RIDE 4

After over 100 hours, I can almost ride the motorcycle.

I applaud the physics engine, every single one of my crashes happened exactly the way I'd expect them to IRL. From low-siding into a sharp bend to high-siding on the way out or even the odd wheelie (not difficult on an R1M), they've modeled the ways to kill yourself on a bike to near perfection!
I've seen a lot of people complaining about how difficult it is to ride with any semblance of competence in this game, and though that's true, it's not the game's fault. There's only so much you can do to make a bike rideable with two analogue triggers for throttle and brake, and an analogue stick for lean angle. Some things you just can't simulate, like the feel of the back wheel beginning to slide out from under you (and the rush from living to tell the tale!) or that hard knock in the bars from a bump bottoming out your front suspension. These are all things that we as riders learn to look for, recognise and react to, which are simply absent when you're playing from the comfort of your desk or sofa with a console controller. There's unfortunately not a lot the devs can do about that one, other than shipping you a bike, a racing track, a container-load of tyres and a fuel tanker.
What's also absent though is any semblance of finesse, especially in the steering input. Simply put, your thumb just isn't that precise. You can learn fine motor control, and on a real bike that pays massive dividends (see comment about living to tell the tale...), but there's only so much you can do with the limited range of motion of an analogue stick, or for that matter - the triggers. I really appreciate the haptic feedback on the front brake, it's definitely better than nothing, but it doesn't make up for how badly the steering model works.
That steering model is actually my main issue with this game. But first a short physics lesson for those who have never thought about it... Bikes steer by leaning. Simple, obvious, kind of scary when you're new, but you get used to it and learn to trust it. Most people assume that shifting your weight around is what gets the bike down, and doing 5mph in a car park - it does. But the faster you go, the more that bike just wants to stay upright, to the point where past about 30mph you could stand on one of the pegs and it would quite happily carry on in a straight line. Maybe start bending your trajectory slooooooowly... Past about 60 - forget it. So how do you get the bike to lean? You steer with the bars. Countersteer, to be precise. Put simply, you turn the front wheel the opposite way to where you want to go. Sounds counterintuitive, and it is, but think for a second about body roll in cars - you turn left, car tilts right. You continue going left, because the car follows the two front wheels, but the tilt is there for all to see. Well, on a bike it's the tilt we want, so we do the same thing - push the right bar, front wheel goes left, bike leans right. Same going the other way - push left, bike leans left. When you're going fast enough you don't even feel the bars move, you just feel the force, which is proportional to the lean rate. And it takes more when you're going faster. Once the bike is on its side, assuming your tyres haven't got flat spots (happens when you mostly go in a straight line), the bike will just stay there until you countersteer the other way to straighten up.
Those last few parts are very important. They're what allow a rider to be extremely smooth when going around a bend. That part is also completely missing from this game's riding model. Actually no, that's not exactly true, they've modeled countersteering (you can see it happening when you turn at slow speeds), but they've then added a layer of abstraction on top of it which basically links lean angle with the analogue stick and there's no option to turn that off and have direct control instead.
That's the only thing I really wish the game had, it would be such an improvement to the handling model without sacrificing any of the physics!
In summary, if you're looking to learn to be a track rider, save your cash and get a real bike. This will never come close. It can't.
BUT, if you're looking to mess about on tracks, crash surprisingly accurate models of real bikes, mod, do the whole racing league thing, and can live with the limitations outlined above - this one is as good as any. Just don't expect to be very good at it. Maybe I'll try it with a flight stick later, it's bound to be more precise than a controller's analogue stick...

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☑ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

dark souls but motorcycles
unforgiving, unadulterated, and nearly downright unfair difficulty at first
but you're not getting this level of experience anywhere else, not even close.
trial laps actually allow you to progress, which helps ease the godlike ai problem
you can actually upgrade your bike, although some choices are confusing (tires increasing your bike's rating whilst lowering its acceleration for some reason)
graphics are gorgeous and it runs fantastic, but controls may be confusing to you especially if you havent been on a real motorcycle since it uses real riding principles.

Worth playing considering today's fuel prices.

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Way harder then real life and I have a racing license. Riding a real motorcycle is way easier then this game pretends to be. I'm 46 and have been riding powered 2 wheel vehicles and many more for just over 40 years and I can say without a doubt this game absolutely stunning, but the mechanisms behind the controls are not even close.