AMA Superbike review

There's a review of Motorsim's AMA Superbike at www.avault.com and it's not pretty. James

It's really unfair to review AMA Superbikes Poor or Good becuase 6 months down the road it could be a totaly different game then another 6 months down the road it could be a totaly different game again. Unless they want to review it every 6 months it's really a unfair review. It's a work in progress. The game will be improved/Updated all the time. Instead of waiting for a 3rd party to make new tracks,bikes,skins,sounds ect.. Motorsim's will be making them for us professionaly and for for a long time, and unlike the Nascar series which cost you $40+ for each up upgrade or addon Motorsim's will do it for FREE and all it will take is a press of a button and the program will do all the work for you. You won't see a AMA Superbikes 2. AMA Superbikes IS 2,3,4,5,6,7,8.. in One. You pay once and that's it, NO MILKING! Sound good to me. > There's a review of Motorsim's AMA Superbike at www.avault.com and it's not > pretty. > James

So when a regular game is released that's buggy and broken (not necessarily my view of AMA) the reviewers shouldn't give it bad reviews because it "could" be better down the road when it's patched and fixed? Your logic here is flawed. Sure, AMA might have dozens more tracks, bikes, etc. added down the road. The physics might be cleaned up and completely perfected. The network code might be silky smooth 6 months from now. OR, Motorsim's might close it's doors tomorrow and never issue another update. You can't review on possibilities. You review what's been released. I'd be willing to bet that Avault DOES take another look a little while down the road. Even the print magazines do this for the couple of games that currently work this way (Warbirds, Air Warrior, etc.) Doberman

> You pay once and that's it, NO MILKING! Sound good to me. Actually you pay every month for online play (it isn't going to be free for very much longer) which in turn finances the evolution of the product. Or at least one would hope it would. - George

You don't have to play online. You can just buy the game for offline play and you would be getting the same updates as everyone else, New bikes, physics,tracks,graphics,etc.. Besides you don't even have to buy the game to play online you can get the game(Online only version) free by downloading it or it will be in *** Magazines. Sure you can review it now and bag it and I agree it deserves a Lashing but then I think it should also be Reviewed down the road as well. It's only fair.

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> > You pay once and that's it, NO MILKING! Sound good to me. > Actually you pay every month for online play (it isn't going > to be free for very much longer) which in turn finances the > evolution of the product. Or at least one would hope it > would. > - George

Yes, that was the whole premise of the game and future games from Motorsims. In exactly the same model as WARBIRDS.

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> > You pay once and that's it, NO MILKING! Sound good to me. > Actually you pay every month for online play (it isn't going > to be free for very much longer) which in turn finances the > evolution of the product. Or at least one would hope it > would. > - George

This isn't necessarily a "regular" game, i.e. the development company produces it, it gets published and you buy it and thats it, maybe if you are lucky you get a patch or two or in case of some games you dont get any. In this case its more like id and Quake2 where there were something like 20 patches to support it, modify it and upgrade it. This was designed to be a game that gets updated fairly frequently [one of the reasons they spent a bunch of money on the castanet download] and get improved over its lifecycle, which is designed to be much longer than most retail games. Thats not an excuse, AMA really could have been a lot more solid when it went retail. This is true. But you MUST review on the type of game it is and you should mention the company's plans for the product. This isn't a game that is meant to be a standalone never touched again code, its meant to be continually updated with new features, better code, better driving model, options, etc. as time goes on. And FYI, something that wasn't mentioned, is that a demo was available with the BIR track, and the game, minus the AI and single player scripting, will be available, ala Warbirds, for download FREE if its not already. If someone felt ripped off, perhaps they were too impatient [a common trend in today's society] and should have checked out the demo first when it came out or even waited for the downloadable version of the game before plunking down money. Perhaps, but I doubt it. Warbirds, should be noted, wasn't particularly up to par either when first released. And AMA is almost identical to Warbirds in its business model.

That review better come quick. Motorsims will be dead within a year. There's only about 1% of you who are convinced that paying to test beta software is a great deal.

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> You don't have to play online. You can just buy the game for offline > play and you would be getting the same updates as everyone else, New > bikes, physics,tracks,graphics,etc.. Besides you don't even have to buy > the game to play online you can get the game(Online only version) free > by downloading it or it will be in *** Magazines. > Sure you can review it now and bag it and I agree it deserves a Lashing > but then I think it should also be Reviewed down the road as well. It's > only fair. > > > You pay once and that's it, NO MILKING! Sound good to me. > > Actually you pay every month for online play (it isn't going > > to be free for very much longer) which in turn finances the > > evolution of the product. Or at least one would hope it > > would. > > - George

I doubt its going to be dead within a year; Warbirds was not made overnight, nor will the Motorsims network. Of course, only those who are absolutely and utterly impatient are paying ANYTHING. No one made anyone buy it in the store, if people had paid attention and done some research they would have found out that the game is or will soon be available online for download and the only thing missing will be AI and offline racing scripts. Online, for the time being until it gets to a suitable level as determined by Motorsims and feedback of the users, is free too [unlike NROS]. I've yet to see anywhere where someone has to pay anything for the time being. Obviously there are only about 1% of us that bother to actually do research and find out about products and not just believe what you hear.

They DID do something that amazed me. I have the demo, and like most demos, you were limited to ONe track with only 600 cc bikes. But after a big update to v1.3, suddenly I can run the 750's AND ride all the tracks. After years of putzing around Mid Ohio which was converted from Indycar Racing II, I finally get to see the real Mid Ohio...much, much different. I'm trying to think of other demos that allowed all those different tracks. I think the only thing left out of the demo is the AI competition. Online is fully functional. You can even use the demo to race in thier first online competition which was rescheduled after server problems. What version did the website review?? dave henrie

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> I doubt its going to be dead within a year; Warbirds was not made overnight, > nor will the Motorsims network. > Of course, only those who are absolutely and utterly impatient are paying > ANYTHING. No one made anyone buy it in the store, if people had paid > attention and done some research they would have found out that the game is > or will soon be available online for download and the only thing missing > will be AI and offline racing scripts. Online, for the time being until it > gets to a suitable level as determined by Motorsims and feedback of the > users, is free too [unlike NROS]. I've yet to see anywhere where someone > has to pay anything for the time being. > Obviously there are only about 1% of us that bother to actually do research > and find out about products and not just believe what you hear. > > That review better come quick. Motorsims will be dead within a year. > > There's only about 1% of you who are convinced that paying to test beta > > software is a great deal.

: I doubt its going to be dead within a year; Warbirds was not made overnight, : nor will the Motorsims network. But Warbirds entered a very different market when it was started up than Motorsims does now. Also, the possible market for an online WWII fighter sim is much larger than for a motorcycle racing sim. If Warbirds entered the market now with questionable physics, low poly graphics and missing features, people would probably shun it in favour of a retail sim with online capability. Stephen