This lame horse needs to be put down
I reviewed the Wii version of G1 Jockey sometime last year and besides it being full of annoying menus and dialogue that dragged on, the main complaint for me was the fact that I kept whacking myself with the cable that connects the Nunchuk to the Wii Remote. Now that the PS3 gets its own version of the series, that issue won’t be a problem…but will new ones emerge and will the old ones remain?
The answer to both of those questions is of course, yes. Doing a bit of research before I played the game, I could find no listing of the game on KOEI’s website and all retailers selling the game online manage to list it without any of the usual descriptions that you would expect. It’s clear that even they don’t believe that it’s a good game and they are right. Being a reviewer, trying games can be a mixed blessing…sometimes you’ll get ones that scream amazing and other times, ones that just downright tedious and horrible to play. Unfortunately it’s the latter where G1 Jockey 4 2008 falls into.
If you want to learn the controls through the tutorial, prepare for a hard time. Instead of being one simple mode that takes you through each move and part of what the game is about, it lists them individually, so it takes 10 times longer to do and even then, you’ll be lost with its confusing layouts. The game has a total of 3 different control schemes and even uses the SIXAXIS for one of them, it’s never simple and it’s just a total pain to handle.
Being a jockey game, you’d expect to be on horses for the most part. You’d be wrong, you spend more time in menus and chatting with people that have no personality than playing the game, it’s just boring and bares no relevance at all to what the game is about. I personally cannot see why this game is even on the PS3, especially since it’s has had NO visual upgrade at all.
That’s right, it looks almost as bad as the Wii version does. Besides adding in SIXAXIS support, there seems to be no point of the PS3 version. There are no online modes of any kind, you can apparently download certain horses from PSN but I can’t see any on there at the moment. I doubt anyone would buy that content anyway, so it’s pointless including it.
The Verdict
I know I’ve kept this brief, but it’s more a case of me holding my tongue from what I really think about G1 Jockey 4 2008. If I carried on further, I’d have to label this review an 18+ and age gate it somehow. Instead you get a censored version and a warning…don’t play this game, it needs to be put down.
