Players: 1 (online is no longer available)
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Developer: Bugbear Entertainment
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Release Date: March 27th, 2012
Stay away. That’s the best advice when it comes to this game. Stay away.
You might be asking “Why? I loved Ridge Racer, especially Ridge Racer 4! What could be so bad about Ride Racer Unbounded?” well…. everything. Okay, not necessarily everything, but a lot of what would make a Ridge Racer game fun – such as cool urban designs with inviting modern aesthetics and relaxing atmospheres are nowhere to be seen here. While the game takes place mostly within urban epicenters with some industrial influences, the levels mostly have a samey feel due to the fact that the race tracks are created using a modular track creator, so there is a certain pastiche that all proc-gen games suffer from that emanates throughout the art-direction and level design of Ridge Racer: Unbounded.
However, I’m getting ahead of myself. Even a game with generic levels can still be fun. What makes Ridge Racer: Unbounded all starts with the…
Terrible Racing Physics
Let’s be honest: Ridge Racer games have never had good physics, but they did used to have fun physics, and that was what used to sell gamers on the concept of those titles. You had fun arcade physics in cool contemporary environments with great soundtracks to help propel you across the finish line. Ridge Racer 4 really felt like the pinnacle of the series in terms of style and themes all melding together to create a really fantastic racing experience.
Here, you do not get that kind of experience because the physics don’t know what they want to be. It’s definitely an arcade game given that you rack up points and earn multipliers for destroying the world around you and also crashing into opponents using a burst mechanic. However, while this works well in Bugbear’s other titles like Flatout and Wreckfest, it is completely out of place in a Ridge Racer game, mostly because the cars have weird handling. The inertia isn’t consistent, and there is no proper body roll or body mass calculations so that the cars handle the way you would expect them to.
They have that pseudo-grip so you can perform drifts with certain vehicles out of the blue, but also can’t hold the drift because the oversteer/understeer is based on fixed vehicular attributes rather than proper physics calculations, so it’s more about understanding each vehicle’s preset attributes for handling them within the framework of the game’s arcade-style racing mechanics, rather than being able to judge the vehicle based on how it should behave in certain conditions. For instance, in more realistic racing games – even Bugbear’s own Wreckfest and Flatout – you can definitely judge how a vehicle will take a turn based on the feedback of the rear-wheel grip, the back-end sway when accelerating, and how the vehicle handles its torque band. You can basically predict how the vehicle will drift, powerslide, or spin-out in a turn based on grip, mass, velocity, and inertia.
None of that applies here.
A turn you think you might be able to take wide is not a turn you can take wide. A turn you think you can slide through with a drift actually has the car understeer into a wall; vice versa, a turn that you think you’re taking wide will see the car vastly understeer on a dime. You eventually learn how the vehicles behave, but not because they’re realistic, but because they’re broken, and that leads into the next big problem…
The Races Are More Annoying Than Fun
I knew something was wrong when the very first tutorial race I did while I was learning the controls and how the vehicles handled saw me lose horribly, coming in second to last the very first time I played. I picked a car that looked cool, but I quickly learned that only certain vehicles are viable for winning because some are simply better than others at almost all the races. I redid the tutorial level, this time using the bonus vehicles – one of which included the original red sports car from the first Ridge Racer. I was able to beat the level comfortably. That’s not a good sign.
When you have starting cars that cannot viably complete the tutorial by a new player, your game is imbalanced.
This imbalance would become more pronounced as the game progressed and the winning requirements became even more strict. As you progress through the game you unlock new vehicles, but then you find that only certain vehicles can complete certain races to unlock the stars needed to progress through the game.
You learn that you cannot simply drive what you want, you have to drive what you must if you want to win, and also earn enough points to unlock the next race. This means you’re racing based on trying to hit all of the destructible stage elements to boost the bonus points, and also racing to destroy opponents. It becomes a checklist in the race rather than just enjoying it, opposite of a game like Split/Second, Wreckfest, Gas Guzzlers: Extreme or Blur, where you’re having fun first and then unlocking or hitting those checklists as you go along.
This mostly due to the way the game’s AI behaves, which can’t be modified and because you can’t modify the cars it means you have to play each race as dictated by the designers rather than play it based on the style that benefits you most. This kind of restrictive and limited way of approaching the races makes them feel more like chores rather than fun. This isn’t to say that you can’t have any fun in the game, it’s that if you’re stuck using a vehicle that you have to use to win, and you have to win in a specific manner, it just zaps a lot of the enjoyment out of the game.
