Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5 out of 10

Ride is a motorbike arcade racing game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and PS4. Milestone has a history of exceptional sports games, although they have been especially prolific with multiple iterations throughout various forms of motorbike racing from SBK to MotoGP to Motocross, but how does Milestone’s latest effort stack up in comparison to what has went before?

The game begins with some rider customisation which allows the player to customise their rider data including their gender, first name, surname and nationality as well as selecting from a choice of 35 face models, 4 hair colours, 8 hairstyles and race or casual rider gear, while further changes can be made to the rider in the My Rider feature. The player can adjust their rider’s appearance with an exhaustive amount of helmet designs, visors, gloves, footwear, racing suits and knee sliders. Despite the extensive range of rider appearance customisation; the largest area of all within this feature has to be utilising the racing style editor to choose one of three pre-sets available or meticulously create your own unique riding style throughout 18 sliders of between a maximum of 5, 10 or 20 in value which can be calibrated to personal taste and are showcased with every small alteration via the change in such details to the rider positioned next to the menu and a further 4 additional options which are collectively spread across leaning posture, leaning aerodynamic position, additional gestures and starting positions which provides a personal touch that the rider is just as unique as anybody else’s, alongside a choice of 7 victory celebrations as well as a selection of 100 titles to choose from to sum up each player.

The optional tutorial mode allows the player to learn the basics of the game before heading into a race with important guidance such as how to follow the best line throughout each straight and corner of the track in order to gain the highest grip levels; applying the brakes after a high-speed straight; how to adjust the Traction Control System (TCS) and even how to tuck-in for a more aerodynamic approach to a straight, alongside an ever-changing set of physics levels to help the player adjust accordingly to the appropriate difficulty.

The World Tour is based upon a rankings system in which players will start in 301st position and have to earn reputation points by completing races as high up the field of 12 riders as possible in order to rise through the ranks. There are 8 categories of events; Naked Bikes: Middleweight and Heavyweight Groups; Supersports; Historic and Modern Superbikes; Pro Circuit; Premium Events; and Open with your chosen bike having to be eligible with the rules of the event category in order to enter and participate.

Each of the 8 event categories consists of 5 or more sets of 5 individual events within them making for a large amount of events throughout the span of the World Tour with additional variety coming in the form of different event types such as single races, time attack, head-to-head races, track days and drag races.  The single races consist of 3 laps; time attack involves completing a lap within a set time limit; head-to-head races which sees the player having to overtake their rival as quickly as possible within a set time limit on a track day which is open to the public; a track day event requires a certain amount of overtakes within a set time limit and drag races being a knockout tournament which requires the player to shift their own gears to maximise their top speed in order to cross the finishing line ahead of the opposing rider in each round of the competition. The reputation points and credits earned depends upon the position the player completes the event in such as a single race usually providing 10,000 reputation points and 10,000 credits for finishing in first position, second place will provide 6,000 of each and third position offers 3,000 reputation points and 3,000 credits, while the rest of the places offers gradually less of these.

The Elite Trophies presents a set of 8 challenges consisting of single races with each challenge having certain entry requirements such as owning a particular bike, having earned a bronze medal in the previous Elite Trophy challenge and reaching a specific position in the World Rankings with the first Elite Trophy requiring the player to have reached 260th position in the World Rankings which increases by a further 40 positions for the next Elite Trophy until you reach 20th position for the seventh Elite Trophy in which the eighth and final one requires the player to have reached the very top of the World Rankings. Success in Elite Trophies also offers reputation points and credits particularly when achieving a bronze, silver or gold medal positioning, while a choice of one of two bikes is available for your garage.

The Quick Mode provides the opportunity of racing on a single track in a race against 11 opponents with a selection of the chosen bike or alternatively purchasing or renting a bike in which renting will only be for the duration of the race and whilst it is free to rent a bike it will offer no prizes at the end of the event, alongside any of the 30 tracks and retaining the freedom to adjust the race length from 3 to 10 laps, A.I. difficulty and riding assists to the ideal preferences. Another major feature of the Quick Mode is time trials in which players attempt to set their fastest lap time to post on the online leaderboards with a choice of a ghost time of the personal best lap time around their chosen track, alongside all of the customisable riding assists and the full quota of tracks to select from, while the tutorial is also accessible from the Quick Mode menu in case players did not try it the first time around or the need to brush up on some of the basic skills becomes apparent.

