Quick Look: Ridge Racer Unbounded

"Does it matter" if it's Reiko? YES IT DOES.

@dr_mantas said:

Unracered?

Unrecognizable

Ridge Racer II: Unboundeded

The techno in this game is TERRIBLE.

Seems interesting, more so than any Ridge Racer game in recent memory anyway.

This game is tough.  Picked it up yesterday and while it's fun, the AI is a pain in the ass on some levels.

@Death_Burnout said:

I love Flatout, love it, so I'm willing to give this game the benefit of the doubt, but maaan...if there is one thing I don't like about this game, is how dull and miserable it looks.

Also what is it with sunsets and racing games? who actually thinks video game dusk looks good? Because 9/10 it looks like a headache, it's never rendered quite true to life, it's just harsh orange lighting and stupidly dark shadows, and for racing games that is the worst, the worst! And they're everywhere! Flatout also a big offender.

Arrrrgh! Ok good, needed to get that out there.

Agreed, without those corner markers I'd have a really tough time seeing anything. I guess they do it to hide some of the less appealing modelling and textures but it looks almost unplayably grim.

@Rotnac said:

im glad Jeff mentioned Burnout Revenge. I thought that EA already shut down the servers for it years ago but I can still play on Xbox Live and surprisingly enough there are still people playing.

Nevermind. Commented before I actually finished watching the video...

At least they're doing something new with Ridge Racer even it is almost nothing like it.

This game is a lie and i would hate to see Namco get away with it.

Jeff The limited edition in the UK came with 5 Namco paint jobs for your cars, Pacman, Galaga, Tekken, Soul calibur and Ace combat, as you say maybe as you progress you get to unlock more Namco Ridge racer style paint jobs but i'm not sure i'm not that far in yet to know, or maybe they will just release paint packs as DLC.

User created level that Jeff showed off definitely looked like something from FlatOut though the game definitely looks like they were working on the next FlatOut game & then were offered the Ridge Racer license to stamp on it. If this was the next FlatOut game though I'd definitely play it if it matched the level of crazy that the user created level has in the main game.

edit-doh on Burnout Revenge being a possible TNT, just traded it a few weeks ago. Might have to go back & pick it up again for a few $ if it's going on TNT as it's been one of my favorites in the Burnout series as well as renting this as it does look like it could be fun.

Oh man. That first user created track was hilarious. The pile of vans broke me.

@alibson said:

I can tell it's the Frostbite engine just by looking at the menu.

Yep, just another troll.

The menu set resembles the Battlefield 3 menu, why would that make you think it's the same engine? They just happened to use the same style. Bugbear developed their game engine in-house, it doesn't even relate to Frostbite in any way, shape or form.

There is no point in judging this game by previous "Ridge Racer" games? Clearly, the publisher slapped the franchise name to sell this a-ok arcade racer?

If I feel the NEED FOR SPEED in a city environment, I play GTA IV.

Or Trackmania, F1 2010/1 and Dirt 2/3 for even more racing.

@Krystal_Sackful said:

The techno in this game is TERRIBLE.

You make it sound as if that wasn't the case with all techno. :)

I'm going to buy the hell out of this if it gets released on Steam. It's SUPPOSED to have a PC release but I can't find any clues as to its actual existence.

Looks alright! Especially with that level editor. And I actually really like that there are fake ads instead of real ones.

EDIT: Ok, after seeing the Raccoon City track.. fuck yeah.

seems kind of cool, hopefully it does relatively well because man Ridge Racer needs some life.

This is cool. People that buy this without knowing what have changed will first say "What the helll?"" followed by "oh..cool, this is much better and orginal than regular Ridge Racer!" Everyones happy.

Seriously... is there anyone that actually still thinks that the old Ridge Racer has some juice in it? This feels like a good choice. Embrace change!

I'm going to buy the hell out of this if it gets released on Steam. It's SUPPOSED to have a PC release but I can't find any clues as to its actual existence.

Man, that was one poorly designed map, the one they showed at the middle of the vid. Damn.

edit: Raccoon city, that's the one.

looks pretty alright.

Does this game look EXACTLY like Split/Second to anyone else? The color scheme, the loading screens, the levels, the drifting to power up a meter, even the crashes all look like someone played a ton of Split/Second and said "let's just make this exact thing, except you can go through the walls instead of making them blow up."

Split/Second was a great game and all, and totally deserves to be ripped off. But you should probably just play that instead of this.

The gloomy town-look got old after 20 minutes.

that user track was hilariously douchey. seems like something I would do.

I would much rather have a new Flatout game.

