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. 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.

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. Because Namco have effectively taken everything they like from other racing franchises, and decided to knit them together seamlessly to create something new.īut, no messy Frankenstein's monster is this. And thanks to Bugbear's race game experience, the components blend very well, making something new that feels familiar but completely reinvigorated. That feeling continues into the games control mechanics, and especially in the new drift system.

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. 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). 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. 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.

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. 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.

Unbounded drift game