SBK 09 demo is out, maybe  we can use it to make suggestions to Steve for MGP 09.

No clue on the world wide thing. Anybody?

It does have a better feel to it than SBK 08 , BUT the AI still doesn't seem to see you and is much less affected by collisisions than the player is. A big turn off for me. You can't access the setups in the demo so it's hard to say anything about them. Visible rider & bike damage is there but the bike magically appears back on track after a crash and thats kind of bland.

You can drive only on one track but all the teams / bikes seem to be unlocked in the demo wich is kinda cool.
No online, so the functionality there is a mystery.

Since I suspect that MotoGP 09 will be pushed to 2010 I will most likely be bying this one.

Money says in an effect to make the game more accessible to the casual gamer, Milestone & Blackbean in all their genius take away the advanced setup options of SBK'08 but leave the dumb AI-on-rails cause they figure gamers would rather have a game where the AI runs them off ,than one that allows them to tune the bikes so that they can stay on the track

One of these days I'm going to start playing the lotto and if I ever won it I would freakin hire me a development house to make a common sense bike game.... and yes at this point I'm very bitter and jaded when it comes to the current state of motorcycle bike games and the possibility of ever getting a decent one let alone a good one

exactly.  It's funny and just like the real thing. Motorcycle racing here in the states is never going to be as big as NASCAR, yet instead of making it a better show for the fans they seem to be doing everything to alienate those that exactly care about it.  I don't think bike games will ever be a mass market item yet everyone keeps trying to make it one at the expense of those who actually like the genre.

If they made a game for their core market then they'd have a consistant seller.  But it's a catch 22 for us because if we don't buy the crap games no one will make anything because "there's no  market". But if we keep buying the crap games, they'll only continue to make crap because they figure we'll buy anything.... and they are right to that point because our choices are to either take crap or nothing at all.

This is a situation where the exclusive license stuff sucks for us gamers because there is no competition so the developers don't really have to try.   To be honest I don't really need a series license. If anyone made a good game with the tracks and bikes, they don't have to be official teams or riders, and I'd take that over any bike game released in the past 6 or 7 years

Thanks for the review Mush.

STEVE: although I haven't played SBK 09 yet, I really like the idea of driver / race engineer interaction.

I suck at making setups and it would be fantastic to be able tell to the engineer whats wrong with the bike and he would then make adjustments accordingly. ( and maybe even explain whats being done and why).

It would also then  act as a tutorial for making setups. After a while even a novice player would start to understand what effects different changes have on the bike.