Ridge Racer Unbounded Review

In recent times developers of arcade racing games have been a split second away from blurring their company out of existence. [Ed’s note – we’re sorry for that sentence.] The Ridge Racer series has always traditionally benefited from being a launch title that excels at showcasing the capabilities of new hardware and the lack of a major new console launch may be partly to blame from the series floundering in recent years. Developers Bugbear — who previously worked on Flatout — have been bought in to fuel up a new approach and inject some new ideas into the franchise.

Developer:  Bugbear Entertainment
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Also Available On: PC, PS3
Release Date:  Available Now

The result of Bugbear’s labour is a satisfying blend of Split/Second, Burnout and a more traditional Ridge Racer title. A boost meter can be filled by drifting around corners, drafting behind opponents or by traveling at high speeds, but boost can also be gained by ploughing through smaller bits of street furniture. Build this bar to the top and it can be used to take down (or “frag”) opponents while using your brake-light-blurring boost. Alternatively, the bar can be used to break through shortcuts that are highlighted in red.

Not all shortcuts are that helpful though. Choosing the shortcuts you take, as well as the precise timing required to effectively take down your opponents, adds a tactical edge to the flashy, fast paced action, but sometimes results in a dependency on learning a track before you can become competitive. This is compounded by the difficultly of knowing which of the environmental objects can be destroyed and learning which objects will destroy you instead. It is not always immediately obvious and, early on in the game, tends to lead to equal measures of frustration as pleasantly-pleased-to-survive surprises.

The majority of the events are called “Domination Races” and have all the shortcuts and take-downs that make up this new Ridge Racer formula. Unbounded also features a number of other events: Shindo, a much more traditional race with a standard boost bar that can only be used to increase speed (i.e. *not* be used to engage shortcuts or take-downs); Frag,where you need to take-down as many opponents as possible in a given time; Time Trial, where you must race around a slightly bizarre and challenging obstacle course while collecting tokens that freeze time; and bringing up the rear, drift events, where you need to repeatedly (or more ideally continuously) powerslide around corners to build the best score you can. This event gets the best use of the game’s dedicated drift button.

Overall, especially at first, the tracks feel very samey, but this does improve as the game opens up. There is a good, enjoyable variety to the events and plenty of them. Borrowing the similar-course-with-divergent-path formula traditionally used by Ridge Racer may have not been the best idea when used in conjunction with having the whole game set in one city, as it doesn’t allow for any drastic or remarkable changes to the world whizzing passed your windows.

The car selection is a bit strange. Once unlocked you have a range available in each area of the fictional city of Shatter Bay from slick sports cars or suped-up saloons to meaty pick-up trucks. Different fictional cars are unlocked by ranking up, and even unsuccessful races add to your overall total, which is handy if you’re stuck on a race, but only IF the car that unlocks does so in the same area. This is not often the case and can mean that you may struggle to win a race until the appropriate car has been unlocked.

There are also a number of special vehicles that are available for certain events, such as cop cars or the cab of an articulated lorry (that’s an 18-wheeler truck in American) These only come into play on certain Frag events, but help add to the variety. This comes as a relief as the number of cars that unlock is more limited than a simple head-count would make it appear. You will unlock a sports car in every new area, but it will be practically the same car, even with a similar name, just named something like the “LE” version. It is likely to be handy though, as the stats will alter, but this cheapens the upgrade process and makes it more difficult to care that you have just unlocked your fourth indistinguishable muscle car (that due to it’s tendency to spin wildly out of control I have no intention of using until I have exhausted all other options.) I think this would have been more entertaining and rewarding if it was handled in an engine or car modification system.

