Coming from Namco Bandai, I was actually surprised not to see From Software’s name on it, since it feels like it would fit in perfectly with their Dark Souls series. This all brings me to my second issue, the game is fucking hard. Trying to take a turn well in RR:U was nearly impossible, and I’d either end up sliding into a wall or spinning out. Trying to use the brake peddle wasn’t much better because it didn’t do anything to slow me down. Trying to use the handbrake as suggested by the game was a no-go, as it would send my spinning like a top. It’s hard to explain accurately in words, or even video, and the only thing I can suggest is playing a really good racer, like Burnout: Paradise, then playing RR:U and you should instantly understand. I really want to make sure you understand how bad this drifting is. Trying to drift was a death sentence, and more often then not resulted in my completely spinning out, unable to recover easily and moving me way down the rankings. I wasn’t stupid enough to try to play the game on my mouse and keyboard, but on a controller cars felt sluggish, and unwieldy. The actual layout was ok, but controlling the cars themselves was a chore.
That is, pretty much everything else.įirst, and probably most importantly, are my issues with the controls. The game looks great, to bad it’s all for naught. These are hugely satisfying to activate and I went out of my way to try and activate them if I could. Tracks will have destruction points that you can boost into, provided you have some boost saved, to create shortcuts or destroy several opponents at once. This is something Bugbear seems to have taken from their Flatout games, and here they’ve gone above and beyond. The other thing I liked about RR:U was the idea of destructible terrain. There’s almost no graphics options whatsoever, so you better hope your system can run it. Even at high speeds my framerate was really good, and it’s an overall decently optimized game. There’s an odd orange filter on everything, but reflections look good and the cars all look great, even at high speed. Graphically, RR:U is pretty good looking. Not even Bugbear, the company behind Flatout 2 or the upcoming Wreckfest could save this wreck. Judging by my experience with it, that number is rather unlucky, despite the pedigree going into it. This is the thirteenth console entry into the series, and by it’s own description it breaks away from some of the conventions of it’s predecessors. I can’t say I’ve played any previous RR games, so it’s perhaps unfortunate that Unbounded is my first experience.
RIDGE RACER UNBOUNDED CAR CUSTOMISATION SERIES
Some of the old games are extremely well liked, and many of the PS2 entries in the series top out that console’s best racing games list, no easy task considering some of the other games on that list. The Ridge Racer series is huge, and stretches back to the early 90’s as Japanese arcade and console games. Smashing through obstacles will give you shortcuts, often in the form of ramps. I like racing games, I get racing games, and playing racing games is usually a good time for me. I’ve played more Need for Speed games than I can remember, and I’ve likely logged over a 100 hours in Burnout 3 for the Xbox as a kid. I love Mario Kart, Burnout: Paradise, and I really enjoyed GRID 2. This is the first racing game I’ve reviewed here at LAATIAB, so I want to set a precedent here: I like racing games and racing simulation games. This is easily one of the worst racing games I’ve ever played. At least, that’s the justification I’m going to use to write this review because honestly, after an hour I just don’t want to play Ridge Racer: Unbounded anymore. The nice thing about racing games is that you really only have to play them for about an hour or so to figure out what’s going on with them. Cars only seem to ever come in one paint colour.