REVIEW – A new year, a new MotoGP game, and we’re still where we were before, or even a bit behind than a year ago. Milestone’s 2017 title has no Rossi. Instead, it gives something that was in maybe 15 two years ago, but with more money in focus. The game is pretty much the same as what it was before.

MotoGP 17 has quite a lot to explain if three or four days after its release, there is already a petition to block Milestone from developing the game from now on. I’ll warn you in advance: I’m going to write quite a lot of negatives, making this text pile quite long, but after about roughly 19 hours, I have things to say.

Managerial Career

This menu point has a different career. There’s also the rider career, where you only have to focus on driving – you start out in the Red Bull Rookies Cup for a two-race mini-season, then you can move up to Moto3, 2, then finally MotoGP. All you will need is reputation: a high difficulty level, less riding aids, longer races, and longer results all earn you more reputation than normal, which means you can progress faster up the ranks. I don’t have to say more about this mode.

Being a manager takes things in another direction. You will have to handle money and invest into no less than fourteen expansions. Pit has five (mechanical engineers, track engineers, motor engineers, telemetry analysts, and sports management) – four out of these speed up the bike’s upgrades (brakes, frame, engine, suspension in order), the final one earns you more credit by investing into it. Office has five (marketing department, community management, PR office, technical coordination, logistics management), earning you more credits, more reputation, an extra activity, and lower management costs. Support has four (suspensions engineers, ECU engineers, hospitality chefs and nutritionists, athletic preparation team), improving your riders’ skills (braking, throttle control, cornering, body position) depending on the level you invested.

I know, the description was wrong, but all of these, except for technical coordination, have three levels. The higher the level, the more it costs to contract them to work for you for eight weeks, but it also gives you more reputation while also having bigger management costs than before, unless you invest into that part of the team. You can’t sign them for a full season, just for eight weeks, and you can’t renew the contracts during the eight weeks (lol)?. That’s not all. You also have to buy the bikes, and most of the time, you will always have just one of the two crappy ones to be able to be afforded. Then you can tune them to level 5 (or 4…?), which will require workshops. The first one is free; two will cost money. The engineers step in here. The higher their level in said category, the faster the upgrades are completed. The upgrades can cost more than the team itself, though.

Let’s talk a bit about the riders and sponsors. You can choose one of three sponsors, paying you differently. One will give you more fixed rewards but not a lot of bonuses if you complete their demand (aka finish in said position or higher), while the others swap the two balances around. You can choose one of three pre-made liveries, then choose three main colors, as well as the rim’s color. You have to sign your riders before the season starts for the entire year. They will also have a fifth statistic, the affinity for said category – it will quickly hit 100 (or more, but I’ll get back to it later). You can also have one of three crew levels for them, and I think it’s a good idea to invest in the level 3 one immediately.

After the races, you get money (which will be reduced by the management costs), and reputation. These two things move everything around. I need to talk about the activity, too: each season has 37 weeks – they have free weeks, race weekends, and activity weeks. You can do one or two activities: get a few thousand credits, which is only useful early in the game, reputation, extra money if you complete the sponsor’s demand, or some rider skill bonus temporarily or forever. You can also boost your team’s contracts by 1-2 weeks, as well as improve your riders’ affinity. That’s all this mode offers. You will be forced to participate even if you don’t want to…

Quick Mode, My GP, Multiplayer

Quick mode has Grand Prix, championship, time trial, and split screen (now this one is a good idea). On top of the three categories, you can also find the entire Red Bull Rookies grid, and the Historic categories, which is further divided into 125/250/500cc/4-stroke MotoGP riders. You can unlock these riders by riding in the appropriate categories in career modes. (Olivier Jacque’s name is still incorrectly written as Jaque. LOL.) You can also make a custom rider, as well as ride one of the pre-made Milestone (of course…) team bikes.

Under My GP, you can customize a rider (not the career mode ones – the two modes use a separate save for their respective career), modify the Milestone bikes’ liveries and sponsors, reset the two careers, rename the custom team, and watch the credits that run for way too long. Multiplayer would be self-explanatory if it worked: it either locks up during the track’s loading screen, or it just chucks you back to the lobby with an error message. It’s still a peer-to-peer mode, which is somewhat of a disappointment.

The good

The bikes’ engines sound better than a year ago, but I still believe there’s room for improvement here. Everyone can win due to a lot of available difficulty levels, as well as the riding aids. There are also retro bikers you can choose under quick mode… and there’s nothing else that comes to my mind, to be honest.

The bad

I’m recommending you to get a cup of coffee or some food and drinks – I just moved over to the third page in Word, and I think I’ll get to wrap up my thoughts by the end of the fourth page. Don’t worry; I’ll wait.

