There's some confusion as to where you can set a time, some say Ranked, others Championship & Team Championship, if it's the latter then I'd buy as soon as.

Anyone got the definitive answer?

Just my thoughts on SBK'09.  for starters it's a very confusing game in that I don't understand the changes Milestone & Blackbean made to it. bottom line is that if you didn't like SBK'08 there is nothing in SBK'09 that is going to change your mind. I'm not going to do a full "review" of the game because it's pretty much the same as last years. Better in a couple of ways worse in others But will highlight the changes

The Good:
1) The AI: Like the US version of SBK'08 the AI is better mainly in the fact that they aren't as cheap as in the UK version of SBK'08. They are still pretty stupid and aren't hard to beat if you are a half way decent player, even on the hardest setting

2) 2 new tracks: Imola and Kyalami are two of my favorite tracks and it's great to see them back.  I don't count Portugal as a new track because it was supposed to be in the last game and was left out.

3)Better Menu system: cleaner & easier to navigate than before. The PC version loads faster than last years game and extremely faster than the console versions (which makes you wonder why there isn't an option to install and run the game from the HDs of the PS3 & 360)

4) Tech Meetings: Nice feature where you come into the pits and complete a questionaire about how the bike is working and changes are made by the game.  To me this is more of a gimmick than an actual useful tool. Basically you end up tweaking things yourself anyway to get it to where you want it

5)Better Starts: you can now put the bike in gear at the start of a race and use the brake like a clutch for your race starts instead of trying to start from Neutral

The Bad:
1) Same Graphics: For those disappointed by the backgrounds of SBK'08 it's more of the same. To me the scale of the track to bike is still off. The tracks seem to narrow. You also still don't get a feel of elevation changes at tracks like Imola and Kyalami that should feature them heavily

2) Physics changed: Serious case of understeer for the bikes if you carry any kind of speed into a corner. SBK08 & MGP08 to me had almost perfect bike physics but SBK'09 has gone backwards. Bikes for the most part steer with acceleration. Getting off the throttle causes motorcycles to stand up and thus run wide. In the game you have to be off throttle to get the bike to turn in and tighten a line which is completely backwards from reality.  Why this change was made is beyond me. Additionally the game seems more arcade bias even in the most difficult setting. It's really hard to fall off the bike and looks ridiculus sometimes as a result

3) Still no career, profiles, or stat tracking. A lot of people focus on on-line gaming but there are still those like myself who spend most of their gaming time off line.  The continued lack of common standard off line race modes in SBK is completely stupid and unacceptable.  For me there really is no point in doing a Championship or time trials if stats aren't tracked.

4)Missing tracks: Nurburgring is still missing from the game.

5)Lack of options: The only mode that you can control weather is in the quick race and training.  Race weekend and Championship modes the game decides weather options and this a game killer for me. You still can't select which sessions you want to play in race weekend and Champ mode, so if you never run the practise or warm up sessions you have to manually bypass them each time (which is a pain because of the loading screens you get to do so)

6)Training mode: This is basically Time Trials,why the stupid name change is beyond me.  But regardless you still can't enter your name when you set a record.

7)Weak Telemetry and stats: SBK continues to fail miserably here. Telemetry is cool but not everyone undersands the graphs.  It would have been more useful to be able to lay the telemetry over say a replay which also displayed throttle postion, gear, etc......  but since the game doesn't track stats what so ever it really doesn't matter I guess.  wouldn't it be cool if you did a ten lap run in a race or time trial to be able to see what your laps for the session were to get an idea of your average time? Or after a race to see what the laptimes of the AI riders where over the course of a race? Guess Milestone didn't think so

8) Braking Level: The default level is set to a point that is actually reasonable, but for the purist it makes as if that is using a cheat or an assist because it has a setting of 200%. If put at 100% the brakes are pretty worthless and don't feel real.  I stand by my position that the default level should be 100% and any adjustments made to braking should be for sensitivity only or to decrease the power. Not add power.

9) Still can't save replays, really bad soundtrack (again), very weak video editing, Rolling starts??????.......

