- John Bush
Game Review #331: TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge (Nintendo Switch)
Reviewed By: The Waffinator (Bradford Ekstrom)
Developer: Kylotonn
Publisher: Bigben Interactive
Genre: Racing, Sports, Simulator
Release Date: 5/23/2019
Price (At Time Of Review): $49.99 Digital/$39.99 Physical
Buy TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
Buy TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge from Amazon here.
Overview
I am a sucker for racing games. In fact I love speed so much that sometimes I forget to leave the going fast to video games and find myself pushing myself on the open roads. As much as I love racing games I usually steer away from bike games however. I mean I do like some of the dirt bike racing games, but for motorcycles I am awful even when it comes to consoles. The only motorcycle game I somewhat enjoyed were the good old Road Rash games, but that's because you could really do some damage in them, so like I said I usually stick to car games with racing.
Well TT Isle of Man from Bigben Interactive and Kylotonn is the newest of motorcycle racing games to hit the streets and seems to be a popular hit. But does that make the game good? Does that make it enjoyable for others? I put on my helmet, covered myself in some bubble wrap (I crash A LOT) and hit the streets in this newest racing simulator to see what all the hype was about. And man was I blown away! Both by the overall layout of the game, and how awful I am at it.
Singe Player Or Online Or Grab a Friend
In TT Isle of Man you have 3 different modes you can play. You can play single race if you just want a quick fix of some sporty bike racing, Time Trial if you want to set some speed records, or Career mode where you can make your own character and build a legacy. Single race allows you to play famous tracks with pro racers and enjoy the the scenery of the famous tracks. Time Trial is exactly what it sounds like. You are trying to set time records for the tracks, and compete against online leaderboards and yourself. Career mode I thought was rather interesting. You get to create your own person, name and all. You get to choose your color scheme and then are given money to buy a starter bike. From there you are choosing races from management and each one has a different payout allowing you to gain money and buy faster and more beautiful bikes. For some reason I also found it a little easier racing in career mode over a single race, or maybe it just took me this long to get used to the controls.
Now those are the 3 options you get to play in single player. There is online multiplayer where you can compete against anyone else online and really spice it up. However like a few other racing games I couldn't seem to find anyone online and get to test my skills against real time players. I don't know if this is common with the Switch community online because I noticed that Xenon Racer’s online component was dead on arrival as well. But when I jump on other consoles I never seem to have a problem with facing others. That’s not the only form of multiplayer that this game offers though, you can play locally with a second player. There are bikes that have side cars and you can have a second player play as the one riding in the side car, and their purpose is to use their weight to help counter the sharper corners and make things more smooth, so communication is key!
Shift Them Gears
The controls of TT are very similar to other racing games, so if you have played a few you will grasp the controls fairly quickly. Even if you haven’t the controls can still be easily learned. You can either do automatic or manual bikes. I recommend starting with automatic because learning how to smoothly maneuver the bike alone is a bit of a challenge and then maybe switch to manual once it becomes a bit on the easier side. In automatic you have ZL to brake, ZR to accelerate, Y to reset your position to the middle of the course and Left Thumbstick for steering. There is no hard breaking for sharp corners so you need to learn how to slow down enough with normal breaks to take corners safely but not too much so you can get passed by other players or the CPU. If you pay attention there is a yellow path that you should follow and if you are going too fast to make certain corners it turns red indicating that you need to slow down or you might end up eating pavement.
The Open Road
In TT Isle of Man I feel that they did an excellent job of creating a very nice bike racing simulator. When racing you can choose either morning, day, or evening and the lighting of the day can really be seen. On top of that they did an excellent job capturing the scenery and having it change based off your speed. What I mean is that when you are not moving everything is perfectly in focus and as you speed up everything progressively becomes a blur, almost like real life. Not like other racing games no matter how fast you go the scenery is picture perfect. In TT you get 4 camera angles to choose from. Two being 3rd person, one is further away and one is a bit closer. The other two are first person like you're riding the bike and the other 1st person is more like you are the top of the bike and get a good shot of the ground. Also being on the Switch keep in mind it's not as powerful as an Xbox or PS4 so the graphics are more suited to what the Switch can handle especially for a racing game.
Being more of a simulator over any other racing game there is no background music when racing. All you hear is the bike gaining speed and the shifting of gears according to the speed at which you are riding. For me this is a complete turn off and makes it a bit more on the boring side. I get that its it's a simulator of racing but I think some more background noise, even if its it's not music would have made it slightly more entertaining.
Final Lap
TT is not like any other racing game I have played. It will push you to the limits and really make you either a better player in the long run or just want to straight up rage quit. I can usually jump into any racing game and get used to it real quick which sometimes makes it a bit boring, but not this bad Larry. You will have to master the art of being able to go really fast and almost come to quicker stops to make corners, or you will be eating some serious pavement or even an occasional tree like yours truly. I have only played this game in portable mode and have been overall enjoying it. My only dislike really is the lack of some more background sounds and or music. I’m hoping to eventually see some more players online to get some online gameplay in as well.
This game will take some getting used to and I can honestly say it doesn’t get easier, but you will just become an overall better player. Simple yet challenging with some really nice scenery, this game does motorcycle street racing some serious justice. If you are into some serious motorsports and need something new that will really push your limits this game is for you. If you want something that is really easy you might want to give this one a pass, or just practice and maybe we can meet up on some tracks.
Score: 8/10
Buy TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
Buy TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge from Amazon here.
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*Review Code Provided by Maximum Games