Milestone’s upcoming racing game is all the about the world of motorcycles and its evolution from past to present. The Ride series has always been known for creating an excellent motor racing game that focuses highly on realism and the biker community. Ride 3 will be no different than previous Ride games. The developers are convinced that they’ll launch an amazing addition to the Ride series because it’s a game that’s made by bikers and for the bikers, so I believe we can expect a great motor racing game.
Ride 3 will be all about collecting motorcycles, customizing them to your liking and eventually race with them on different popular tracks to compete with others. The game features over 30 tracks and 300 bikes ( DLC included) that are divided into 7 different bike categories. The developers find it very important to be as realistic as possible. All of these bikes are real bikes that are digitalized with the power of the Unreal engine. The motorcycles have also been scanned by droids to gain some amazing intel on how the bikes ride and react to the different surfaces of tracks and even weather conditions. A motor racing race game that’s as close as it can get to realism, that’s what Ride will stand for.
Realism is also not only about how the cars feel and look like. It’s also about the performance of the motorcycles. As a player, you will be able to customize your bike’s appearance and technicalities. The game will have different default skins that you can collect but there’s also a mode that allows you to “create” your own skin and share it with others. If people like your skin, they’ll be able to download the skin and use it in-game for themselves.
Other features that the developers are focusing on, is the way other NPC bikers react to your driving skills to become more challenging as a single player experience. Thanks to the Unreal Engine 3, the collision physics and effects have also been upgraded. The fact that the developers use an entirely new engine, they’re also able to create day/ night cycles and better weather conditions. These weather conditions will, of course, have a great influence on your driving skills.
“Realism, that’s what Ride 3 will stand for.”
The game will feature a career mode that takes on the rookie story and presents it in a way that’s closer to the actual world. The milestones the players achieve will be presented by different magazines that use a different kind of motorcycles. The player will have to compete with others in themed racing competitions. Each competition will let the player race different motorcycles that are based on a certain era. Next, to the single-player experience, there will also be a multiplayer mode that lets the player compete with other players. Also, the player will be able to tackle different achievements.
My take on Ride 3
At Gamescom 2018, I was able to get my hands on the demo. In the beginning, I already got a warning from the developers that it wasn’t going to be easy and it wasn’t. If you’re not familiar with motorcycle racing, the first hours of the game will be difficult because you have to learn how to drive the different motorcycles and you’ll have to learn how to drive on the different tracks. Thank God, the developers made sure that every kind of player will be able to play their game by implementing a couple of nice features that’ll help the noob driver.
During the race, you’ll be able to see a trail that’ll help you tackle the turns. The trail points out where to go but it also points out if you’re going to fast. The trail will turn blue if you’re taking on the most preferable speed and if you’re going to fast it will range from yellow to red. As in red, stands for “too fast”. Still, it’s no easy task and even though you try to follow the trail, you sometimes swing and miss. The developers use bullet time in their game that ranges from the beginning of the race until the end of the race. This allows you to “rewind” your actions and try again without redoing the whole race. This is a very helpful tool to use, to gain some confidence but also to learn the tracks.
The visuals are very keen on the eyes but don’t expect mindblowing graphics and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because the developers made it clear that they’re focusing more on the “gameplay” element instead of the “graphical presentation” and in the end, that’s what really matters, “the gameplay experience”. The handling of the motorcycles was great and the fact you can customize some of the motorcycles mechanical aspect, it’ll be an amazing feeling when you find that sweet spot of your racing beast.
Ride 3 will be available on the 8th of November for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