There are a few more things that bother me about the game but you kind of get the point. If you liked SBK'08 then you'll probably like SBK'09 (if the new physics model doesn't put you off) but if you didn't there isn't really anything here that is going to make you change your mind.  Pretty lame and disappointing effort by Milestone  Blackbean. Once again here is a bike game has (had) a solid foundation but IMHO is seriously let down by a lack direction and focus by the developers....Maybe with SBK '10 they'll get a clue but for some reason I'm not holding my breath

What I meant was the 100% should be set at a real world level and that would mean being able to lock them up or endo the bike and that should be it when it comes to braking power. Trust me I don't like them weak and currently I do the same and add braking power, but even though I do it, it makes me feel like I'm cheating or using an assist when I'm in fact just trying to get the brakes to a level that they should have been in the first place.  What the game does now is default to 250% depending on the mode you are playing in which implies you are using a boast.  What is considered 250% should actually just be 100% and then be left at that.  does that make sense? the brakes should have the correct power to begin with and you shouldn't have to add power just to make the bike feel normal and then have adjustments for player preference. for example

My real race bike is setup with a very progessive bite but short travel from the brake lever. I can get on the brakes and they don't flip me over the bars and trail braking is very easy to control. that's the sensitivity part of it.  But at the same time because of the short travel it doesn't take much to get full power from the brakes and lock them up either.  A friend tried to ride my bike and almost tossed it because his setup had more travel from the lever but also a more aggressive initial bite. When he grabbed the lever it went full lock and he almost flipped it. We changed the travel of the lever and then he thought the brakes were weak (even though he could still endo it).  This is where rider skill and style comes into play.   The out-right stopping power of the brakes doesn't change just how that power was accessed. So we spent quite a lot of time trying to find a middle ground because of our different preferences (which was something we should have considered before trying to do an endurance race together).

As for the offline thing, don't want to get into a big debate about that.  you know it's really a just a matter of preference. People like you spend most of your gaming time online which is fine, while someone like me spends most of my gaming time offline.  It's not a bias either way, just that these item are missing overall and the bottom line is that there is no reason why the game should lack these simple basic common features that are standard racing game features.  Not only that but they are features that have been included in SBK games before and if you look at the credits of the game it's pretty much the same group of people who have been involved in all the Milestone bike games from the first SBK for EA Sports to SBK'09. so what is the problem? Why do they think it's better to remove features/options than to add them?

Arcade or not Grid & Dirt as well as F1 CE are great when it comes to tracking a person's stats/progress in regards to what you've done in the game.  Be it mileage, laps, races won, etc.......  What good is having a tire wear options if you have no means to evaluate how long the tire lasts or how hard to push before it starts to go off? If the game provided this information I'd probably be more likely to do the practise and warmup sessions and actually turn the tire wear option on.  Regardless these features are things that to me would improve both online and offline modes of the game and makes no sense that Milestone continues to leave them out as I don't see how having them would turn off a player who prefers more arcade type games.

May 27, 2009 -- 9:57AM, Ronin05 wrote:

9) Still can't save replays, really bad soundtrack (again), very weak video editing, Rolling starts??????.......

Lol yeah I did a three lap race and forgot to turn the music off, by the end it had nearly driven me nuts. It was so loud I could hardly hear anything else and it was just the same song on a loop.

What do you mean by rolling starts?

I liked the fact that in this game they have revamped the tracks from CAD data to make them more like the real ones, Kyalami was real bumpy and the replay looked more realistic because the shocks were working most of the time.

About the brakes I was able to lock the rear brake and did it quite a few times before I found the correct pressure to apply. One thing I noticed was in the gameplay demo they were doing endos and wheelies without any trouble, well I slammed on my front brakes in the game and no endo at all also I tried popping a wheelie and it wasn't nearly as easy as it was in the gameplay demo.

May 27, 2009 -- 9:57AM, Ronin05 wrote:

3) Still no career, profiles, or stat tracking. A lot of people focus on on-line gaming but there are still those like myself who spend most of their gaming time off line.  The continued lack of common standard off line race modes in SBK is completely stupid and unacceptable.  For me there really is no point in doing a Championship or time trials if stats aren't tracked.

You can always record your races and put them on the net :)

dailymotion.com/dreadedkane

Ah ok I set my brake power to 100 before I even started so that will be why I couldn't endo.

The rolling start is for practice and qualifying so you don't have to warm the tires yourself unless I'm mistaken. I turn it off and start from the pits.