The original MotoGP on Xbox will forever hold a special place in my heart; it was the game that gave me my first wonderful experiences on Xbox Live, my very first session lasting for about five hours! It was like nothing I'd experienced before in my gaming life, competing against people from around the globe, chatting as we raced. Come October, it will be three years since I signed up to Microsoft's unrivalled online service. Three years! Microsoft pioneered online gaming in the console industry and now they're set to do it all over again with the launch of Xbox 360 this November (December for us Brits - damn Yanks, they get everything first!) Anyway, I digress, as the purpose of this review isn't to praise Microsoft, it's to take a look at MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3. The second incarnation of the series passed me by, gathering dust on the shelf while Xbox Live classics Midtown Madness 3 and Counter-Strike hogged all my online gaming time, so I was eager to get my hands on MotoGP 3, to see how the series had progressed since I last donned my helmet and took to the racetrack on two wheels.

An exciting video greets you, before the well polished and simple to navigate menu system pops up onto the screen. The presentation throughout GP 3 is outstanding, from the interfaces for upgrading and customising your bike to the video shorts that play before the start of each racetrack in the Grand Prix series. Time trial and Quick race options are available, although of course the main single player game lies in the Career mode. I breezed through the tutorials, which are unfortunately dull and unhelpful; it's possible to complete them without really doing what you're asked to do (such as keep your racing line), little is given in the way of guidance and I can honestly say I learned nothing from it. Even with the powerslide tutorial, which took many attempts, I fluked a powerslide without even realising how I'd done it (or how to reproduce it). This is a definite step back from MotoGP 2, which had a very tough but helpful tutorial (I got that far before the dust started to gather!!)

With the tutorials out of the way, I hopped straight into Grand Prix and bravely selected Pro, as after all, I'm a seasoned MotoGP'er. What a mistake this was; I couldn't get around the first course without being knocked from my bike several times on every lap! Feeling very frustrated, I decided that Rookie would be a good way to check out the various features and functions of the game, while getting a bit of experience along the way. I breezed to first place with ease, not losing my balance in a single collision. After a bit of 'experimenting' to see how easy it was to get knocked off, I discovered that in Rookie your bike is a lot more stable - it's still possible to get knocked off, but you have to really work at it to have a crash with another rider.

Next I had a go with the various views - along with three behind the bike views there are two cockpit views and the insanely fast wheel camera, which puts you right down at wheel level. The cockpit view is very hard to judge, as your cockpit sways all over the place as you corner sharply, knee to the ground, making it difficult to anticipate where your wheels will end up when you're upright again. Sticking with the wheel camera for a number of races, I found myself improving a little, but I still wasn't winning races in this view and I was racking up 30 or more penalty seconds (from straying off the track) on every lap. Suffice to say, the usage of these views is best left to expert racers, which I am most definitely not - watching a replay of my performances resulted in raucous laughter as I saw my rider swerving all over the road, onto the grass, bouncing off tyres and crashing in the dirt. You know that it's not good when you're speeding around a corner, viewed from a fixed camera angle, and you zoom out of the camera's view!

Speaking of the replay mode, it's totally excellent - you can fast forward past the boring parts or rewind to watch that particularly skilful manoeuvre or hilarious crash again, pause, slow it down, switch to view any rider and watch the action from seventeen (count 'em) different views. These include the TV view, where the race is watched from cameras set around the track and many different bike views - behind, ahead, below and behind, plus front and rear wheel cameras, cockpit and even a helicopter cam. The default view, Action, blends all of the rest together for an exciting replay experience and you can save a replay that you're particularly proud of for future posterity.

Returning back to my preferred behind the bike view, I aced the rest of the Grand Prix's sixteen rounds, lapping my first competitor at Round 11 and stealing into first place by Round 13, by which point it was more like playing Time trial, as my only real concern was bettering my performance on the previous lap. I then went on to tackle the Extreme 600 series on Pro mode. With a steely look of determination on my helmet-covered face, I revved up for Whale Coast, the first in the series.

There are three Extreme series - 600, 1000 and 1200, each requiring you to purchase a bike. You can upgrade your bikes through buying extra parts, or you can save up enough cash to buy yourself an entry in a higher CC class, as those 1200 series beasts are pretty pricey! I was delighted to find that the skill points (of which you get five after each race, regardless of your finishing position) that I'd been building up in the Grand Prix were not applied to your bike, but to your rider. So I immediately noticed a big improvement in bike performance, as my cornering, braking, top speed and acceleration values were the same, but the bike was definitely better. Each step up sees a noticeable increase in speed and handling - leaping straight into the 1000 series upon completing the 600, I was blown away to find that it was significantly faster, my new bike handled better than ever, yet the competitors were still a real challenge (sticking with Pro). The game had stepped it up a notch and somehow become even more exciting and adrenaline pumping.