This 13/14/15/Valentino Rossi The Game (which will be written as VRTG in short from now on)/17 comparison will be a reference. Alright, let’s go. Milestone still didn’t manage to fix Olivier Jacque’s name, as it still lacks the C letter (if you don’t believe me: quick mode, Grand Prix, rider, historic categories, 250cc, move right three times) – this typo itself says quite a lot.

I think Milestone just 1:1 copied VRTG, as it still has the same issues, bugs, and glitches, as one year ago. They still use this old, outdated engine, while MXGP3 has already switched to Unreal Engine 4. MotoGP is supposed to upgrade next year, but Dorna might take the license away from them by then. The lighting seems to be improved, and the sponsors are detailed on the bikes, but I think that’s all the visuals got a boost from last year. You can still ride through the advertisement boards next to the tracks; you still teleport on your bike after crashing, the AI is still dumb as a stick. The AI doesn’t even notice you and rams you off the track if you’re in its way, and even if your bike and tire temperatures get high (that is a thing), it doesn’t matter if you get rammed off the circuit. The AI is still easy: you can win by half a minute even on the hardest difficulty level, and during qualifying, they are just cutting you off when exiting the pits on your quick laps. It’s dangerous, unfair, and dumb on the AI’s end to do such a thing.

Background music? None. At least VRTG HAD some music! So, the game improves the engine audio, then drops the background music. Now that I brought up VRTG: EVERY Rossi-related content is now gone. No Enduranch, no drifting, no YZR-M1, nothing, and the amount of helmets, gloves, and boots also seem to be severely limited (especially in comparison to RIDE 2). There is some victory animation going on, but the quality is god awful, and if you skip the pre-race pit animations too fast, you can see the characters JUMP into their next location. Bailing after the race ended will make your bike go batshit insane airborne, as the physics just give up there. The physics is still off: I don’t think I should be able to be fully leaning and go full throttle through grass or gravel. As an arcade title, fine, but it’s meant to be a simulation; instead it’s far off from that. Online barely works. It’s peer-to-peer, unstable, throws you out before the race even starts, and honestly, I wasn’t surprised that one time, I had to wait over an hour, and even then, I didn’t get to race against anyone. 3+ players? Expect lag, too.

The glitch

Page 4, and now I can get into GLITCHES, because they exist, too! In the managerial career mode, you might see the game crash after buying a bike. If it doesn’t die, you will see the upgrades go bonkers. All four categories should be allowing you four upgrades each, but if you plan to buy the level five upgrade, you will see a not enough credits error message, regardless of how much money you have. Did the guys forget to program the price for level 5 upgrades? LOL. If you upgrade something, and a contract expires affecting that part of the bike, you may see your workshop screw up and go into NEGATIVE WEEKS. If that happens, you can kiss that workshop goodbye. On PS4, you cannot just fire up CheatEngine and modify one fucking byte to make the game work properly. It’s unbelievable. Using a basic programming variable to cut corners? Most likely.

Your riders may also get glitched: some of them might stop improving their skills at around 60. Either they are that untalented, or the game is just a glitchy piece of shit, yes, I did write what you just read before the comma. I dared to say that because of the affinity: it can go as high as 400. On a 1-100 scale, that’s a ridiculous joke. Oh, and as I said it before, you HAVE TO ride, even if you don’t feel up to it.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

Do NOT buy this game for sixty dollars or euros. Are you insane? MotoGP 17 is a massive downgrade from VRTG, which itself was dropping things from 15. Sure, it included some Rossi-related things, but they are now all gone. I read a few reviews of Milestone on Glassdoor, and it seems like the CEO is screwing everyone over by talking into development and setting up tight deadlines. I believe some of the bad quality is because of him: they release three games each week, but all three sucks. If there was just one annual Milestone game, that could be better than what we usually get. MotoGP 17 is not good. There’s barely any improvement from 13 if any. I can’t recommend this game for fans.

I had enough. Enough of Milestone not improving anything. Two Italian publications gave this game a 7 out of 10 on Metacritic. Yeah, right! MotoGP 17 isn’t even a 4. They tried to make us satisfied with a new game mode, which can glitch out, making the gamer’s experience dead in no time. You also have to figure out what to buy as the game doesn’t help, either.

This game is a pathetic shame for the MotoGP license. Milestone is apparently changing to Unreal Engine 4 next year. They will have to try hard to make me interested in the slightest…

-V-

Publisher: Milestone

Developer: Milestone

Genre: MotoGP license video game adaptation

Release date: June 15, 2017