There's a severe lack of ridges in this so-called Ridge Racer game....where did all them ridges go?!? That's misleading advertising! Should've been called Suburban Racer: Unbounded instead!! Engaging ultimate fanrage in 3.........2..........
Seriously though, sorry EB, haven't even played or bought it yet...and from all the blandness and boredom I've seen in gameplay videos so far I'm really not willing to shell out more than 20 bucks max to find out for myself...
Is not a terrible game...... but it's not ridge racer!
Offline is ok...... and racing on other peoples created tracks is......interesting!
Online for friend races though..........the main idea appears to be blocking and crashing out your opponents!
Not game we all loved at all
Just hoping that they don't shut down the RR7 servers anytime soon.....
Just bought it last night and it's nothing like RR7 not in the least except for there is a song from RR7 that was carried over to this game!!! And there is one from RR5 in it also!!! That's about it when it comes to comparing similarities!!!
Besides that I like racing games regardless of what you have to accomplish so with that said I spent about 5 hours last night playing it!!! 2 courses I spent about 1 hour just to get 3 stars on the track!!!
I don't think it's one of those games you play online for about 5 years but who knows..... I didn't expect it with the last one!!!
Good Morning, Afternoon And Evening Everyone!!! XDAlright, I got the game at last (after the expected heavy prize drop), just finished the single player mode with three stars in each event (which was surprisingly short and, with some annoying exceptions, relatively easy), and can now finally put down some thoughts from my own experience with the thing.
Haven't played any online yet, but seeing how little the game is being discussed in various message boards, there doesn't seem to be much of an active communtiy there for it anyway (which, as a minor side note, will make the platinum trophy with some of its ridiculous multiplayer requirements almost impossible to achieve I guess...great).
Ok...gameplay...what ticked me off the most countless times, so I have to mention it right off the bat: WHY THE HELL DOES SCRATCHING THE INSIDE WALL OF A CORNER RESULT IN A FULL-BLOWN CRASH EVERY SINGLE F%$&ING TIME NO MATTER THE SPEED?! Ok, maybe not every time, but every time you drift, which is what you usually are supposed to do in a corner. Hey, it's alright to slam your car's side into the outside wall of a turn with 250+km/h, but just dare you trying to take a corner somewhat clean and come too near to the inside of it...BAM. Doesn't help much that the tracks are usually so dark and overloaded with crap that the actual corner itself can only be seen way too late...or sometimes not at all. This happened so many times to me already, it's not even funny.
As expected, tracks don't really have much of an identity, thanks to that whole building block aspect. Contantly driving throug the same, familiar...well..."tiles" gets obvious and tiring real fast, and it's just bizarre seeing the same stretches repeated over and over again in the different districts, and sometimes even on the very same track itself...
The cars as well are relativey boring, and in most cases, the best ones for good results in each class are already those available from the start. the only real non-DLC nod to the RR series to be found here is the (admittedly very cool looking) version of the Crinale...unlocked at the very end. It would've been a really cool idea to have familiar cars and manufacturers from previous entries and giving them an aggressive (metal plates as bumpers or whatever) design touch, fitting the game's visual style and tone. But nope, we just have a bunch of entirely new, pretty bland machines that can't even be customized (except for 2-4 preset colors, whee...). And that in a game with a supposedly heavy emphasis on online play...wasted potential.
The whole "power" thing. It's kinda ridiculous really. Without it your car appears to be made out of cardboard, once activated opponents will crash by just looking at you. Same thing the other way around. It's just stupid when you slightly mis-time a shortcut and then crash head on because your "power" just expired a millisecond ago. Yeah, it's not like you're still driving with 300km/h in that instant, which really should be enough to bring that wall down, but without your magical rambo boost power in action your car seems to be stuffed full with explosives or something. It would've helped the game's flow A LOT if things were depended on your actual current speed, NOT just the fact that your "power" is on/off.