A fantastic selection of courses awaited me in the Extreme series. While the graphics in MotoGP 3 are accomplished throughout and the tracks are accurate down to the smallest detail, no amount of polish is going to alter the fact that racetracks don't sport the most exciting or varied scenery you'll ever come across. People go to watch the racing, not admire the view. So, getting out on the open road, across a wide range of exciting and idyllic settings was a wonderful change from the bland official GP tracks. On the city streets of Prague, complete with the city's spectacular architecture, or racing around the Tokyo freeways at night, things feel very much like Project Gotham on bikes, while out on the open coastal and countryside roads, I felt a definite urge to pull out a chain or baseball bat and knock my opponents from their bikes! A Road Rash mode would be a wonderful bit of stress relief in the next instalment…

Staying with the theme of graphics, the attention to detail on the trackside objects is outstanding, whether at the race course or on the road. The backdrops can on occasion look a little simplistic, although this is hardly noticeable as you concentrate on your racing, but most of them look wonderful and the skies are still the prettiest and most photo realistic I've come across, with some gorgeous setting sun effects, especially on the occasions when it shines in your eyes. Shame about the night sky however, which is barely as good as the N64's Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, which I recently played through again on Gamecube. The rain effects are even better than before, with the shiny road surfaces reflecting wonderfully. However, the real star of the show is the bike and its rider; every bike looks stunning and the rider animation as they sway over and put their knees out or bump across the track after a nasty fall, is brilliant. The crash animations are incredibly lifelike - check out a replay of a particularly nasty smash and activate the slow motion mode, then watch as you (and preferably another rider or two!) bounce and roll along the rode before grinding to a halt in a heap; it really does look amazing and it's always funny to watch! What? It's not like it's a real person falling off, as shown on You've Been Framed…

The feeling of speed in MotoGP 3 is incredible, enhanced all the more by a marvellous speed blurring effect on the graphics. It's crazy enough when behind your rider, but from that wheel camera it's utterly insane! Rarely have racing games felt so exhilarating as this. Everything scrolls super smoothly in the Grand Prix courses; however, there is a hint of jerkiness in the Extreme courses when you go around corners. Considering the stunning amount of trackside scenery and multitude of buildings, hills or trees scrolling past, this is not only forgivable but barely noticeable when you're focused on where you're going.

There are extensive options for customising your bike and rider too, so you can pretty much guarantee that you're sporting a unique look when you venture online. You can select any colour in a wide spectrum and each bike pattern has three colours mixed in together, with a variety of patterns available and fully customisable logos that can be resized, moved and tweaked until you've got them exactly where you want them. You can even add text and symbols to your rider as well, with his helmet design, suit design and colour scheme also fully customisable. Having this level of customisation is great, as the artists amongst you (yes, I'm looking at you Chris!) can really put in the time to come up with something that looks truly stunning.

And where better to show off that great new look than in the online arena? MotoGP 3 is every bit as excellent online as I remember it - better than ever in fact. It uses one of the cleanest interfaces I've ever seen; finding a match is very simple, you can be a spectator if you join a lobby while the race is in progress, the loading times usually last for less than ten seconds and once into the lobby, the leaderboard is both aesthetic and informative. So it's great even before you start racing! All the courses are available, plus there are a couple of handy options that really add to the game - you can have AI racers (of any skill level) to make up the numbers while you wait for the room to fill up, plus you can choose whether or not to have collisions. Personally I prefer it collisions, as it just feels a bit weird when you pass straight through your competitor, however I would always go for 'Forward only,' which prevents people driving around the track the wrong way and knocking the leader off their bike - a cheap habit that plagued the original MotoGP at times.

When racing against real people the game takes on a new light, as you put everything you've got into doing well, or at the very least avoiding the humiliation of trailing in last place! The competition can be tough, but real people make mistakes and it's gratifying that you're no longer the only one crashing on those deceptively sharp turns or at a sneaky bend along the blisteringly fast straights. It's also very funny to hear people swear, sigh or laugh as they crash, forgetting that your voice is broadcast to everyone in the race, allowing for friendly games and chatting with competitors while you race, as well as the occasional bit of verbal jousting with some snot-nosed kid. Although there can be relatively few games to join at times (probably because the vast majority of are full, judging by how quickly the ones I joined filled up), but there's a strong and loyal community here that totally loves this game, and rightly so. As with the offline mode, you have to put some time in to really get good and reap the satisfying rewards of victory, but you'll enjoy every minute of it - this is racing at its most intense, engaging and exciting, at the very least equalling the best four wheel racers that Xbox Live has to offer.

I shouldn't forget to mention the sound, as MotoGP 3 sports the most realistic engine noises I've ever heard in a racing game, while the other effects, such as sliding through the gravel, all sound perfect. I was a little disappointed with the soundtrack, however. There's no denying that it's a varied mix of accomplished tunes, but it's somehow lost the personality of those that featured in the original. The menu tune for the first MotoGP was so excellent that I'd sometimes just put it on to listen to while I cleaned my living room or caught up on paperwork, while the rest of the in-game tunes were totally excellent, fast-paced dance numbers. I would happily buy the soundtrack of the original, to listen to in the car or while writing reviews! However, the mixture of rock, dance and drum 'n' bass didn't quite do it for me this time, and one of those drum 'n' bass tunes irritated the crap out of me! Most irritating of all was that I still found my foot tapping to the damn tune! Still, this is all a moot point, as it's a good enough soundtrack and you can listen to your own music if you don't like what's on offer.

MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 is a classy, challenging and engrossing game, providing worthy competition for the best racers that Xbox has to offer. Graphically it's stunning, with a blisteringly fast sense of speed and excellent handling for the bikes, at least once you've upgraded your stats a little. It takes a bit of patience and perseverance at first, but once you're over the hump in the learning curve, there are few games that can satisfy and thrill like this one. With plenty to do offline and on, you'll be lapping this up for months to come.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).