Ridge Racer Unbounded Review

A racing title that is unable to fully utilize the mechanics it borrows from other games, resulting in a positively average experience

Posted by Alex V on April 5, 2012 - 10:19pm EST

Unbounded seems full of seemingly unfinished design. The core experience plays out like a mix between Split Second and Burnout, with some FlatOut added to the mix. Sadly, all of the elements that are borrowed from those good titles are largely bare-bones here, awkwardly mashed together to create a barely functioning title that’s often difficult to enjoy. From Split Second, the game borrows the presentation elements and environmental destruction. However it’s not used to any great effect – the best you can do is take a few minor shortcuts, so it’s all rather uninvolving and doesn’t provide much use. There’s also nothing here the can come close to the sheer scale of Split Second’s finer moments. In fact, it’s sometimes a problem – there’s no indication of what objects are destructible. So some chest-high brick walls and concrete columns can be barreled through, but other walls and obstacles that look exactly the same, could just as easily end your race. It’s almost better to avoid causing destruction altogether and reduce the risk of a crash.

From Burnout (and perhaps FlatOut), Unbounded features the boost mechanic and a focus on taking out your opponents. But even this is not quite right. Boost can only be earned by drifting, tailgating, or jumping. The latter two are often difficult/out of your control, thus the only remaining way is drifting – however since the mechanic itself is so overly difficult, you’ll often be racing without any boost to spare. Even if you did try to perfect your drifting – most tracks simply don’t feature that many bends or corners to let you practice or earn any worthwhile boost. This leaves the game with a huge problem – there is no passive way to refill the boost (a problem many games have solved long ago), so you’re racing on empty very frequently.

Taking out other racers is most often only possible by activating your boost meter once it’s filled and by slamming into them. You can pretty much tag the other car at any angle or velocity and it will crash and burn – managing to make the whole mechanic feel underwhelming. Part of the reason for that is the AI. They aren’t bad, and they don’t rubber band, but they are just… there. Racing along on their own, not particularly bothered by the player’s actions. If you take out an opponent, they are quickly back in the race and boosting past you, even though there’s no conceivable way they could have refilled their meter.

Similarly, should you crash or be taken out, you’re pretty much looking at last place and a long road back to the front of the pack, that’s if you managed to get there at all. Whereas Burnout and Split Second were able to fine-tune the AI to give the player a chance of winning with multiple crashes, Unbounded has no such balance. Just like the other big selling point, environmental destruction, the game’s focus on car combat prompts the user to be extremely cautious instead of going all-out to cause mayhem. Essentially, as the main gameplay mechanics are in such an underdeveloped state, the players must choose between utilizing them or actually winning races. That’s a formula for disaster.