There are over 100 officially licensed bike models provided by 14 motorcycle manufacturers including Yamaha, Ducati, Kawasaki, Honda, Suzuki, Aprilia, Triump, BMW and KTM on tracks situated in 15 different locations from all over the world including 7 Grand Prix circuits, 5 routes through picturesque landscapes, 2 city tracks and an additional special track, with the majority of the tracks having multiple variations totalling to 30 tracks between such as Stelvio National Park, Milan and Imola, Italy; Sierra Nevada, Miami and Road America, U.S.A.; North Wales and Donnington, Britain; Kanto Temples and Sugo, Japan; French Riviera and Magny Cours, France; Almeria, Spain; and Potrero de los Funes Circuit, Argentina, although it would have been great to have the challenge of the Isle of Mann TT course.

Players will start out with a choice of three motorbikes which offer varying attributes including cc category, maximum power, maximum torque, displacement, cylinders, weight, acceleration, braking power, top speed and handling which can all be customised. The bike customisation is reminiscent to that of the original Gran Turismo as players start off with the basic form of the bike and progressively improve it via a variety of categories including engine; transmission; brakes and suspensions; appearance and wheels, while every category has its own components which can be upgraded with in-game currency which is earned by completing races as high up the field as possible. For instance the upgradeable engine components includes the electronic control unit, air filter, cylinder head porting, high quality oil and exhaust with every component within each category having the potential to increase acceleration, braking power, top speed or handling from their initial quality of around between five to seven gradually improving towards the maximum quality of ten as well as increasing the maximum power, maximum torque and some component upgrades even reducing the weight of the bike.

In the scenario that a player has taken the incorrect direction of bike setup or if they just have not learned the track properly yet and are falling off the bike too much, then the rewind system will certainly be of help as players can have a maximum of nine rewinds that allows them to rewind time for a few seconds to effectively undo a mistake such as out braking yourself and flying into a gravel trap, perhaps smashing against a barrier or causing a collision with another rider which resulted in a heavy crash. Therefore, the rewind mechanic will help the player out of tricky situations until they have had chance to learn the ropes regarding the bike setup, handling and track layouts which will then be the appropriate time to turn the rewinds off and stand on their own two feet.

There are 5 excellently positioned camera angles including 3 first-person camera angles 2 third-person camera angles with a realistic and accurate representation of the cockpit including an LCD dashboard and speedometer to display the current speed, alongside the handle bars and mirrors, while there is another accurate portrayal of the cockpit, but this time from the actual rider’s eye view looking out through the crash helmet which authentically limits the peripheral vision of the rider at the top and bottom of the camera angle and the final first-person camera positioned on the front of the bike. The first of the 2 third-person perspectives is positioned directly behind the rider, while the second is positioned further back and while that caters for the appropriate distances of third-person perspectives; there is no optional re-positioning of the camera angle to bring it closer or further away from the bike as has been expertly utilised as was the case with WRC 4 on PlayStation Vita and MXGP on PS3; allowing players to move a slide bar 20 clicks further forward or 20 clicks further back from the rider to customise a third-person perspective that is suited to preference, although the focus of all 5 of the camera angles can be adjusted in order to look to the left, right, above, below or behind the rider.

The free camera from the pause menu allows players to observe the closer features of the racing and the finer background aspects in more thorough detail, although it unfortunately does not contain a photo mode which is surprising as the photo mode contained within the free camera feature in MXGP on PS3 allowed players to catch some great shots of some of the amazing scenery and racing action. However, it is still a great feature to have and allows players freedom of the positioning of the camera angle with panning and zooming for any of the 12 riders in a fully immersive environment.

Players can watch a full replay of the race that they have just driven on with the ability to watch in slow motion, pause, fast forward, change the camera angles for a different view of the action and change the camera to view the action from the previous or the next rider, loop the replay back to the beginning to watch it all over again as well as the ability to enter the free camera feature. Players can view the replay from three camera angles with the first-person camera positioned on the front of the bike, although it shows none of the bike or handle bars which is strange as Milestone’s racing games usually have such features in regards to camera positioning in replays; a third-person camera from behind the rider to provide a view of the bike and the road ahead and a dynamic camera angle positioned away from the bike with the television camera angle changing from camera to camera in the style of Gran Turismo. It would be great to see the dynamic television camera angle making the transition to being playable as the player is riding as it is that good and would further complement the immersion of the authenticity of the racing experience.

