| Race Riding | Rating  |
Race riding is perhaps the hardest part of the game and the in-game displays certainly require the player’s concentration. On the screen there are four indicators which monitor the horse’s confidence, their accrued potential, their stamina and their preferred riding style.
The confidence monitor is the middle indicator and the yellow bar on the outer represents the horse’s speed. In the middle is a bouncing sphere which changes colour according to the horse’s mood. The player should aim to ride the horse so that the sphere remains green. If the sphere turns yellow, the horse begins to lose confidence; blue and the horse is ready to down tools and if it turns red then the horse will drop itself out and no amount of driving will get it interested again.
To the right is the horse’s potential meter. This meter fills up if the horse is happy through the race – the happier, the faster it fills and the potential is used at the end of the race to provide a finishing spurt to the line. If a horse is unhappy, potential will be used up much quicker. Also, once a horse runs out of stamina (shown on the left) then it will begin to use potential so make sure you save enough stamina at the business end of the race otherwise you’ll use up your potential before you need it!
Also in the stamina indicator, there is an indicator of which is the horse’s leading leg – this can be changed during the final drive to provide a small boost to potential which can be the difference between winning and losing.
Below the confidence meter are four arrows which indicate the horse’s preferred running style. The coloured arrows indicate where the player should try to position their horse through the race in order to gain the most potential. The left-hand arrow indicates that the horse likes to lead while the right-hand arrow indicates the horse likes to be held up and brought late into the race.
Understanding these meters in the race and how to influence them is crucial to a player’s success and once you’ve mastered reading them, race riding and winning becomes a whole lot simpler.
| Game Controls | Rating  |
The game requires the use of the nunchuk in order to play, which simulates the player’s reins while the remote simulates the player’s whip. There are several configurations of controls available in game, depending on the player’s preference. There is also support for the Wii balance board, which helps to enhance the player’s experience. Instead of tilting the Nunchuk forward to drive, you will instead need to rapidly flex and then straighten your knees in order to coax the horse forward.
To jump you need to straighten your legs to initiate your horse upwards at the correct time, and steering involves shifting your weight to your left and right legs. Leaning back will slow down the horse, while leaning forward will tell the horse to go faster.
If I’m honest, I found the novelty of the balance board to wear thin pretty quickly and using it was very tiring, although combined with a Wii Fit program, the game could be ideal for building stamina.
However, for this game the balance board was soon ditched for the favoured nunchuk and remote.
| Game Graphics & Sound | Rating |
The graphics are at best average, although horse and jockey animations are well done. However, the textures are poor and lack detail, while the extremely bad 2-D cardboard cut-out figures which punctuate the game really drags the game down in this regard.
The sound which features throughout the game is fine, although limited to a few instances such as the horse’s hooves in the race and the whip-slapping. The music can become quite irritating after a time.
| Verdict | Rating |
G1 Jockey is without doubt a fun game to play, although I have a couple of small niggles with the game. Firstly, during the game, when the player uses the whip to drive their horse, there is no limit to the number of times the whip can be used. I don’t like this and in real life, especially in the UK, a jockey using the whip with the frequency allowed in G1 Jockey would never be allowed to ride.
Secondly, in the jumps races, if you meet a fence ‘wrong’ then you have no hope of staying in the saddle and the viewpoint when you do fall off is terrible.
Horse racing games, especially those which simulate actual race-riding have been few and far between and the G1 Jockey series is probably the definitive series in this niche. This incarnation of the game preserves that accolade and the game can be utterly addicting.
Players will either love it or hate it, but fans of horse racing should definitely give this title a try.