Campaign Progression Is Unbalanced, Uneven And Sometimes Impossible
If the way you have to race is annoying, hitting all of the destructible elements and having to burst through opponents using the boost mechanic seems slightly annoying but tolerable, the campaign progression will destroy any sense of wanting to play the game at all as you progress through it. The first two or three regions can be completed relatively easy, but as you start moving up through the ranks and unlocking the new districts, you will begin to hate the game as the requirements become more stringent and the opportunities to win begin to dwindle and thin out.
You’ll find yourself getting stuck on various stages as the way the campaign progresses is that each district has various races you have to complete. The races are locked, so you have to start with the first race and earn enough points to unlock the next race in the series. You can multiply your points by getting stars on the race, this is done by completing certain objectives such as coming in first-place or meeting the designated race objectives (or exceeding them). You can probably see where this is going.
As you move up the ranks and unlock new districts the requirements to unlock each race in each district becomes harder, and the points begin to skyrocket significantly. The thing is, district points do not carry over into other districts. So you can’t get three-stars in every single race and then unlock the next series of races in another district. The cumulative points you unlock only go towards unlocking new vehicles.
So basically if you get stuck on a district race, you just have to learn to get good. You could technically go back and do the races in the previous districts to try to beat your high-score and potentially unlock a new vehicle to help you out. For some races this can work, but for the most part the latter district stages simply require you to complete the races perfectly, which is not only a very difficult thing to do, but in some cases almost feels impossible, this is because of the absolutely horrible…
Drift Races That Feel Impossible To Complete
Drift challenges have to be completed by performing drifts to rack up points and extend the count-down timer. The goal is to get enough points to unlock the three-star rating before the time runs out. The terrible physics mean that doing things like drifting feel completely unnatural and artificial. You have to learn to get good at doing drifts based on the game’s broken physics rather than understanding how actual physics work and learning the vehicle that way, which is actually possible in games like Gran Turismo, BeamNG Drive, and to a lesser extent Forza Motorsport and certain Need For Speed games. Here in Ridge Racer: Unbounded, all your racing sim knowledge may as well be dog water. There is no platform of encomium for the driving physics here because they are simply bad.
Given the lack of vehicle customization it means that you’re stuck using the stock cars they provide you for the race rather than trying to tune anything to your advantage to make the races more palatable. If you have not unlocked a top car for that specific category of race, you are literally just fresh out of luck, or you have to go back and do the other races and hope you can unlock a vehicle decent enough to get a higher star ranking in the drift challenges.
What makes them so bad is that in addition to the physics being uneven and unrealistic, the stages you are given to do the drift challenges in aren’t really designed for drifting smoothly, so in order to actually complete the challenge you have to wiggle-drift all throughout the stage non-stop. And once again, because of the wonky physics, drift transfers are extremely difficult to pull off in most of the vehicles, and even if you do manage to pull off the transitions, the stages aren’t properly designed for good drift-transfers, so you have to wiggle-drift through majority of the stage to keep adding small amounts of time to the countdown timer until you can perform a decently-lengthed drift transfer through a turn or two to further extend the timer.
If the above sounds like a serious exercise in tedium, well that’s because it is. It is one of the most tedious racing challenges I have ever played in a racing game. It was so annoying that I ended up just tossing the controller and quitting after unlocking the penultimate race in the final Ghost District. The fact that I would have to get three stars on all the previous races (which included the annoying drift challenge) I decided my sanity was more important than trying to deal with the wonky physics, terrible level layouts, and annoying challenge restrictions.
Final Verdict: Stay Far Away From Ridge Racer Unbounded
There are a few stages where the racing can feel fun and engaging, especially if you blast through a mall and ride up a ramp and blast out the window. But those moments of epicness and feelings of unbridled speed are far and few in between. You will never feel ensconced in a comfortable racing environment where it feels like you’re winning the game or doing well. It always feels like you’re just barely getting by and never really gaining ground.
In some way, it is one of the few games where instead of becoming easier due to unlocking new upgrades and vehicles, it becomes harder because the requirements become so ridiculous that the game just becomes an exercise in frustration. Banish the thought of ludic enjoyment here. You’ll be gritting your teeth and struggling through races with sweaty palms and headache-inducing difficulty just a couple of hours into the game.
The graphics are nothing to write home about, and the audio is all standard-fare. There is a track creator mode where you can unlock new building blocks by completing the campaign mode, but it’s all pointless since the multiplayer servers have been shut down so it’s not like you’ll be able to share your creations with anyone or play online with friends. Unless you just want to say you’ve played it, there is really no reason to add Ridge Racer: Unbounded to your library.