Written by: PlayDevil.com Staff

 

 

 

Ridge Racer Unbounded is a big change for the Namco Bandai's franchise. There is still a focus on fast paced arcade racing but many of the series most iconic elements are undergoing something of a revamp.

 

Perhaps these changes are not a bad thing, for a long time the Ridge Racer games stagnated, with each new game simply adding a few new tracks to the one before. Namco Bandai look to have come to the same conclusion and have felt compelled to force and evolution. No longer happy with this status quo and have bought in western developer Bugbear (developer Flatout) to reinvigorate the franchise with Ridge Racer Unbounded.

 

Bugbear has taken this reinvention to heart with Unbounded proving a huge departure visually. The pristine streets of Ridge City are gone with the new gritty and realistic Shatter Bay forming the new stage for the action. In the Bay racer gangs fight for street supremacy, and the clean racing of the old Ridge Racers are replaced by jostling for position in close fought races.

 

Taking control of a car for a quick race it was clear much of what used to signify Ridge Racer was changed. Drifting and boosting still played a vital role, but were significantly altered. As a long time fan of the series, I was shocked as going in to a corner I was unable to send my car into a slide with a simple pumping of the accelerator. To begin a slide a tap of the B button was necessary (the handbrake?) to send the rear of my car out and begin to spin. It was a shift that took a while to get used to and made the car I was in feel stuck to the rode in a way that felt unnatural for the series.

 

With other racers becoming more aggressive a lot of new tactics have been introduced, as running players off the road and into buildings is now commonplace. Ramming and contact mark another shift in a series that previously focused on pure speed, with any bump previously causing cars to slow to a near stop. These impacts have also allowed the developers to introduce car damage, but in an interesting move that shows an understanding of the series arcade roots, no matter how badly broken a car may look performance is never affected. It feels a little odd, but driving around in a near demolished car at full speed was definitely fun.

 

Spending much of my time with the game heading for a wall, I discovered just how important the environments had become in Unbounded. With limited HUD much of the important information, such as race times, were projected on walls giving the look of an overproduced advert. One such example I first noticed as taking a corner and met by a huge projection of my lap time. It sounds like strange abstraction but it allowed me to focus closely on the action, undistracted by minutia, while still being aware of all relevant information.

 

The other environmental factor I quickly had to become aware of was that of the destructible building. While some structures had (indicated) areas that could be smashed through to create shortcuts I had to have boost available to do so. Many times a cars pushed me off course I was met by a marker telling me of an alternate route that could be taken, but only if I had turbo remaining to punch me through what ever wall was in place (a wall which seemed to grow back between laps). Without the extra speed this provided a wall remained just that, a wall, which I would helplessly smash in to.

 

Ridge Racer Unbounded does not feel like a Ridge Racer game, it keeps the speed and excitement but brings element from games like Split/Second to make it something new. Arcade racing is not currently an overcrowded genre, so maybe there is space for it, but in the short time I played I found myself at odds with the handling which seemed an uncomfortable mix of real and arcade, at least on the car I chose.

 

There are a lot interesting parts to Unbounded, and with its release date (for PC 360 and PS3) is still undecided Bugbear still have a lot of time to fine tune it.