Ridge Racer Unbounded

Bugbear is back, and how! They magically transformed the Ridge Racer-franchise to a Hollywood blockbuster on steroids, without losing track of the race-element. Unbounded is challenging, fast, varied and offers sufficient options to play it again, and again, and again.

Unbounded may not have much to do with the things that defined Ridge Racer, but if you can get over that, you'll discover an energetic, entertaining racer, with gratifyingly destructive environments, challenging gameplay and interesting online. Ridge Racer was due for a reboot, and here it is.

The amount of destruction, the very interesting City creator and overall smooth controls make Ridge Racer: Unbounded a great game for fans of the franchise and newcomers alike.

Every now and then, a videogame genre can get shaken up by the arrival of a title that pushes it in new or interesting directions, and Ridge Racer: Unbounded is one such title; through its inspired drift mechanic, weighty physics and ingenious level creation tool, it pushes the genre to new heights of challenge and is all the more rewarding for it.

You'd be doing yourself a great disservice to dismiss Unbounded just because it doesn't handle like you're used to, or because Reiko isn't there to mentally undress during loading screens.

It's just shame you have to put up with the cheap AI and frustrating general mechanics of the core game to get involved.

Change can be good, and I think that's what Unbounded was out to prove for the Ridge Racer franchise. It largely succeeds, offering an experience with elements that action and arcade racers are going to find accessible and enjoyable, while also offering engaging drift mechanics and a cool multiplayer mode built largely upon UGC.

The lack of any real direction, the somewhat loose control, and the hitches and glitches can damage the experience, but if you love blasting through destructible terrain, laying waste to everything in sight (including your opponents), and you can really get a hold on the driving, you're almost guaranteed to have a blast.

Even without any affinity with the core installment of Ridge Racer, Unbounded, thanks to some interesting game mechanics and a solid multiplayer, manages to be a good arcade racing game.

Though a create-and-share track builder does add to the fun, this is essentially just an enjoyable change of direction for the series. [July 2012, p.79]

Ridge Racer Unbounded is a good racing experience, being fast-paced, slick-looking and explosive. At the same time we have learned to expect «bigger and better» from each new racing title over the years, and it's here Unbounded fails dramatically, only rehashing ideas from older, and ultimately better racing games.

Ridge Racer Unbounded is a solid game, well executed but that does not bring anything new to the genre.

Ridge Racer Unbounded then, a game on the quest for itself. It takes elements from almost every arcade-racing game in recent years and tries to build something for itself, with some success. Online, with a little help from the powerful editor, the game shines the brightest. Ridge Racer fans of old might not agree with it as much. Nevertheless, I hope for more games from this new side of the franchise to come.

A good, solid racer, but not a great one. Its main problem is that it undeniably compares unfavourably with its closest competitors (it's secondary problem is its grating soundtrack, but I'll charitably let it off the standard -2 dubstep modifier). With a less inhibited approach to level design and slightly more refined handling its success would be less qualified.

Falling somewhere between a traditional Ridge Racer title and a Burnout game, Unbounded fails to fully succeed at recreating either experience, ending up in between the two racing franchises in terms of quality.

A fair effort hampered by maddening design decisions. [Issue#217, p.70]

Ridge Racer updates itself in order to catch up with the pack - but it's built from used parts and a shunted chassis. [May 2012, p.103]

Destroying stuff is the key element here. Unfortunately it isn't always clear if that one concrete pillar will break or bend. The destructible buildings are indicated with big, inviting signs, but only when you're boosting. [May 2012, p.76]