Ridge Racer Unbounded Bound for the PC

[CeeKay]

RIIIIIIIIIIDGE RACER!. I donthink this series has ever hit the PC before, has it?

[Hrothgar]

Now the PC is the ultimate gaming platform.  Why didn't anyone tell me?

[EngineNo9]

Well, I generally hate Ridge Racer but I love Bugbear.  So I guess that leaves me waiting for this one and hoping it is much more like FlatOut in control and physics than the normal RR.

[CeeKay]

Well, I generally hate Ridge Racer but I love Bugbear.  So I guess that leaves me waiting for this one and hoping it is much more like FlatOut in control and physics than the normal RR.

they mention destruction in the PR, so I think this is not going to be your usual RR.

[EngineNo9]

Based on this new trailer I would say this is almost definitely just the city/street races from FlatOut rebranded as Ridge Racer.  Which is fine by me.

[EngineNo9]

Hmm, I had been getting pretty excited to play a new Bugbear racing game, but after watching this Gamespot UK hands-on video I'm a bit less excited.  Maybe it is because the guy playing really sucks and crashes all the time, but it just doesn't look quite like the kind of racing game I really enjoy.  Really floaty and arcadey...which I guess makes sense for a Ridge Racer game but not what I wanted or expected from Bugbear whose games were always pretty grounded in heavy physics.

[kronovan]

Really floaty and arcadey...which I guess makes sense for a Ridge Racer game but not what I wanted or expected from Bugbear whose games were always pretty grounded in heavy physics.

This is my concern as well - that they won't let Bugbear bring their racing design skills to the table. I can't think of a better dev studio than Bugbear at balancing racing sim physics with arcade racin fun. On the other hand, Namco doesn't strike me as a publisher that could keep their fingers out of the pie. Hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.

[EngineNo9]

For anyone interested in this game, it came out on consoles this week.  I don't see a PC release date anymore, so I may just pick it up on 360 now and then PC later when it gets released on Steam.

Based on this Giant Bomb Quicklook it sounds like this is much more a Bugbear game than it is a Ridge Racer game.  Which is obviously a good thing in my mind.   

The reviews seem pretty good so far, except for the people who wanted a real Ridge Racer.  The footage of the user generated possibilities also make this seem to almost approach Trackmania territory, which is pretty crazy.

[kronovan]

Yeah after reading and viewing 4 reviews on this, it seems much more like a Bugbear game than any previous RR game. The reviews are all over the place. Its hard to guage this based on those I read, as the 2 that only rated it fair were actually quite poor reviews that didn't say much except that the their isn't much track variation, the destruction doesn't always work so well and it isn't drifty enough. The reviewer that ranked it excellent favored it much more because it was less like a RR game and more like a Flatout game.

It looks like the short & dirty of it though, is that aracadish drifting is out and arcadish destruction is in. I never really cared for the on-rails drifting in RR so that's fine by me, while I really enjoyed the chaos and destruction in Flatout 2. The city, city streets and the eye candy certainly look very nice and it sounds like they stuck in a more than decent track editor. I'm thinking I'll be holding off until this is available for PC though. Admittedly though, most of my reason for that is because the new Birds of Steel from Gaijiin is sounding decent and like a continuation of the gaming goodness in Birds of Prey.

[EngineNo9]

Yeah, I personally abhor the on rails "drifting" of previous Ridge Racer games.  I had to actually demonstrate to a previous designer I worked with that you could spin around in a full circle while still "drifting" down the center of the track in their goofy system.  Talk about totally out of the player's control.

[EngineNo9]

While it appears I am once again the only one to pick this up, I might as well give some impressions since I picked it up last night. 

I have played the single player for a couple hours and so far I would say it is pretty fun.  It definitely seems like an evolution forward from the FlatOut series; not quite the same but you can see the pedigree.

First off, the drifting in general feels pretty good.  The very first corner of my first race I got a 2-star Mega Drift, so it can't be that bad, right?  You have quite a bit of control over the car while drifting, but it is still very possible to over steer and go into a wall.  It doesn't feel as real-world satisfying as something like Dirt, but it fits the mood here.  The hardest part of the drift system is that you don't regain traction and control after releasing the drift button, and that is when I most often end up over steering or over correcting and spinning the other way.

It took me several races of coming in last or near last to realize that you shouldn't actually be drifting around every corner that you can.  You can actually maintain your speed much better by just driving well and not hitting the drift button, which is logical in most games but counter to what I assumed for this one.  Once I started only rarely drifting I went from 10th or 12th place to the top 3 pretty easily. 

There are also other events that are pure drifting.  The clock counts down and you get points for drifting and destroying things while drifting.  If you pull off long drifts you get bonus time.  A nice distraction.

The third type of event I've seen is pure destruction driving, driving a semi tractor around the course and smashing as many cop cars in the time limit as you can.  Another fun event to mix things up a bit.

One nice thing is that regardless of what position you come in, you still earn some points towards leveling up.  It may not be a lot compared to the bonuses for top 3, but every little bit helps so that you don't feel like any race was a total waste.

I'll try out the map making and multiplayer tonight, but so far it seems like fans of FlatOut or Burnout will find something to like here.

[CeeKay]

While it appears I am once again the only one to pick this up, I might as well give some impressions since I picked it up last night. 

I'll probably grab it once it hits at least half-price; that's my new rule for racing games, and it's worked out quite well considering how often they end up getting played versus what I pay for them.

[CeeKay]

there's a demo out now on Steam.