Manx TT Superbike
Once again, Sega has ported one of its successful arcade games to the PC, and once again, it has failed to add more than minor enhancements. The game takes place on the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish sea famous for the challenge and beauty of its racing courses. Where Manx TT falls short is the number of tracks. The only addition to the PC release over the arcade version is the inclusion of a reversed and mirrored version of each of the two original circuits. There is just not enough content here to keep you interested for more than a couple of hours.
The bikes, although a bit blocky around the tires, look decent, and the feeling of speed is conveyed fairly well. Control is another issue entirely. There are eight bikes to choose from with varying degrees of speed and handling. The bikes with less handling actually feel more realistic, but many of the turns are so sharp that it’s nearly impossible to negotiate them. The bikes with better handling feel nothing like a motorcycle, allowing you to power-slide through turns. Regardless of which bike you choose, the controls fall short in some departments, whether gamepad or keyboard.
There are several ways to play. Arcade mode lets you race the two original tracks. PC mode adds a practice option where you can race any of the four tracks and select the number of laps, a time trial option lets you race against a ghost rider, and there’s also a challenge option where you race each of the four tracks in succession.
In order to progress through the challenge mode, you must finish in at least third place. On the final track, if you finish in first place, you will be rewarded with moving on to the Superbike race. The Superbike stage gives you three new bikes to choose from and increased competition from the other drivers. After thirty or so frustrating attempts to finish the final race in the allotted time, I must admit defeat and confess that I wasn’t able to experience the Superbike mode. It’s a shame, too, because I was really looking forward to racing the same tracks yet again.
System Requirements: Pentium 90, 16 MB RAM, SVGA, Win95
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N/A
Yeah, having read the author’s review, I gotta say it was such a disappointment to find out this game has only 2 actual tracks to offer. This one’s a major drawback here since it directly hits the game’s replayability value, lowering it almost to ground level, especially when compared to, say, MotoRacer. Even if I decided to make some comparison between several SEGA’s own 1997 ports to PC (like Sega Rally or Daytona), I’d surely point out the lack of racing circuits within Manx TT ‘cuz that’s way too few for a decent game to last.
They could have done so much more with the port…. Alas, they didnt, and while the game’s got some appropriate (for a 97) overall graphX uplift, it falls flat in a proper gameplay department where any player wishes there were many more tracks to race thru. Oh well…..