As much to tell you straight out: visually, Moto Racer 4 does not send dreams. It's even quite the opposite. Years have passed and technology has clearly not kept pace with progress. While we were full of hope after seeing the Unreal Engine 4 badge displayed when the game was launched, the rendering immediately put us in front of this sad reality: Moto Racer 4 is more reminiscent of an Android game than to a title developed on PS4 and Xbox One. With its polygons cut in the mass and its cradingues textures, the game of Artefact Studio savagely attacks the retina, which proves that the development budgets must have been extremely tight. Clipping in all directions, even aliasing on PC by pushing all the options to the limit, the hardest part is probably the start of the races where we see the textures of our pilot's suit load and refine before our eyes. As you will have understood, the game is frankly ugly, but since it is not good to judge only on the physical, let's push the investigation further.
UGLY, AND MUCH MORE...
We then discover several modes: “Career”, “Rapid race” and multi to split the pear with several; what a classic. If we will quickly switch to the “Quick Race” mode which allows you to configure any race according to your preferences, the multiplayer mode seems promising. The latter indeed offers online multiplayer, but also a real split mode, which is rare today. Nevertheless, it is with the "Career" mode that we decided to start our approach to Moto Racer 4, in order to take the game in hand. The campaign offers us a succession of events and championships that will be unlocked one after the other according to our progress. It is a capital mode since it allows you to unlock content, new tracks, new pilots, but also improvement points that we will be able to reinvest in order to improve the motorcycles of the different characters who are pleasantly distinguished by their atypical look. There is indeed a Power Ranger-style superhero, the Russian who does not laugh, the kawaii girl with her cat ears and the punk with his iguana crest on his helmet. In short, quite appreciable quirky heroes.
...if the objective of the race is to finish second and you cross the finish line first, you will have to start over. Stupid isn't it?
Otherwise, the game is divided into two parts. On the one hand, the speed races during which we will ride a hypersport bike and try to break the sound barrier on various road circuits. On the other side, we discover the field of motocross, dirt, big jumps and FMX tricks. First race: we start on the road with a speed test. If the maneuverability is always ultra-arcade and therefore the instantaneous grip, we also notice that the strings are always the same. We go for it, we knock out the opponents and we send the boost via wheelies. A priori all the ingredients for having fun are there, especially since you can even earn even more boost by activating the game's TURBO system. In fact, this is a QTE to be carried out which allows you to obtain a huge speed boost, available at certain times such as when starting, returning to the track when you crash, during wheelies, but also when you land after a jump. In short, a QTE that will appear often and that should not be missed under penalty of having a less effective boost, or not effective at all.
IN FULL CRASH TESTING
Only here, if these bases seem healthy on paper, in game, we quickly become disillusioned. First of all, each event can be validated with one, two or three stars, which are necessary to unlock new events. When we start a race, the game asks us to choose an objective, such as finishing first, second or third. The more ambitious the objective, the more stars you collect and the faster you progress. Yes, but when we miss our goal, the race is invalidated and we gain absolutely nothing. Let me explain: if ever the objective of the race is to finish second and you cross the finish line first, you will have to start over. Stupid isn't it? This system is particularly boring insofar as it only takes into account your last race. Another example, you have two stars on an event but the third seems playable. You start the event with the objective of finishing first, but you fail. The race will now be counted as a failure and your two previously earned stars will go up in smoke, and you will only have to start the race again until you complete the requested forecast. Inevitably, we spend a lot of time playing to advance on tiptoe and the feeling of frustration that emerges is quite unequaled in the field of video games.
Frustration is the main feeling you will experience when you play Moto Racer 4.
Frustration is also the main feeling you will experience when you play Moto Racer 4. The handling of motorcycles is quite hazardous and varies depending on the situation. For example, if you decide to drive only on the rear wheel, you will be fixed on the road as on rails, capable of passing hairpins at more than 340 km/h. We are willing to accept the fact that this is a purely arcade-oriented game, but perhaps we shouldn't do anything either. Add to that an indestructible, murderous and incredibly fast AI, and you know what to expect with the game's completely abused difficulty. Basically, whether it's cross or track, we're going to spend most of its time to send boosts and other turbos to the chain without worrying about other than the cooldown of the wheelies. It's the only way to win and inevitably, in the long run, it wears out. It even becomes annoying very quickly when you add the immeasurable mass of bugs that follow one another in the game. physics that is completely strawberries, not to mention the many collision bugs... In short, the list is as long as your arm.
Our nerves are therefore put to the test by this disgusting finish, knowing that in addition, the framerate has a hard time remaining stable when passing through the middle of traffic (including cars and trucks are parallelepipeds covered with tears by three poor textures), even on a rather sturdy PC equipped with an NVIDIA GTX 970.
Our nerves are therefore put to the test by this disgusting finish, knowing that in addition, the framerate has a hard time remaining stable when passing through the middle of traffic (including cars and trucks are parallelepipeds covered with tears by three poor textures), even on a rather beefy PC equipped with an NVIDIA GTX 970. It seems otherwise that music soothes morals. Not that of Moto Racer 4 anyway. The soundtrack is infamous, while the sound effects are so bad that we ended our test by leaving the headphones on the desk, it was so much torture. A first for us. Basically, there is one music track per circuit (a dozen in total), which forces us to listen to the same repetitive songs over and over throughout the game, whether we are playing solo or in multiplayer. No variety on the screen either, since even if the environments vary, each setting is desperately empty, while the vegetation clips horribly. It's not the multiplayer that will save the game because the online servers are all completely empty (we were only able to complete three races over three days of testing, while the game has been available for a while), while the multiplayer local will ask you to have several controllers since we still haven't managed to have one player on the controller compete against the other on the keyboard. The controllers are also a thorny subject, since if the Xbox One controllers work well, the other pads are not recognized. If you fell for a Logitech or Razer gamepad, you will have to play Moto Racer 4 on the keyboard. Delirium.
