This is one of those reviews where you can probably guess the ending. It doesn't require the detective skills of Jonathan Creek to work out we're going to like this a hell of a lot, seeing as the first MotoGP on Xbox is the greatest bike racer of all time. MotoGP 2 we liked a little less, partly because of its lack of new stuff and also thanks to tweaked bike handling that made it slightly tougher to control. So this one, the third one with loads of new stuff and retweaked handling, really ought to be just about perfect.

And it is! The big change here is the inclusion of countryside tracks alongside the regular MotoGP courses. Now you can race down real roads, flying over bumps and watching things like pretty windmills and magic castles scroll into view. The sensation of speed in the MotoGP series has always been fantastic - when you're hammering down a narrow cliff-side lane in MotoGP 3 it's even better.

The game has everything from the real-world MotoGP series - all the licensed tracks, the bikes and names of the racers. That's great, but not particularly exciting - after all, that was all in MotoGP 2 as well. There are two real stars of MotoGP 3, the online racing and those oh-so-stunning Extreme courses.

These new tracks dump all over the old flat, featureless MotoGP courses and invigorate what could have been a very tired old sequel. With their imaginations running wild, the developers of MotoGP 3 have created 16 of these new 'Extreme' courses, based on what looks like our wildest dreams and taking in winding English lanes, the nightmarish speed of the German autobahn, and a load of fantasy courses lined by trees, quaint villages and all kinds of gorgeous scenery.

We don't know what technical stuff developer Climax is doing here, but whatever it is doing it's doing it better than anyone else. The new Extreme tracks are utterly beautiful. Hi-res, sharp, phenomenally smooth thanks to the 60-frames-a-second update and just... well, imagine a Burnout 3: Takedown level of graphics, only with more backgrounds, more detail and a greater viewing distance.

And, of course, you're getting the legendary, ultra-hardcore MotoGP handling to play with. If you're new to MotoGP you'll suffer miserably at first. This game isn't like other racers. You don't just turn around corners and you can't adjust your line as you're turning, thanks to the importance of banking into bends.

You have to plan ahead. You have to start turning and leaning before the corner, stylishly sweeping your bike from side to side through chicanes or, most likely if you've never played a MotoGP game before, trundling off to the side through gravel traps, losing all your speed, and backflipping over the handlebars in a life-threatening manner.

MotoGP 3 further piles on the misery for newcomers - and experienced veterans of the last two games - by lumbering you with a rubbish, bottom-of-the-range old rustbucket of a motorbike when you first enter the main Career and Extreme sections. Yep, even us, with our hundreds and hundreds of hours of crushing victories on Xbox Live, struggled at first, thanks to the useless lump of a bike you start with that hardly brakes, turns or accelerates again once you've fallen off. It's a rubbish introduction to what's such an amazing game, but there you go.

Do well in a GP race or Extreme event and you're given a stingy five upgrade points, which make your awful beginner's bike ever-so-slightly and almost unnoticeably better. Do this a few times, though, and you start to see what a complete work of genius MotoGP 3 really is.

Suddenly you can go around corners! The brakes start actually stopping you before you hit walls and fly headfirst into the tarmac, and the top speed of your bike begins to make you panic every time you open the throttle on a straight bit of road. It's difficult and hard for the first few races, but the experience soon blossoms by offering the most satisfying feeling of speed and control you'll ever find.

It comes together incredibly well. There you are, racing through the Extreme series, with each race more and more stunning than the last, when you arrive at the German autobahn. The game's music - an astonishing mixture of drum & bass, rock and dance music - switches to a moody techno number, the skies darken and we hammer down the autobahn at maximum speed as a dingy power station looms into view. Never has the feeling of being somewhere and experiencing the vibe of a place felt so good in a game.

The Tokyo race takes place on a hover track that's suspended through neon-lit skyscrapers, there are costal tracks, night races and all sorts of colourful picture-postcard tracks that knock the flat old MotoGP course into oblivion.

And the Extreme tracks are several notches above the normal MotoGP race courses in terms of layout and design. These custom-designed tracks are full of the right kind of bends for a bike game. Double and triple right-handers let you keep your bike banked over, gradually piling on the power as you accelerate out. Long and fast corners, bumps and high-speed chicanes make the Extreme racing series vastly more enjoyable than the familiar, flat and featureless MotoGP tracks, and better still, our main worry - that these new Extreme courses would come with more walls to crash into - has been brushed away.

MotoGP has always been forgiving of your mistakes thanks to wide tracks and huge, grassy run-off areas beside each turn that save you from angry crashes should you mess up. Happily, the Extreme section features wide, 'dramatised" roads, ones that give you enough room to move, bank, turn and power away.

That's the strength of the MotoGP series - you never just hold down the throttle. You work it, gently, there's always room to push and go faster, and each corner is so wide you can spend days racing the same track and working out the best line. It has all the control of Forza Motorsport, only in a much more exciting, faster and attractive package.

The only problem we've had is the blur effect that kicks in when you're approaching maximum speed, occasionally eclipsing your view of the odd corner, but that's the only flaw that's possible to pick out when you're looking at MotoGP 3's staggering detail and shine.

It's Burnout 3: Takedown with better and more demanding handling, it's Project Gotham Racing 2 with a higher top speed and even prettier tracks, and it's the previous two fantastic MotoGP games combined with a sensational collection of new tracks that beat those of all other racing games hands down. MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3 combines the ultra-precise handling of the previous titles with a stunning look and massive challenge. We can't believe how good this has turned out. Bike fan or not, you need this more than any other Xbox racer.

1. An unbelievably sharp and high resolution look - Xbox is doing more than it's ever done before.
2. The addition of 16 real-world courses adds variety and demands even better racing skills.
3. The bike handling is tough to learn, but once you've cracked it there's so much room to learn and improve.
4. All the courses can be raced online, with seamless switching to race online opponents even when playing in solo Career mode.
5. Unlockable bonuses such as mirrored and reverse courses and new bikes and riders give masses of long-term play.

We expected more of the game - we got it, plus loads of thrilling new tracks and the best graphics on Xbox. Stunning!