Fantasy Island

FANTASY ISLAND

Do you fantasize about conquering the daunting 37.75-mile Isle of Man TT course but lack the conviction-not to mention the cojones-to make your dream a reality? Us too, so when Sega's new Manx TT video game hit the local arcade, the CW staff was there with change pockets bursting.

Never mind the game’s disjointed name, which combines the titles of the spring Isle of Man TT and fall Manx Grand Prix events, how does it compare to the real thing? To find out, we solicited the opinion of sometimes CW test rider Mark Cernicky, whose participation in the 1994 TT inspired him to have the three-legged Manx emblem tattooed between his shoulder blades.

Unfortunately, Cernicky didn’t find the game very realistic. “The roads are way too wide, they’re like freeways,” he complained. “And there aren’t any cobblestone vergesyou’re on the edge or in the hedges! You also don’t understand that the road is broken up and there are wet spots in some places, so you can’t even use the obvious line.”

Following a mass start-which in itself is inaccurate, since Island competitors are flagged off at timed intervals-the game’s main flaw is that it throws too much at you, too fast.

Though Cernicky says that the start through Ago’s Leap is fairly accurate, the rest of the course is compressed into a veritable highlights film,

intermixed with flights of fancy. For example, there’s a fictitious Daytona-style banking, and both Gooseneck and Ramsey Hairpin go the wrong way!

As a result, the truncated course is far shorter and a lot quicker than the real thing. With video laps taking about 1 minute (versus 22 or more), average speed works out to an intergallactic 2265 mph.

Brian Catterson