Controls...fine for the most part I guess, the cars handle responsively enough. But what bothers me is the actual button layout itself. Who at Bugbear had the bright idea of put the rear view on the friggin' right analogue stick?? It's certainly not there because it's so easy to reach while racing. Don't know about others, but I'm using the rear view a LOT in RR7, where it's conveniently mapped to the O button. You know which button isn't used in RRU at all? THE O BUTTON!!
And just having two preset control schemes total with no way to map buttons individually is an utter joke.
Now about the different game modes themselves:
Domination Race:
Well, the "standard" mode here...not much to say really, didn't mind it, mostly fun, next.
Shindo Racing:
Probably my favorite...because it comes closest to actually feeling like an actual RR game (still far off though). Only problem, it's faaaaaaar too easy. Seriously, I beat every single one of those 1st place on my very first attempt, even when I crashed multiple times. For some reason the AI in Domination is way better and faster overall...which I think would've been much more appropriate in this mode.
Time Attack:
Um...Trackmania much? Kinda fun nonetheless, but those "stunt tracks" really are a bit too over the top for my taste. Prefered the cop chase type races against the clock. Could've done without the cops though, their presence in this mode is kinda pointless and doesn't really influence much. I heard TA events were supposed to be the hardest part in the game to gain 3 stars...but honestly, I didn't think they were too bad. Usually only took a coule tries getting used to the courses.
Drift Attack:
Wow, they really dropped the ball with this one, especially considering this being called a RR game, a series that's supposed to put so much focus on drifting. The way you actually score points here is flat out (mind the pun 
) stupid. the only thing that ultimately seems to count is the time you spend sliding around while still somehow moving forward. I had some serious problems here at first to get the 3 star target scores until I figured out what to do: Just constantly wiggle around left to right (no matter if it's a straight or corner, hello RNOS!) with low to mid speed like a drunkard. That's it. When trying to race fast and do long, clean, nice looking drifts, my score always ended being WAY lower and not even close to the target.
You know, NFS:U also had a drift mode back in the day, and that series doesn't even put much focus on it, yet the scoring system there was leagues beyond the BS offered here. In NFS:U the amount of points you get depended on your speed, the angle of your drift, how clean you make it through a turn, etc.. And here? Just make you tyres squeek. Lame.
Frag Attack:
This ended up being the least fun mode for me BY FAR...and to put it in perspective, in Burnout 3, the pure Takedown events were pretty much my favorite gameplay mode. Before anyone thinks I'm bashing it because of the whole "it's not like Ridge Racer" argument, I'm not. It is just, objectively speaking, neither very good nor fun here, sorry.
part of it is the over reliance on the whole "power" system, but I already mentioned my gripes with it earlier. The other part is, it doesn't feel very satisfying. the AI opponents, no matter if it's cops or regular cars, drive with the weirdest pace, always braking and accelerating in the least desirable way when close to them, making frags more tedious than it should be. And I absolutely hated that Behemoth truck you have to drive half of the time, which makes it even harder insead of easier imo. Seriously, the very last frag event in Ghost Bay where the target score is 35 was hands down the most difficult and frustrating thing for me in the entire single player campaign.
In B3, driving side by side with an opponent (sometimes over longer distances) at high speed and smacking into them until they crash felt great, here it's just a nuisance trying to do so.
Well, that's about it for now, if anyone even bothered to read that wall of text up to this point 
Despite me sounding mostly negative, it's still a fun little game overall, but, as many people have already said before countless times, it's just not Ridge Racer...at all...and I hope this stays a one time only experiment. there's plenty other combat racer franchises out there that do a better job, so let RR be the classic arcade style series it's always been known for (just add some actual new content, Bamco, and spare us the cheap, constant rehashes, dammit!).
And like I said, didn't jump online with it yet, but from my current impressions, I doubt I'll stick to it very long, if at all. Not the slightest competition to what RR7 was and still is in that regard 
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