The excitement and thrills and spills of the 500cc bike world championship, brought to your PC. Ever dreamed of being the next Michael Doohan, or Max Biaggi ?, well here is your chance, in the form of GP500 from Microprose. Microprose, famed more for its 4 wheeled racing simulations, have really excelled here with GP500.

Everything from the graphics to the modes of game play and realism are near perfect. The game is based on the 1998 500cc world championship, and all the tracks, riders and bikes featured in the 1998 season. There are loads of bike set-up options, and also there are two main bike physics modes, these are ARCADE and SIMULATION. In arcade the driving aid, automatic braking is default, and it is also not possible to fall off the bike. The simulation mode is very realistic, and unless you are a keen simulation fan, could become irritating or frustrating at time, its realistic in the extreme, without being too frustrating.

The game is very graphically demanding, and to get the best out of the game, I would recommend that you use at least a 16mb graphics card, which Ideally should be 3DFX, or RIVA TNT 2. The game will run acceptably on a Pentium II 266, but only at next to minimum detail level. To get the maximum detail level, and to have all options, and all textures turned on you will need at least a Pentium III 500mhz processor, as this game is hard on hardware.

There are plenty of camera views that can be used in this game, and there are a whole world of replay options available, to see those hair raising maneuvers and power slides again and again from every angle imaginable.

Martin:-)

Rivals:- Super bike series, Motor Cross, Road Rash series.

Star Rating: HHHII

Producer: Microprose

Required Spec:

Windows 95/98/ME

Pentium III 500 CPU

128MB RAM

16bit / 44Khz DirectX compatible Soundcard

DX7compatible 3D graphics card with 32Mb RAM

24x CD-ROM

400Mb Hard Drive space