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But then, why should every game treat everyone like a moron? Accessibility is one thing, but Unbounded's experience teaches us that experiential gaming is vastly more rewarding than wading through endless tutorials. The rewards for players who stick with the game to the point of expertise are massive, because of the lack of tutorial aid, but there will be some who find the learning curve too steep, and the lack of assistance frustrating, and Bugbear will probably have to accept that they have alienated a certain amount of the casual gaming demographic.
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And in that experiential curve, the developers have cleverly transcended the usual limitations of the racing genre, to encourage a far more strategic approach to racing, taking in environmental analysis and the potential for chain boosts. Best of all, especially for the harder gaming element who despise tutorials, Bugbear have resisted the urge to over-teach the player, so you're effectively left to learn the game's idiosyncracies and wild nuances for yourself.
#RIDGE RACER UNBOUNDED REVIEW FULL#
Just as Bugbear have seamlessly knitted together those aspects of other racing games they clearly enjoyed, their game encourages the player to knit them together in their own races to feel the full effect of the game. The power gauge rewards impressive drifting, opponent take-downs and environmental destruction, and the game consequently encourages the player to chain those behaviours together, rather than concentrating simply on racing. Realism isn't exactly high on the agenda for that handling system, which takes some getting used to, but then Bugbear have cast aside caution to create a hyperreal driving experience that is big on destruction, both in terms of opponents and environmentals, the bludgeoning removal of which will reveal shortcuts. Instead, drift has to be relearned, in conjunction with other controls to really master the system and get the most out of the unrealistic, but ultimately fun handling. But you soon learn it's best to drop that preconception very quickly, because in Unbounded, drift is an entirely new animal, and thinking of it as a braking function will only lead to you eating wall to a frustrating frequency (trust me). At first it lulls you into a false sense of security, that you've been here before, and that pressing the drift button will make the car behave in a way you're familiar with - the same way conventional hand-brake drifting works, perhaps. That feeling continues into the games control mechanics, and especially in the new drift system. And thanks to Bugbear's race game experience, the components blend very well, making something new that feels familiar but completely reinvigorated. Because Namco have effectively taken everything they like from other racing franchises, and decided to knit them together seamlessly to create something new. But, no messy Frankenstein's monster is this. There are certainly elements of Ridge Racer remaining, with the drifting we's usually see accompanied by sweeping panoramics (and some actual ridges at times) ported into a grittier, urban setting, but there are also elements of Burnout in the vehicular violence, Flatout in the aesthetic and even Split/Second's environmental destruction. Unbounded feels like a remastered greatest hits compilation: not of the formative Ridge Racer titles, but of every gaming franchise that modern race fans have spent their money on over the past few years. After all, Bugbear have taken the Ridge Racer model, smashed it like one of the game's road-side destructible buildings and rebuilt it from the ground up - new ethos, new spirit, new rules. Yes it achieves essentially the same ends, but the occasionally heavy, uneven system takes some serious getting used to, and it is perhaps best to come to Unbounded with absolutely no expectations of brand appropriateness. There is far more of Bugbear's Flatout and urban competitor Burnout here than traditional Ridge Racer fans might have expected, and the handling system in particular will be as alien to existing fans of the genre as if Modern Warfare suddenly dropped the guns for swords. When brand strength begins to wane, it should be adapt or die, and Namco Bandai have certainly done that. It isn't particularly like what we might expect from a Ridge Racer game, but in a period that has seen the cruel over-extension of certain gaming franchises (Silent Hill, Resident Evil), perhaps innovation isn't exactly a misguided thing. And thank Heavens for that mercy, because Unbounded is actually a very good racer. But then, this isn't a semantics lesson, and a video game is a damn sight more than the words on its cover. Unbounded is hardly a natural word, and its use feels oddly clumsy, despite the appropriateness of its meaning. There is something wrong with that title. Rating:4.5 Let's get this out of the way.