- In 2002, Japanese video game developer Spike-Chunsoft released the game "Riding Spirits" through BAM! Entertainment for PlayStation 2. In the list of over 200 officially licensed bikes, there were six versions of the XJ: 2001 XJ600N, 2002 XJ600N, 2001 XJ600S Diversion, 2002 Yamaha XJ600S Diversion, 2001 XJ900S Diversion, and 2002 XJ900S Diversion. Then, in 2004, they released "Riding Spirits II" through Capcom; this time with 330 bikes, but only the 2001 versions of the XJ's.
- The games gave players the options to upgrade and tune the front and rear suspension, sprockets, engine, transmission, and gear ratios. It looks cool, and has great features, but was unfortunately put together poorly. I found a review that started by saying, "Riding Spirits should have been what every gamer who likes motorcycles wanted: Gran Turismo on two wheels. It tries, but fails miserably." Reviewers complained about bad physics, AI, and more (though, bad physics is enough to ruin even the best of games). It looks good, and the bikes look very accurate, but the game just wasn't up to par.
- At any rate, it's very cool that anyone would take the time to include the XJ in such a game! It's a tuning and racing simulation game, which is pretty much the opposite of what the XJ was built for, and it shows by it's performance in the game. Still, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so it's nice to see the XJ get even just a small turn in the spotlight.
- Check out this video on YouTube:
[youtube]mzsoTBzm3Ac[/youtube]
- Here's information about the games:
Riding Spirits
Riding Spirits II
- Here's one of the reviews I referred to (for the original game; they didn't bother reviewing the sequel):
"A real motorcyclists view."
- Seeing the XJ so beautifully 3D modelled already, my gears got to turning, "The work is already done. I wonder if I can get them to give us a copy of the 3D model for our own uses?" Probably not, but you never know until you try! I looked up the company website, and had a heck of a time navigating it as Google tried to translate as much of it as it could for me. I ended up finding a company contact form to fill out, and composed a message in English and translated to Japanese with my request. It seemed simple enough, until it wouldn't take the form. There is a field for "Your Name", but then the next field is for "Name (phonetic)". I tried all kinds of manipulations of my name, but it just wasn't taking it. I finally translated the error message to find that it would only accept "Hiragana" characters. Oy! After digging around for awhile, I finally found a site that could translate my first name ti Hiragana, and it went through. I sure hope this turns out to be worth the effort!
