Available to play at the show was one car and a solitary track in the single player mode, a street race in a towering urban environment. From before the lights went green it was clear that this wasn't a typical Ridge Racer game, the clean and perfect streets of previous outings replaced with a sprawl covered in a sheen of hot filth and debris. As the race began the handling model reassured that Unbounded has at least some of the genetic imprint of its forebears: turns of the wheel are twitchy and instantaneous, cars accelerate hard and pick up speed rapidly.
A change in direction.
It's when it comes to the sharper corners that this feeling of the uncanny returns. While on less taxing corners the driving will feel familiar to anyone who's played a Ridge Racer title in the last decade; on hairpins, S bends and any other track geometry at an angle of more than 45 degrees, the game becomes unstuck. The series' trademark drifting – where vehicles would practically stick to a specific line on the course – has been replaced completely and so far not to great effect. Putting the back end out is now far more hazardous a move to pull off, the tires underneath the frame of the car apparently losing all sense of grip if you so much as dare to kick in a little overdrive. We got around a total of ten laps in with Unbounded at the expo, but we still couldn't figure out how to effectively use this new driving model.
The game does reward you for using this new drift system however, conferring nitrous boost to the player the more you use the technique, along with a shot in the arm whenever you take out a rival racer. Nitrous can be used in one of two ways: a standard boost of speed, or to smash through previously indestructible walls of scenery to open up shortcuts. And there are plenty of shortcuts to be found, each lap I discovered a new hidden area or crazy stunt to pull off. These sections are anything from scorching across large gaps, to obliterating the side of an entire building and careering through a shopping mall. It's a real thrill to witness some of these events and there seem to be plenty of them to keep the player occupied, whether or not they will become tired after playing them time and time again, remains to be seen.
My shortcut!
Dodgy drifting mechanics aside, Ridge Racer Unbounded felt solid all round, the biggest issue however, is one of audience. What was on offer was fine, even good in places, though it's not the experience Ridge Racer enthusiasts will be looking for in the slightest. So who's this for? People that want another but more direct Split/Second? Burnout fans without a sequel in the works?
The point to be made is that the spirit of Ridge Racer just isn't in Unbounded, an art style and handling scheme that has kept a select group of players enthralled for generations of hardware is missing, and that could well hurt its reception early next year.
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