There are multiple downloadable content packs available including new bikes such as the Yamaha 2015 Bike Models and Yamaha Historical Bikes costing £3.29* each, while also being available as part of a season pass to effectively pre-order each of the four content packs at a cheaper bundled price of £11.99*.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 3 controller and are fully customisable. The default control scheme consists of pressing R2 to accelerate; pressing L2 to use the front brake or reverse; pressing L1 to rewind following a crash or loss of direction; pressing X to use the rear brake; pressing O to manually shift up a gear; pressing square to manually shift down a gear; pressing triangle to tuck-in for the best aerodynamic positioning of the rider; moving the direction of the left analogue stick to the left or right to steer the bike in that direction; moving the direction of the left analogue stick forwards or backwards to appropriately distribute the rider’s weight; moving the direction of the right analogue stick to the left, right, upwards or downwards to focus the camera in that direction; pressing R3 to view behind the rider; pressing up or down the d-pad to increase or decrease TCS; pressing select to change the camera angle; pressing R1 to chat in online multiplayer; pressing L3 to view chat status in online multiplayer; and pressing start to display the pause menu. There is a lot of vibration from the DualShock 3 controller which certainly adds to the immersion of riding over the curbs or taking a corner too wide and accidentally leaving the track as the controller will vibrate during sharp turns as well as contact with other bikes and even during momentary scrapes with the trackside barriers or crashes resulting in the rider falling off his bike.

Graphically, the bikes and animations of the riders look exceptional, although there is texture pop-in on foliage which reshape and change in colour with some imperfect textures on trackside buildings which are particularly noticeable during the narrower confines among certain areas of the South Circuit variant of the Kanto Temples track and a seeming lack of detail on any crowd in attendance or any of the marshals positioned around the track, while there is no day to night cycle or weather systems resulting in every race taking place in the daytime on a dry track. The frame rate is pretty good and represents a real sense of speed and danger with appropriate handling to counteract carrying too much speed into a corner by being able to adjust your braking zone through the corner as every player strives for the fastest lap times.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, World Tour menus, Quick Mode, online multiplayer, online leaderboards, My Rider menus, options and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons on the DualShock 3 controller. The background of the main menu consists of a variety of colourful scenery such as trees and mountains as well as panning camera angles of the chosen motorbike and rider, although loading times can be a little too long on certain occasions when saving a change in option or entering another menu, although a detailed history of the bike being ridden being displayed during the loading of the race menu certainly helps to ease the wait.

Voice-overs introducing new elements to the game throughout the tutorial and key areas of the game that have not ventured into beforehand such as an introduction for each of the eight event categories available in the World Tour are quite helpful and efficient in their purpose. The sound effects do not provide any ambience in regards to any resemblance of an audience reaction to the build-up to a race, a podium finisher, an excellent ride or even a crash, although the engines sound great, while there is a variety of music from soft to heavy.

The trophy list includes 51 trophies with 42 bronze, 5 silver, 3 gold and 1 platinum trophy. There are some easy trophies such as the This Is Ride bronze trophy for entering the World Tour; the They Used to Call Me McFly bronze trophy for using a rewind in any game mode; the A Ghost Has Appeared bronze trophy for completing a valid lap in Time Trial; the Personal Touch bronze trophy for buying a new component for one of your bikes; the Swag bronze trophy for changing your rider’s gear; and more besides. There are 4 online trophies which are realistically achievable including the Connection bronze trophy for completing the first online race; the Digital Championship bronze trophy for completing an online championship; the Friends Will Be Friends bronze trophy for enrolling a friend from your friends list into your team; and the It’s Better with Friends silver trophy for completing 20 online races. The hardest trophies have to be The World Is Yours gold trophy for winning a gold medal in each Elite Trophy and the Best in the World gold trophy for reaching first position in the World Rankings. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take around 15 hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are five difficulty levels, very easy, easy, medium, hard and realistic with the major differences between each of the difficulty levels from very easy upwards being the artificial intelligence will become gradually more clinical with each step up in difficulty as they will bide their time and wait for an appropriate overtaking opportunity, rather than just trying at any random occasion as they look for the perfect racing line to stay alongside and move ahead into the distance when their opportunity arises, therefore vastly reducing their chances of crashing when attempting to pull an overtaking manoeuvre on any of their opponents. There are further additional factors involved in the difficulty level besides that of the A.I. as there are three physics settings, standard, semi pro and pro, which adds a further degree to the level and the corresponding difficulty curve of the game as the three physics settings each provide totally different handling. The standard physics feel more arcade oriented with a much lower chance of crashing when accustomed to the handling, while the semi pro physics strikes a balance between standard and pro physics as the pro physics are far more realistic and fully depend upon the player perfecting the weight distribution of their rider throughout every corner of the entire track. Between the five difficulty levels, three physics settings and plenty of riding assists which can be turned on or off; therefore players have full customisation over the degree of challenge they wish to encounter in any single player game mode as well as how difficult they want the A.I., physics and riding assists to be in split-screen multiplayer, alongside A.I., physics and gear shifts in online multiplayer.

