MotoGP 24 will be Milestone's 12th entry in the series since taking over title development in 2013. Since then, it has gone through three game engines (from 2018 to now his Unreal Engine 4), adding and removing features only to bring them back again, and a title dedicated to Valentino Rossi (2016) is his first. Alternative disciplines such as drifting and drifting are also included. , rally (kind of), and flat track. So how does this work?
In the interest of disclosure, to quote Jay, I did not do that. intermediaries, “Done, buddy.” However, I spent 4 hours on the game, almost all of it in time trial mode. I'd like to say this is because the game felt so good I couldn't bear to go back to the main menu, but that's not entirely true.
I haven't played much of the MotoGP series since 2019, but I still watched each release with some sort of interest, so I expected some complexity in the braking. And it wasn't the kind I expected. In the 2020-2023 MotoGP games, braking became more difficult by lifting the rear of the bike during braking. That meant players didn't just have to slam on the brakes, they had to feather them to keep their rear tires on the floor.
I think it's similar in MotoGP 24 in that you can't brake as hard as you could, but this time it's because the game prevents your bike from leaning into a corner if you apply too much brake pressure. . It was a strange feeling, and actually infuriating at first. Because it feels like something added to physics that shouldn't really exist, and you can't really feel where the limits of its intervention are. It takes some getting used to.
But by the end of those four hours, I was starting to get used to the bike. One of the reasons for that is that he made the bike stiffer in his setup menu and made the bike as high as possible to increase agility, and one of his reasons was how he played the game on the bike. That's what I understood. What's going on with physics? Being able to adapt to the game's behavior in just a few hours seems to indicate that this game is very easy and easy to learn.
Did you start to enjoy physics as you became more familiar with it? It kind of feels like there's not much going on in the middle of the corner. I think the middle of the corner is where the game feels the weakest. When you release the brake and open the throttle, you won't notice any change in the bike's weight balance. The bike continues to rotate as usual and the only sound I hear is the change in engine sound.
But when you brake well, the braking is very good, even quite satisfying. There is a good chance to slide a little on the exit of a corner (Turn 3 in Barcelona, for example), which is very nice, and this was not always the case in Milestone's asphalt bike racing game.
Additionally, MotoGP 24 is the first MotoGP game I've played using the ride height device feature. Thankfully, these are banned in MotoGP starting in 2027, but we like how they've been implemented in MotoGP 24. This is more than just a “faster forward” button, you need to consider where you can use it. Once enabled, you can: I can't turn at all, and I can't release it until I apply the brakes.
For example, on the exit of Turn 4 at Le Mans, you have to control your wheelie even though you're coming from a second gear corner and going over the crest. 5th turn. Alternatively, you cannot take advantage of his De Strubben exit in Assen. Because before you can brake, you have to turn into the Ruskenhoek section at the end of Veenslang. I like that consideration. I also like that the wheelie doesn't stop automatically when using RHD. You still have to use the rear brake a little.
Also, the way you ride will change. Because if you want to activate your bike, you need to get it up and active as soon as possible. In other words, you will end up bumping into each other at the exit. More off. It's interesting to me how this one thing really changes the way you play and the way you approach corners.
Corner exit sound is also felt well, especially aggressive and quite loud. Somehow this sound enhances the feeling of speed and generally feels pretty accurate (aside from KTM, which still has the sound from the first four races of 2017).
Aside from the bikes, the most important thing in a racing game is the track. MotoGP 24 includes all official tracks for 2024, as well as historic tracks such as Laguna Seca, Donington Park, Indianapolis, Estoril and Termas de Rio Hondo. But I'm not sure I find any of that very enjoyable. Every corner feels somehow the same, and even in sections like Biondetti at Mugello or Abbey Farm at Silverstone, the sense of speed you get on the straights is somehow missing in the corners.
In general, if I had to simply say how I felt playing MotoGP 24 from a physical standpoint, I would simply say that after four hours I felt like I would have rather played Ride 4.
The AI didn't really inspire me to play more MotoGP 24. For some reason, Milestone games always feel like the AI can do things that players can't, whether it's speeding up and making sharp turns in MotoGP or jumping forward in the air in Supercross.
MotoGP 24 also has new Adaptive AI features. To understand how this works, I ran his two seven-lap races at Le Mans. First, the adaptive AI was enabled and I (playing as Pecco Bagnaia) went from last to first in almost exactly his 7 laps. For the second race, the adaptive AI was disabled and the AI difficulty was set to 120%. In this race, I (again his Bagnaia) went from last to his 14th in one lap, and for the rest of the race it was a hindrance for everyone and he ended up in 15th. Six laps (which doesn't suggest anything too positive about the AI's overtaking ability) and I finished 20 seconds behind winner Enea Bastianini. Adaptive features aren't too subtle either. With this enabled, for example, the AI would just close the throttle in the middle of the pit straight. However, in the second race I noticed that the AI seemed to be more aggressive on the final lap. For example, Raul Fernandes dive-bombed me in super-fast Turn 2 at Le Mans.
I think I had more fun in the time trial, but maybe that's because I still felt like I was making progress and in the time trial I could focus on that, whereas in the race the AI would either let me win or lap 2.5 seconds faster. It may be because it was one or the other. Still, I remember playing MotoGP 15 and he lapped 4 seconds faster per lap than the AI on the hardest settings without any particular effort, so it's good to at least feel like you have to improve is.
The MotoGP Steward feature is new this year. This penalizes the AI as well as the player, but on the harshest settings (there are two: Strict and Forgiving) it's too harsh, making the bikes heavy and unwieldy, making contact with other bikes almost impossible. You can't have fun with a surefire game. Combined with the AI's rather strange way of racing. The more lenient “Tolerant” setting requires you to cut inside the corner before the track limit warning appears. I feel like I want to turn off the feature and have the same penalty system as before, but I can't turn it off.
Career mode is very strange now. Because after years of being able to choose which category you want to start in, you will be forced to start with Moto3. He only has to race Moto3 twice before he can move on. This was still too much of a Moto3 for me to want to try. I don't think there's a single MotoGP game that Moto3 felt “good” to me. And this is a different game.
However, once you try Career Mode, a new Rider Market feature awaits you. Riders can now move up and down classes and between teams. should It helps keep things a little fresher. Only time will tell about that, but still, this is a long-awaited feature of the series, and it's good to see it finally arrive.
Finally, what you'll notice when you pick up the game now is that the Moto3 and Moto2 liveries are still the 2023 liveries. This means that the MT Helmets MSI team does not have his Moto2 livery and the Pierer Mobility Group Moto2 team still receives Ohlins suspension, but this is clearly still just a cosmetic issue .
Even more frustrating, the MotoGP bike is still a 2023 model with 2024 livery. For example, Ducati still has a pre-Austrian 2023 downwash duct, KTM has a trapezoidal rear wing, Yamaha has a front wing from 2018, and Honda has a pathetic 2023 aero. , Aprilia still has something like that. minus the new upper element of the front wing. You have to wonder what's the point in starting the game for a new season when almost everything in the game is still based on the previous year's one.
In summary, MotoGP 24 has some redeeming qualities, such as the implementation of a ride height device, but ultimately it has flaws that feel pasted on to the physics, an annoying management system (and an immersive (as much as it is), it is a struggle against powerlessness. AI, and the release date seems to be in a hurry.
Image credit: Milestone.
