It’s been a few years since Milestone S.r.l. have released a new iteration for their adrenaline-fueled motorbike series, RIDE. Now though, RIDE 5 is here and ready to make its presence known by focusing on providing an authentic experience for only the current generation of consoles and PC.
Can RIDE 5 deliver a motorbike masterclass for veterans and newcomers alike, or will it continue the trend of being difficult to the point that it’s unforgiving and potentially off-putting?
As someone who has struggled immensely with every motorbike racer since the beginning of time, the biggest compliment I can give RIDE 5 is that it’s geared up to welcome all kinds of players. It’s not perfect though, and there are still areas in need of improvement.
Right off the bat, RIDE 5 wants to know how familiar and adept you are at racing on motorbikes, in order to tailor the settings to your skill level. Stopping just short of adding stabilisers, the wealth of options to make life easier, or indeed tougher if you’re an expert, is tremendous. It offers to apply the brakes for you, steer around the corners and do everything in its power to stop you falling off. The usual recommended race lines and ability to rewind is in place too, with the latter coming in very handy when you eventually begin to switch off assists.
Even the AI opposition can be altered to ensure a competitive race is on the cards. Lowering or turning up the AI difficulty incrementally is one such way to level the playing field, but there’s also another setting. It’s possible to increase or reduce their general aggressiveness on the track, which certainly can lead to some feisty manoeuvres from the first corner to the last.
For those who know their way around a bike, numerous technical aspects can be tweaked before a race to give you an added layer of control. Things like the hardness of springs in the front and rear suspension, the tension of the chain, and the speed threshold for each individual gear, to name a few. Deciding whether to go with soft, medium, or hard tyres is about my limit personally, but the opportunity to mess with the other bits is no doubt a plus point.
After hopping onto the bike and revving the engine, that’s where the thrilling action comes into its own. At high speeds, the visual effects help deliver the immersion and it feels as if it’s just you and the bike in your own little world. Until you crash of course, which is highly likely considering the realistic physics. Over-steering, leaning too much, throttling heavily on the turn, and clipping the curb are the main causes of flying through the air like a crash test dummy.
Yes, even with a multitude of assists, the gameplay is still challenging, but that’s what makes it rewarding to be honest. Through patience and persistence, you’ll slowly get to grips with the layouts of the tracks and how the bikes handle. Only then will you rely less on the rewind feature and more on your own ability in order to succeed. There are few greater feelings than majestically weaving through a chicane that previously saw you tumble into the barrier, or pulling away from the pack of AI drivers upon exiting a hairpin perfectly.
As for game modes, Career is by far the highlight of what’s on offer in RIDE 5. Starting off as a relative nobody with just a single vehicle to your name, the idea is to progress through four Acts and climb to the top of the world leaderboard. Within each Act are groups of events to compete in, including championships, single races, head-to-heads, endurance, and time attacks. Earn enough points and it’ll present you with a shiny new bike, which will undoubtedly be useful in the next group. Finishing off an Act will also give you access to further, tougher, groups of optional events to tackle whenever you wish to.
The event types are relatively self-explanatory, so I will simply mention the head-to-heads, which are against leaderboard rivals – these are the supposed antagonists of your career. The rivals themselves are perhaps the only blight on the Career however, because RIDE 5 doesn’t do a good job of making you care about them. There are brief narrations regarding these people before a face-off, but the fact that they’re barely noticed before, or after, is a shame.
Otherwise, the Career is packed with enjoyable events to get stuck into and it’s perfectly paced too. Early races might last a mere three laps and ease you in for what to expect from each event type, before eventually increasing the number of laps and total endurance time. Due to the races not lasting too long in the first Act, it doesn’t require excessive amounts of focus until you’re well versed in riding. The variety in the tracks used throughout, alongside different bike disciplines, ensures plenty of freshness as well.
The journey to the top will see racing taking place across the globe, covering Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. There’s a nice mixture of real-world and fictional tracks, with the quality of the made-up ones rarely in question. Naturally, the inclusion of long-time favourites and notable tracks like Road Atlanta, Monza, Brands Hatch and the Suzuka Circuit help provide familiarity as well as a bit of nostalgia. Factoring in the layout variants available for a large portion of the courses, there’s a lot for you to try and master.
In terms of bikes, expect to find over 200 of them to purchase via in-game credits or unlock through performing well. Five different kinds are available, and so you must prepare accordingly by taking into account the rules of the race. Whether the bike you’re after is naked, sport, naked racing modified, sport racing modified, or endurance modified, the options are good. Especially given the famous brands attached to them, such as Ducati, Kawasaki, KTM, and Suzuki. And if they’re not quite up to the task, various upgrades can be made to raise their attributes to give you an edge when competing.
Adding extra swag to your bike or rider’s appearance is also possible thanks to the editing suite. You can spend hours messing with shapes and colours to design a badass livery to show off during races. It seems deep enough to provide a place for everyone to unleash their creativity. Alternatively, if inspiration isn’t forthcoming, then downloading other people’s creations is the way forward as there are a ton of talented folk producing awesome stuff.
Outside of Career, there’s nothing stopping you from creating a series of races in a customised championship, nor will anything prevent you firing up a single race or time trial. The only draw is, for me at least, the opportunity to throw yourself into a 24hr endurance and actually have a chance of seeing it through to its conclusion. Mainly because it lets you save during a pit stop and so you can return to it at a later date, removing the need to consume copious amounts of caffeine, amongst other inconveniences of gaming marathons. It would be nice to be able to save on a whim, sure, but it’s better than the alternative.
And then there’s the multiplayer mode, which is pretty lacklustre. It works fine and connections are smooth in my experience, however I don’t particularly understand the point of participating in a single race or endurance event. Having no rankings or overall leaderboards make it pointless in my opinion. It’s also missing the option to set up a championship series to ensure that anyone falling behind in a race has a reason to stick it out.
On the visual front, the bikes themselves look great and the real tracks have been recreated to a decent standard. It’s hard to tell when riding at high speeds, but there’s nothing special in regards to the appearance of the general surroundings and the inclusion of procedural clouds really isn’t worth shouting about. I do think the wet ground effects are good though, as well as the shift from day to night when the lights automatically switch on around the track.
Overall, RIDE 5 is perhaps the most welcoming motorbike racing game to date, while retaining the exciting and challenging gameplay the series is famed for. The multitude of settings is a blessing for newbies to make life easier and equally useful for sadistic veterans to turn up to difficulty. Career is packed full of varied events, giving you ample opportunity to settle down before throwing you into longer and more intense races. The multiplayer aspect is most certainly a downside though, and longevity outside of the Career is questionable.
If you’ve ever been apprehensive about the toughness of motorbike games, then RIDE 5 is the ideal offering to alleviate your worries and provide high octane fun.
