I love racing games. Starting with a Monster Truck racer on the NES, onto Mario Kart, all the way to the superb early days of Need for Speed, the revolution that was Gran Turismo, the uniquely stylish approach of Project Gotham Racing and the competitive drive and innovation of Forza Motorsport. You might've noticed something here... all of these games feature vehicles with four wheels. Can a car racer like me pick up an ultra-realistic motorcycle simulation and enjoy it? Welcome to my journey!

As I began, I was instantly overwhelmed by the whole experience. Challenges, Grand Prix, three different Extreme leagues with numbers next to them that I couldn't comprehend were all available, complete with real life racers I had never heard of on bikes I didn't know the first thing about. Training seemed like a good place to start, expecting the game to guide me through the concept of racing motorcycles, going through turning techniques, using the front and rear breaks and overall bike control. Instead I'm simply told to navigate the training area and avoid the cones in the allotted time. Thanks, that helps!

Needless to say, the training mode is a bit useless for newcomers like myself. The game simply doesn't cater towards us and it obviously doesn't intend to. This is a game for motorcycle enthusiasts, or racing enthusiasts who know a thing or two about racing bikes as well as cars. If you don't know the first thing about this are then MotoGP 06 is going to be a bit of a learning experience; it definitely isn't the most accessible game ever made. Once you get the hang of the gameplay however (and likely readjust your control scheme to fit your style) it really is a lot of fun and has many advanced techniques that you'll slowly discover over time just by playing and experimenting. If you're a player who knows what you're doing on a motorbike then you'll leap into MotoGP 06 right away, putting all your knowledge to the test over real and exaggerated extreme courses with 20 other riders.

The bread and butter of the single player careers are various series of Grand Prix events and Extreme leagues. After each race you can upgrade your rider's statistics to help improve your performance, customize your rider and bike appearance, fine-tune your bike's performance and even participate in various challenges for some extra experience points. Unfortunately, the mode is straight back-to-back races with the same bike but on different courses, with very little variety as seen in games like Forza and Project Gotham, with theme-specific leagues to mix things up and add diversity. Speaking of diversity, returning from the last installment of the Xbox MotoGP series is the Extreme mode, which this year is more prominent and compliments the traditional Grand Prix series very well, offering a whole new take on simulation motorcycle racing. For those not familiar with it, in Extreme mode all the races take place in real locations but on fantasy courses, such as a battle down the coast of California over the Monterey Bay and various other city tracks, with incredible realism and visual effects.

Indeed, if there's one thing MotoGP has been known for outside of its realism, it would easily be the graphics. The leap to next-generation hasn't slowed the game down at all, either - it looks phenomenal on the Xbox 360 and even better when the weather effects kick in. Cloudy overcast skies set the tone for entire races, rain effects make drops of water hit the camera when you race into the wind and soaked tracks reflect everything with incredible detail. Complimenting the graphics, as always, are some great sound effects that further immerse you into the racing experience. Though the sound doesn't stand out as much as the visuals, it is definitely well done and matched with superb camera angles and hundreds of bike and rider designs, creates a very good presentation over all.

Other than the lacking single player modes and an overall feel of similarity to past iterations of the series, MotoGP's biggest shortcoming is the questionable collision detection and shoddy AI. Crashing is a drag obviously, but it is a part of motorbike racing. You crash, you fall numerous places, and it sucks. MotoGP however really lays on the punishment and can be quite unforgiving, causing you to crash in numerous situations where you'll feel you got the bad end of a scenario that you should have come out of still on two wheels. Furthermore, the AI often refuses to stray from their lines and does not hesitate to run directly into you, and often through you as you fly off your bike and they continue racing their seemingly magnetic line.

The unforgiving AI and at times harsh difficulty will really batter many players down and might even cause some to throw in the towel, but if you can stick with it and learn to adapt to the way the gameplay works then MotoGP 06 is a very rewarding experience, particularly for motorcycle enthusiasts and racing sim fans. It may crash and burn in a few places, but it gets right back up and delivers, just so long as you don't leave the track!

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).