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After a good few years behind the wheel of the MotoGP series, Italian developer Milestone Inc. has moved on to work on the next SBK title, leaving it up to Monumental Games to do Capcom’s officially licensed franchise justice. Instead of attempting to totally revamp the series, the new UK-based developer has chosen to add new layers of depth to the usually shallow single-player campaign and tweak a few aspects here and there, leaving us with not quite more of the same, but also not really anything new.

Undoubtedly the biggest advancement which this release brings to the MotoGP formula is the greatly expanded career mode. Going beyond just a rider and his quest to earn the silverware, there is now a detailed management angle to proceedings. I'm touching on this mode before we look at anything else because it really is the meat of the MotoGP 09/10 experience, and could be a deciding factor for those who've perhaps overlooked the series because it lacked depth in this department in the past.

The career mode puts you in control of a number of aspects of your racing team. From hiring and firing your marketing people to making sure your engineers are researching the parts you need most on your bike; your choices off the track make just about as much impact on your success as what you do while burning rubber. You'll be racing to attract the attention of new sponsors, choosing which sponsorship deals to sign, and juggling your finances to pay the bills. It's nowhere near the complexity of a full-on management sim, but it does a nice job of making you feel involved in the world of MotoGP.

The main gripe with this new-found depth is that the menu system can be a little cumbersome and unintuitive, with sub-menus sometimes not branching out the way you would expect and so on. To compound the problem, while going back and forth between menu screens you will be repeatedly accosted by a mildly annoying voice over which soon begins to grind your senses.

The choices you make behind the scenes make quite a difference when it comes to the racing action itself, and it quickly becomes very important to ensure you are researching the necessary technologies or you will soon fall behind the pack. Your reputation also plays a part in how things pan out, with a better reputation bringing in better sponsors. As you race your reputation either improves or deteriorates, depending on how you handle yourself on the track. Overtake your opponents, stick to the perfect racing line through corners, or pull off the occasional wheelie, and the sponsors will love you. Hurtling into the back of other bikers, plowing into the sand or cornering badly will have them checking out other riders to give their money to. This isn't a bad idea, and it does give the player an extra incentive to perform better on the track. Unfortunately, the creative team at Monumental thought it would be a nice touch to have the reputation change announcements splashed across the top of the screen in either bright blue or red. This isn't an issue at first, but in a busy section where you are overtaking, being overtaken, slip streaming, colliding with opponents and cornering badly at the same time, the notifications stack up and obscure way too much of your screen real estate. This can be very distracting, and for gamers brought up on a steady diet of four-wheel racing, you'll need to concentrate as much as possible until you get the hang of your bike.

Those who have spent any length of time with previous releases in the MotoGP franchise will find it simple enough to get your superbike across the line in one piece, but newcomers be warned, the physics involved in two-wheel racing are quite different to what you are used to. Motorbikes are inherently less stable than cars, and keeping your 250CC aiming in the right direction can be quite a task at first. Having front and back brakes to think about also complicates matters, and it takes a while to figure out when to use which. While there are definitely some simulation leanings here, MotoGP's handling is mostly arcade-style. Sure, you need to cling to that racing line, which is now traced in a similar way to Forza, and your bike will wobble around if you aren't careful, but with nothing close to the volatility usually associated with a superbike roaring down a straight at deadly speeds. Even slamming into the back of an opponent at full speed will do nothing except slow you down, when I'd imagine in reality you would be sent home in a plastic bag. So it's a mixed affair, really - it's tricky to get your head around controlling a two-wheeled vehicle at first, but once you get used to it the handling is so forgiving that it's hard not to win.

One factor of the gameplay which felt particularly odd was the 'tuck' feature, where your rider lowers himself to reduce drag and increase speed. I know that a lower drag co-efficient leads to increased speed and whatever, but wow, in MotoGP the tuck feature (which is mapped to a face button) is like a turbocharger, to the point of being unrealistic. Can't pass that pesky biker ahead of you? Tuck! And whooosh, there you go. The over amplified effect of slip streaming is similar, giving you a ridiculous speed boost when you pull in behind someone. If you want any chance of winning, you'll soon learn to keep that 'tuck' button jammed down whenever possible, but since you can barely turn the bike at all while tucked you'll need to save it for the straights. Oh, and when you lean left when you should have leaned right and you come tumbling down, there is the now obligatory 'rewind' feature which allows you to retry the corner at your leisure.

When you do eventually manage to come off your bike, be prepared to be underwhelmed by the crashes. I want to see an expensive new superbike being scattered across the tarmac in pieces, and its rider rolling down the track like a leather-clad tumbleweed, but there's very little of that here. It's all over in a matter of seconds, with no slow-motion carnage to write home about. A sadly missed opportunity.

In fact, there isn't much to write home about at all with regards to the visuals on show here. You've seen most of these tracks before, and as far as I can tell they are faithfully recreated, but they definitely don't do anything to push the envelope. I wouldn't be so harsh as to call the graphics 'functional', but it's no Forza 3, that's for sure. On the plus side, the weather effects are well done, with especially effective standing water and rain effects. The bikes and their riders are also... fine.

Sound direction is somewhat bland, although it gets the job done. The music is a mixed bag, and while some of the tunes had me humming along, others quickly began to grate, but that's more about personal preference than it is a judgement on the music on offer. Bike sounds seem far tamer than I would have liked, making the bikes sound underpowered compared to their real life counterparts. Oh, and I've already mentioned that voice over guy. He gets really old, really fast. On the other hand, you should listen to his advice (the first few times), because he can be quite helpful.

While the heart of MotoGP 09/10 is the career mode, there are additional modes to try if you haven't got the patience for it, such as Championship mode, Arcade mode, a Time Trial option and multiplayer racing featuring up to 20 players at once. And yes, they all do exactly what it says on the tin. There is one gripe about the Championship and Arcade modes though, and I'll warn you, it's a big one. When playing the career mode, it makes sense to start at the bottom and work your way up, but for some reason Monumental decided that for both the Championship and Arcade modes you start off with access to only the 125CC class. I just don't understand it. The whole idea of adding an Arcade mode is surely to allow gamers without a lot of time on their hands to just hop in and hit the big bikes for half an hour, right? Instead, you first need to complete a full season of racing at 125CC class to unlock the 250CC bikes, and then only after a season of 250CC racing do you eventually gain access to the real deal, the MotoGP-class mean machines. It's ludicrous. The only justification I can think of is that it adds longevity to these modes, but that's unnecessary because we already have a lengthy career mode for that very purpose.

The question of whether or not you need to add this title to your library depends primarily on how much you like the form of motorsport at hand. If you have a passion for motorbike racing, especially MotoGP, and don't mind having some arcade mixed in with your simulation, then it's a worthy addition. Being a licensed product, you get all the tracks and racers and so on, and with Capcom's promise to keep things updated into the 2010 season as it progresses via free downloadable content, this game could keep you busy for a long time. The graphics are on par for this generation, but not above it, and the gameplay does reward perseverance if you apply yourself to perfecting those racing lines. However, if you don't fall into the above category, which many won't, then you'll find MotoGP 09/10 to be an average racer with too much time investment required to get anything out of it.

Pros:

• Deep career mode
• MotoGP license means you get all the tracks, bikes, etc
• Racing is fun once you get to grips with it

Cons:

• More powerful bikes take too long to unlock in some modes
• Unrealistic gameplay quirks
• Uninspired visuals

Rating: