MotoGP '06

Meanwhile, on a technical level, GP '06 is phenomenal. The circuits are near-perfect facsimiles and the eye candy's as textured as it is tasty - from rubber laid down through sharp braking to the juddering gravel traps, and slight bumps in Extreme mode's civvy streets unseating you easily and asking a more deliberate approach. Extreme's tracks look particularly magnificent, as it goes, with a much broader range of trackside detail, while environmental effects like rain and fog are handled competently and prefaced by some of the prettiest clouds around.

Of course this is to say nothing of the bikes themselves, which are done up to a level of detail barely fathomable by old-days Xboxen. When we visited THQ a while ago we were walked through the detail to an almost nauseating degree - right down to the way the carbon fibre mesh had been modelled - and developer Climax's observation that where the game had to pretend before it can simply fill in the gaps now seems astute. There's more detail here than perhaps you'll ever appreciate, but the game engine rarely stutters under the weight of it - even with 20 riders on the track - and there are only barely noticeable level-of-detail effects between this and what you might imagine is Climax's optimal level of detail. It's one of the most detailed racing games we've ever seen.

The same level of detail's gone into the sound too, and all the bikes are quite distinctive. You can tell whether it's an Extreme or a GP race without even glancing at the screen. It seems all those evenings spent in containers sampling engine revs were time well spent, then - indulgence is a glorious thing when it's put to such good use.

Sadly all this detail does come at a slight price and that's loading times, which are quite sizable. PGR3 was no different, it's fair to say, and GP certainly isn't any less playable on account of them, but it might have been nice to do some of this stuff in the background. Challenge mode, for example, surely could've kept its detailed instructions on how to address individual corners for the load screens rather than having you commit them to memory before you even start the process.

You also have to question the game's attitude to reward in some places. Extreme mode, for example, requires you to complete a 17-track GP season to access, and while you can understand Climax's desire to put its licensed fare front and centre, the fact that Extreme is actually a good bit friendlier on its lowest levels feels a bit contradictory. The game's also rather stingy with its achievements and gamerscore points, only really starting to cough them up at a regular rate after a solid day of play when some of the more serious difficulty levels are conquered. That's fair enough on some level, but adds to the sense that the game's aimed more at the hardcore racing fan than somebody who might have enjoyed GP3's slightly arcadier approach, when actually in all other respects it handles the broad strokes fine. That said, you can't complain too much about the seeding system, which gives you a tangible sense of gain with each victory - and helps in matching players online.

Online is something MotoGP helped kickstart for Microsoft in its original incarnation (albeit with an add-on component bundled with the original Live package - it wasn't until GP2 that the game was built to fully accommodate Live), and it's smoothly handled here with separate players-of-matched-skill and ranked matches and all the options you'd expect - including a PGR3-style spectating facility if you have to sit out a round because you got there late. Then again there's another flag to be raised for the decision to hold back the more interesting modes, like Tag, where you have to try and put the best times in on corners to claim them in your name, with the winner the person who "owns" the most corners by the end. Tag may be something that those with a solid base of skill will most enjoy, but it would've been nice to have the option to lose horribly at it from the start - if only to whet the appetite.

Still, none of this is fatal in the slightest - and once you've unlocked a few things and reached a plateau halfway up the learning curve, there's a huge amount of challenging content to pick at and a great deal of incentive to do so thanks to multiple rating systems, rewards, integrated leaderboards and a huge number of unlockables, including reversed tracks.