The split-screen multiplayer for 2 players is a great addition with all of the tracks and bikes available for selection, although it does not come without limitations such as the field is cut in half from 12 riders to 6; no customisable championship; the removal of 2 first-person camera angles; no rewind mechanic; and no replays, while the split-screen multiplayer is limited to only the Quick Mode and the players cannot compete in any of the World Tour co-operatively or competitively.

The performance during online multiplayer is just as good as in single player with the same sense of speed, graphics, up to 12 players and the capability of A.I. fleshing out the field, while the premise is a play on the World Rankings as the Player Rankings see players gain points and even credits for a strong finishing position, although a poor result will see players lose some of their points which provides an excellent risk and reward factor to the online multiplayer gameplay.

The create match mode provides the ability for players to create their own customised lobby with a choice of a single race or a championship with additional options including any of the 7 bike classes; the physics from a free choice for each player to a set standard, semi-pro or pro physics; semi-automatic, automatic or a free choice of transmission; the number of laps for the race from 3, 5, 10 or 15 laps; the number of races for a championship ranging from 2 to 18 races; track selection policy for the host to decide, random selection or voting based choices; the A.I. difficulty between very easy, easy, medium, hard or alternatively no A.I. controlled opponents; and privacy settings for having a public or private lobby. The custom match mode provides all of the features from the create match game mode as search filters in order to help players find a race which fits the preferences of the player with the addition of the player’s maximum disconnection percentage to attempt to ensure that none of the opponents quit because they are being soundly beaten by a superior rider, alongside the quick match mode which will pre-select all settings and place players into their own lobby.

There are two sets of online leaderboards with the first focusing on the fastest times from each player for every track with the time rankings covering all of the tracks, track variants and all 7 bike categories with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; rider (PSN ID); nationality; the manufacturer used during the player’s fastest time; the bike used during the player’s fastest time and the best time set by each player, while players can compare their positioning on the leaderboards with players that occupy the top positions, a friends list and globally with players from around the world as well as being able to immediately find and display their position within any given leaderboard. The second set of online leaderboards focuses around the Player Rankings with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; rider (PSN ID); nationality; and the points reflecting the performance of every player who have improved beyond their initial 1,000 points or dropped below the figure.

The replayability flows tremendously due to an excellent set of features including the plethora of World Tour events, Elite Trophies, Quick Mode, officially licensed tracks and over 100 bikes, bike and rider customisation elements, split-screen multiplayer, online multiplayer, competitive online leaderboards. The system of reputation points and credits are both essential to the progressive gameplay as the reputation points allows the player to improve their positioning in the World Rankings, while credits provides the opportunity to enhance the specifications of a chosen bike or even buy a new bike if the maximum specifications of an upgraded bike is still not good enough to win an event, therefore the reputation points and credits provide a sense of satisfaction and reward for finishing amongst the top positions in events.

Overall, Ride is a unique take on motorbike racing which hasn’t been seen since the days of Road Rash as it isn’t related to a specific championship and is just about having fun; competing while riding a powerful motorcycle. Ride blurs the lines between arcade and simulation rather effectively which the gameplay certainly benefits from; setting up great potential for a series as there is room for improvement, although the amazing gameplay and customisation makes Ride a recommended purchase.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Ride
• Developer: Milestone
• Publisher: Milestone
• System: PS3
• Format: PS3 Blu-Ray Disc/PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 2 (Split-Screen Multiplayer)/2-12 (Online Multiplayer)/Online Leaderboards
• Hard Drive Space Required: 44MB (PS3 Blu-Ray Disc) 7.4GB (PSN Download) (Version 1.01)
• *Correct at time of publication