Ride
You could call Ride the Gran Turismo of motorbike games, but I would go one step farther and call it the best racing game currently available on the Playstaion 4. Though Ride isn’t as polished as Gran Turismo and has some hideous loading times, it is a racing game that is easy to pick up and play, but harder to master.
Make sure you run through the tutorial level so you know what kind of assists you want to use. For me, I went for full simulation and paid the price, at first. But slowly I learned the tame the beast and was away laughing. Motorbikes are different to cars (go figure) and are a lot less forgiving. You’ll spend plenty of time watching your animated self go cartwheeling down the track, and you’ll soon get used to using the rewind button.
But practice has it’s rewards and soon I was winning races. Going full simulation meant that I had to control independent front and rear brakes, though I didn’t realise this at first, slamming on only my front brakes at the last minute going into a tight corner had predictable results. A quick look at the controller layout and I figured I had two buttons for two breaks, and after a bot of trial and error I was able to chose the best brake, or combination of braking for most situations.
My racing career was progressing well I realised that I had enough credit to purchase a more powerful bike and unlock the nest level of races. I of course couldn’t resist and jumped right in. Accelerating out of the first corner on my new, more powerful bike however introduced me to a new learning curve; too much power coming out of a corner can cause a few wobbles, leading to a loss of control and that all to familiar animation of my body flying through the air.
This is what you get for going full sim mode.
But it was also gratifying. It meant that (at least seemed to my untrained self) that Ride was keeping form with the real life physics of motorbike racing.
As a racing game, Ride is something you can jump into and have fun, with lots of assists on, or a game you can dedicate your life to with full sim mode, a lengthy career mode with lots of bikes to unlock, upgrade, customise and a combination or real world and mode up circuits to master.
The best bit however was being able to choose a female rider to race with and having my 5 year old son ask why I was racing as a girl. I answered him, because she’s a better racer than the boys, giving him plenty of food for thought!
Reviewed on: PS4
Rating: G Suitable for general audiences.
Reviewed by: Jonathan
GAMEGUIDE rating:
