Do the engines of Ride 5 roar as expected from a motorbike sim? Read to find out
Ride 5
Ride 5
Rating: 3/5
Developer and Publisher: Milestone S.r.l.
Platform: PC, XBS, PS5
Price: Rs 4,799
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Ride 5 is a mixed bag as a game. It doesn’t shine in every aspect, but fortunately does shine where it truly matters. So that’s a sort of a win. Racing sims seem a lot more serious when it comes to racing a motorcycle. For some reason, they rarely get a game where it is just arcade fun from start to end. Not breaking any moulds is the new Ride 5. The game is a motorcycle racing sim from Milestone, and they are very much in the serious sim category.
The game starts with what sounds like an internal monologue but essentially tells you how you feel as a hardcore motorcycle racer, the wind beneath your wings sort of spiel. It is highly pretentious, and you cannot skip it. Once you are done with the elite racer monologue, you get stuck directly into a race, which tries to get you familiarised with the controls. There isn’t much explained, but you essentially have to try your hand at it. Gamers who have played previous versions of Ride will be comfortable here. The bike handles reliably, but that means there isn’t much room for errors; one lingering turn could mean your rider will be tumbling in the dirt. Fortunately, the game has some relief in the form of a reverse button. Anytime you lose control, you can return to when things are rosier.
After the introduction, you can create your character for the campaign, but don’t expect anything you haven’t seen in other games. You have limited options, and not all of them look good. Fortunately, you don’t have to look at your character most of the time. For some reason, the characters look very low poly as well. I played the game on a current-generation Xbox; even mobile game characters have more polygons than the ones in Ride3. The campaign mode is also very lacklustre; you are essentially just trying to finish races so you can unlock tracks and earn credits for bikes and gear. There is nothing beyond this goal to play the campaign unless you are really into the unskippable monologue about how bike racers are amazing.
That said, the actual meat of the game is pretty good. The bikes look great and handle even better, but since this is a proper sim and not an arcade game, you need to pay attention to everything. For beginners, however, there are aids you can turn on that will have your bike turning, slowing down and speeding up at the right time. Needless to say, doing that sucks out the soul of the game. You earn credits from the campaign, which can go into unlocking gear and bikes. There are over 270 motorbikes available from 20 manufacturers and that’s something any enthusiast will love. There is also plenty of gear to unlock and tweak the look of your rider with your favourite brand.
The tracks, bikes, and the world look very impressive. The game has a 24-hour day cycle, and at every point, regardless of whether it’s day or night, the tracks and the lighting look fabulous. They are using Unreal 5 for this game, so it makes sense that things look amazing. So the question remains: Why doesn’t it consistently look good? Why do the humans in the game look so bad? Why do the TV camera replays look so bad while the first-person view of the same replay looks gorgeous? These are questions that we never get the answer to because none of it makes any sense. What is important, though, is that the game plays well.
This game also has a bonus split-screen multiplayer option, which most game developers ignore nowadays. If your PC friend, and PS5 friend need a common platform to compete with you, this game is for you, since the crossplay makes things interesting. Ride 5 is not a game for everyone; it is a hardcore motorbiking sim with an emphasis on “hardcore”. Playing it is tough, and if you are willing to endure, you will be rewarded with more bikes and the guarantee of being the only one in your group of friends who is good at something no one else cares about. If you are one of the elite gamers who just love racing around on a bike, this game should definitely be on your list. For most ordinary humans, though, this is an easy miss, especially if you don’t care about the sport.
The slender bender robot
Pic/Youtube
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Wonders of Supernova
Pic/NASA
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