While racing you will need to rewire your brain, as you won’t want to race the same way you do in similar games. You usually avoid concrete pillars at all cost, but now you want to make sure you are hitting them. Likewise you don’t usually speed up when confronted by a shop or government building blocking your path. The other oddity is the racing line. Unless you are going full pelt with a boost safely tucked away then you won’t want to be anywhere near the racing line. The fastest way to build up boost is by tailgating your opponent, meaning after a few seconds you will be ready to smash them out of the way; this is all fun and good when it is you doing the smashing, but far less fun when you are on the receiving end. It also means that you could be better off to be in second place on the last corner than in first as you will be in a better position to build up your boost and either demolish your opponent out of the way or fly past them on your way to the finishing line. Again, feels great IF your the instigator rather than the helpless victim. This is helpfully offset on occasion by a feature that was such a good idea I’m sure we will see similar versions in future arcade racing games. Whenever an opponent nears the back of your car a threat indicator glows red (in a similar way to that seen in FPS’s) that indicates if the car is approaching directly from behind or from the left or right hand side of your car.

For my personal taste and skill level, Unbounded is tuned to a slightly harder difficulty than I would ideally like for an arcade racer. While this does add to the sense of achievement when successfully completing a race, I found it resulting in needing to retry more often than I would like as, especially on the shorter two lap races, one serious crash will prevent you from being able to finish first. Not so much of an issue if you get Fragged or destroy your car, as this drops you back on the track with a rolling start, but this is not the case when resetting your car, which you will need to do when caught up behind a piece of scenery or stuck behind a wall.

The overwhelming majority of the problems I have are largely offset by a nice glossy coat of paint and a really good wax and polish. The graphics are fantastic in places, with highly detailed explosive slow motion crashes and dazzling sunsets burning your retinas. The environments do eventually open out into some different looking areas and have a good level of detail. The soundtrack contains tunes made for Ridge Racer and a number of Skrillex tunes that suit both my personal taste and the gaming genre. I have yet to play a great deal of the multiplayer, but from what I have seen it seems like fun, frantic multiplayer mayhem and the boosting/fragging mechanic in conjunction with it keeping track of the latest Rival to Frag you, (by adding a Skull symbol above their car) will help engineer some great revenge-fueled racing.

The track creator is also a really nice addition. It allows you to place tile pieces onto a grid – each tile piece contains a portion of track with some special pieces, often across multiple tiles, containing features such as bridges or shortcuts. Each track must be built within a certain budget and more complicated pieces take up more of your budget. It makes it very easy to put together a track, but adding detail such as explosive trucks, jumps or piles of Big Red Barrels can be done in the advanced editor – although this can be a little fiddly as it can be tricky to navigate your way around the track. You can tailor a track design to a particular event type and then race it online with your friends, which should add further life to the multiplayer.

Fun frantic arcade racing action
Feels like a Ridge Racer title with more toys to play with
Lots of events with a reasonable level of variety
Can feel a little soulless
Difficulty scale quite high for an arcade racing game
Unlock system feels limited

In the creation of Ridge Racer Unbounded, developers Bugbear, have crafted a game that very much feels as though it is set in the Ridge Racer universe, but with some great toys of other arcade racers – namely the Split/Second shortcuts and the Burnout-style take-down mechanic. Split/Second (and other titles such as Motorstorm Apocalypse) have executed urban or level-wide destruction on a much grander scale and Burnout‘s take-down system is more refined and feels a bit fairer. Anyone boosting is invincible, no matter how fast you are going and anyone touching you while boosting will instantly Frag you. Despite not measuring up to some of the best examples of the arcade racing genre, Unbounded remains an enjoyable blend of these component parts and is likely to be enjoyed by anyone that was previously a fan of those titles.

Review copy provided by Namco Bandai
Official Game Site

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Comments

  1. gCrusher

    It’s Ridge Racer! Riiiidge Raaacerrr!!

    Good review, thanks.

  2. Lukas Heinzel

    I remember the time at sg, where yamster(jon) complained, that this isnt a ridge racer anymore. He was right and this is good, given how crappy the vita ridge racer version is.

    People should complain, when the review is there and hold themself back in a preview, cause so many things can change. And. In jons case, they should also try to be more objective.

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