SBK-09: Superbike World Championship

Racing games are a dime a dozen, especially when you head back to the end of the 2000s. This is when games such as SBK-09: Superbike World Championship first appeared on the scene. The game was published by Black Bean Games and was seen as a low budget game to try and fill in a void within the motorbike racing industry. With help from Milestone in development, how did this 2009 release live up to expectation? Was there anything like the quality that fans of the riding sim genre would have enjoyed using and seeing in this title?

A basic attempt at breaking into the riding scene

With so many racers to choose from in this particular era, it is very hard to really point out any of the racers that arrived with genuine quality. The late-00s was full of games like this. While it tries to ape the form of games like the MotoGP series, it failed to capture anything like the same imagination and ingenuity of the popular Codemasters series. Instead, this racer provided fans with a pretty basic, by-the-numbers racer. However, particular praise was given to the fact that it was easily playable by both newbies and riding game veterans without any real loss of enjoyment. It was a game that was pretty simple in that it could provide a basic challenge for veterans, and give newbies enough help to make them feel like an actual rider.

However, with various skill levels to pick from, racers who love a challenge did find that this game did provide some meaningful improvement over other games of the era. It was very demanding, forcing the player to learn actual breaking and riding techniques that other games tend to breeze over and automate or simplify.

The epitome of a generic rider

Really, there is nothing about this title that sets it apart from the army of other bike games of the same era. It lacked anything new in terms of ideas, licenses, game modes, or tracks. Really, the main problem was the game was that it failed to really add anything to pervious editions of the SBK series. It was another simple, by-the-numbers rider that lacked anything new in terms of features or challenges.

Pros:

• Interesting riding mechanics that suited all skill levels

Cons:

• Failed to build on or add much to previous SBK releases
• Lack of variety in game modes made this a dull experience