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I'm currently only around 10 hours in, and bought this game after a bit of a hiatus from the series after some fairly poor offerings in the past, as I saw the reviews seemed to be good. Unfortunately once again, the way the game approaches AI is nonsensical.

In theory, the 'Adaptive AI' is a good idea; in the past you'd set the AI at a set level, and you'd find yourself about right pace wise on one track, 2 seconds off the pace on another, and 2 seconds faster then everyone the next weekend. This is partly because the AI bikes do not have the same physics as yours, and would be quite easy to address by benchmarking against the fastest human players, like some other racing games do, but that would make a bit too much sense.

Initially it was good; I didn't have to constantly tweak the AI difficulty, but then a pattern emerges. Rather than being rewarded for a quick qualifying or practice session, you essentially sign your own death warrant. The game becomes 'second place simulator', where one AI seems to get such an unbelievable speed boost (fastest laps 1-2 seconds faster than everyone else), but the game doesn't want you to just lose, so everyone else is roughly your pace. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be fun, as you watch the front AI bike disappear, turning in corners at speeds which you can't.

A case in point is the last race I did. I didn't do the first practice session so the AI were lost on what times to do. Q2, perfect track conditions and with soft tyres I put in a 2:10.5 lap. The AI, - despite being 'adaptive' and seeing my pace in about 15 sessions on other tracks - are two whole seconds off my pole time.

Time for the race, we are now on the harder medium front tyre, but same weather and track conditions. Strong start, but hold on, the AI have become demons. I get overtaken and the front runner is now putting in 2:08 lap times. The pole time, on softs, with low fuel was 2:10.5. That's quite some adapting the AI has done. It would make sense if the AI had adapted around the qualifying times and made the race pace slightly slower (you know, like race pace always is compared to qualifying runs), but no. I'm not sure how this isn't caught by testing, or by including some basic programming logic that the race pace shouldn't be seconds faster than qualifying times in the exact same track and weather conditions.

It is a shame, as the bike handling does actually feel excellent this year, so might be worth a purchase if you plan to play online, but if like me you bought this based on reviews suggesting the AI is now good, you'll be disappointed. Even if you do manage to get them set to a level where the times aren't all over the place, they'll still happily ram you off the road if you are in their line, like they have for the past decade.

A few new bells and whistles while still ignoring issues that have been in the series for multiple years.

I wrote a fairly scathing review of Milestone's efforts back when MotoGP 17 came out, and since then with the transition to the Unreal engine, I actually really enjoyed last years effort; by no means perfect but definitely moving in the right direction, and their handling model is enjoyable (especially compared to the IOMTT games!) but having played a few hours of MotoGP 20, I can already see giant issues that they just do not fix, year after year.

A brief note on the good parts of this years game:

Braking - Actually more difficult and adds more skill ceiling, which is a good thing
Fuel levels and mapping - Basic but a nice tactical addition
Expanded career mode - A step in the right direction, even if the execution is a bit lacking

The negatives... it would take an essay to go into everything, so instead I'm going to just go over the glaring awfulness that is already putting me off the game.

I started in Moto2 on 100% AI. The first thing I had to do was turn off damage, as the new system basically results in your bike being multiple seconds slower a lap if you get tapped, and the new 'Neural AI' must have been based on sampling random Ride 3 online lobbies, as they have no issue attempting to overtake as if they have been binge watching Mad Max.

The second thing you'll notice is that until you develop your ECU after farming dev points for a few races, your bike wants to wheelie any time you apply power in a traction zone. You can potentially avoid this by using half throttle, but good luck, as the AI don't have this issue so will just breeze past. You are best off just wheeling out of 2nd gear and waiting for the front to drop. The alternative strategy is to make sure you are at full lean as you apply full throttle as this does not bring up the front, or activate traction control. Excellent realism there Milestone, exactly how motorbikes work; full throttle at full lean is the way to go!

Going into the second race at Austin, I qualified 1.6 seconds faster than Baldessarri in second place. I thought I might have to turn the AI difficulty up, but no. Despite the track conditions being almost identical, Baldessarri beat his qualifying lap on his first effort, using HARDER TYRES from a STANDING START. He then went on to beat my qualifying lap that he couldn't get close to on his second lap.

The disparity between qualifying and race laps has been an issue that Milestone haven't addressed correctly for so long it is now just tedious. The player does not get this random speed bump the AI does, so it is not a change in track conditions. It would take them about 20 seconds to have a google (as common sense is apparently lacking) to know that - brace yourselves - qualifying laps with fresh soft tyres and low fuel load are faster than race laps. Codemasters don't have this issue in their F1 games, and haven't for as long as I can recall, but year after year you either get AI doing stupidly fast race laps compared to qualifying. There have even been previous titles where the AI did do slower race laps, but they forgot to program in the added fuel load for the PLAYER so you would just win each race by 20 seconds even if you qualified 5th.

Given the amount of time they've had to address all this, it is now just pointless paying money each year to see how they've managed to mess it up this year. I guess getting them to model the AI having the same rules as the player and dealing with fuel and tyre issues is too much to ask, even though all other race sims manage it.

If I did as little work as Milestone do on this title in a year I'd need a death certificate.

Congratulations Milestone, you have finally broken me.

I've bought most of the MotoGP series in the hope of improvements, but this is the final nail in the coffin with regards to buying Milestone games. I'm done.

Single Player: Once again, the career mode is threadbare at best, with nothing to improve immersion. Win a few races? Nice, move up to one of the top teams in the next tier arbitrarily. Get to MotoGP from Moto3 without finishing the first season? Of course you can.

The AI is terrible in new and impressive ways. Back in MotoGP 15 the AI were so slow the races were pointless. Three seconds a lap behind you slow. Valentino Rossi the game introduced tyre wear that applied only to the player and not the AI and they would go 2 seconds a lap FASTER in the race than qualifying. Seems realistic. MotoGP 17 has managed to make it even worse.

Qualy pace is sporadic, sometimes a good battle, sometimes miles off. When you get to the race, all bets are off. Once again, punishing tyre wear is back, but only for the player - AI will run Soft - Soft every race. Rather than PUTTING SOME EFFORT IN and programming the AI to be racy, instead they have programmed in essentially a dive-bomb switch. If the AI are behind, they will dive into corners at impossible speeds and either hit you, or brake harder than the player is able to. Genuinely, you can brake as hard as you can with large disks, and they will go past you and stop before you.

Making the game more challenging should involve making the AI harder to compete with, but on a level playing field. Milestone clearly can't be bothered and have just put in seperate rules for the AI riders. You might as well give them 300mph bikes at this rate.

I thought I'd at least try online since single player is a mess. The stuttering is ludicrous. You can't play with contact on due to the lag and even with collisions off, it is hard to concentrate on the track when someone is coming in and out of your view 20 times a second. Online should legitimately have an epilepsy warning.

It is interesting to look at the contrast with the F1 games by Codemasters - similarly they got a lot of negative feedback on career immersion and how the AI behaved. The difference is, they put in the effort and fixed it.

So thank you Milestone, I've finally learned not to buy your games. Continue ignoring questions on twitter and in the community about these issues and I look forward to seeing you push MotoGP 18 next year. I won't be wasting any more money.

P.S the tracks and models are still awful, the only real change is the sound. The tracks are such poor recreations it is a joke - everything is inexplicably thin. The same issue was on Ride 2, a public road track would have the same width as the bike length. Again, absolutely zero effort put in.