256MB
Free Disk Space	4.5 GB	4.5 GB
Net Link	Broadband for multiplayer	Broadband for multiplayer

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	82	Good fun in short bursts, but once the championships are over, the lack of depth is obvious. Arcade mechanics, even on 100% sim level, mean there's not enough to get your teeth into, if you're a bike fanatic.
Graphics	86	On maximum settings, the visuals are very good - the lack of anti-aliasing and blocky shadows gatecrash the party and spoil the fun. The best graphics are to be seen during wet races.
Audio	78	Functional audio mixes realism for the bikes and annoying extras from the environment. Good support for surround sound.
Technology	72	Scales reasonably well but the game doesn't seem to justify the hardware requirements. A bugs here and there, and using it in Vista is awkward. An Xbox 360 gamepad should be a listed requirement.

OVERALL

This is a game that's not better than the sum of its parts - the confused direction and a lack of real progress from previous versions don't help matters. One for the die-hard MotoGP fans or gamers who've not played any of the series so far.

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