This is going to flop so bad. Namco seems to be intentionally sabotaging this thing. I mean, they didn't even tell people it was gonna be releasing, and the PS3 version is barely even on shelves. It's too bad, too, because Bugbear is a pretty cool studio

How long to Ridge Racer Revolution and Rage Racer come out as a HD collections even though we already have PSP Ridge Racer games with all their content in them? Namco surely are into recycling the recycled.

Burnout Revenge > Burnout Paradise... Controversial! but it truly is better soundtrack, better modes (actual crash mode) , better way to access races and no usless overworld that made you miss the turns until you learned the whole layout of the city.

I am reporting Racoon City as the most offensive city name.

This seems like a pretty decent/good game and it really sucks that it got zero press.

Publishers need to back the games they make no matter what. Having mad Blur flashbacks and that was a good game too.

That was the perfect time for a drop!

Sad Burnout clone.

Menus look like Battlefield 3

@AngelN7 said:

Burnout Revenge > Burnout Paradise... Controversial! but it truly is better soundtrack, better modes (actual crash mode) , better way to access races and no usless overworld that made you miss the turns until you learned the whole layout of the city.

Agreed, I still have the Revenge soundtrack, so much awesome music.

Unboundededededededed.

This is Split/Second >:/

Seems OK.

oh a new burnout game!!! wait what??

wait actually no! this game just seems like a mash up of the best bits of every other race game!!! POOR SHOW!!

@Rebirth1337: I thought this whole game kind of had the look with the colour palette and use of lighting. Even the level up bar looks like it was ripped straight from NFS:HP.

Going to get this on PC and hope some of the Trackmania lot pick it up too, I want to see what they could create.

No one car can have all that POWER.

@AngelN7 said:

Burnout Revenge > Burnout Paradise... Controversial! but it truly is better soundtrack, better modes (actual crash mode) , better way to access races and no usless overworld that made you miss the turns until you learned the whole layout of the city.

Totally agree. I would even go so far as to say that Takedown was better than both of them, but Paradise isn't in the same league. It's a fun game, but it's too different to be a proper Burnout game.

As for Unbounded up here, I've never heard of it before, but this game looks about as close to a proper Burnout game as we're gonna get in the near future. It looks like fun, I'm definitely gonna give it a shot as soon as the price goes down.

@OriginalGman said:

Does this game look EXACTLY like Split/Second to anyone else? The color scheme, the loading screens, the levels, the drifting to power up a meter, even the crashes all look like someone played a ton of Split/Second and said "let's just make this exact thing, except you can go through the walls instead of making them blow up."

Split/Second was a great game and all, and totally deserves to be ripped off. But you should probably just play that instead of this.

A lot of games have had those things well before Split/Second existed. You may have noticed that Jeff and Ryan mention Burnout about 20 times in this video, because the "drift to power up a meter, wreck the shit out of other cars" was popularized by that series, particularly Burnout Revenge.

everything looks the same

@BisonHerosaid:

@OriginalGman said:

Does this game look EXACTLY like Split/Second to anyone else? The color scheme, the loading screens, the levels, the drifting to power up a meter, even the crashes all look like someone played a ton of Split/Second and said "let's just make this exact thing, except you can go through the walls instead of making them blow up."

Split/Second was a great game and all, and totally deserves to be ripped off. But you should probably just play that instead of this.

A lot of games have had those things well before Split/Second existed. You may have noticed that Jeff and Ryan mention Burnout about 20 times in this video, because the "drift to power up a meter, wreck the shit out of other cars" was popularized by that series, particularly Burnout Revenge.

Did you ever play Split/Second? Because I can assure you someone at Bugbear did. Burnout may well be the originator of these ideas, but Split/Second is the game that was copied here. And not just a little light cribbing, this is Gameloft-style "duplicate the game, change the name". The orange/blue colour scheme, the excesses of lens flare, the design of the cars, the city design itself, the mechanics of the power system.

@BisonHero: It wasn't just the mechanics I was referring to, but okay. I didn't play the old Burnout games. But whenever I looked away during this Quick Look and then looked back, I had to remind myself that I wasn't watching Split/Second footage again. Just look at Ridge Racer: Unbounded's loading screens again, and tell me they aren't a carbon copy.

@lockonandfire: Looks more like Burnout than Split/Second to me because there are no stupid triggers. And Bugbear had those ideas (explosives on the track, driving through buildings etc) already implemened in the Flatout games. I was driving through exploding gas stations and buildings in Flatout 2 four years before Split/Second came out.

@AngelN7 said:

Burnout Revenge > Burnout Paradise... Controversial! but it truly is better soundtrack, better modes (actual crash mode) , better way to access races and no usless overworld that made you miss the turns until you learned the whole layout of the city.

Burnout 3 > Burnout Revenge > Burnout Paradise.

Open-world racing games just suck (well, they got it almost right in Hot Pursuit).