That's in part because Unbounded is hard, in a way that Ridge Racer games always were, but in a way that few arcade-style racers have had the guts to be since. Even now, after all I've played it, I have this uncomfortable sense that maybe I'm doing it wrong. There's no in-game tutorial that explains any of this, which is bad enough, but the fuzziness that exists between success and failure means that you might never work out your mistake. It makes all the difference in the world.

It turns out that while you can drift without it, holding the drift button means you keep more of your speed in the corner. It'll sort of look the same, only now you'll start to win races. So you do, and it's not an instant revelation. Then you'll read something on t'internet that says that you should hold down the drift button all the way through the corner. You can keep trying, and trying, and trying, and for all the world it'll look like you're doing it right. Massage the accelerator and the brake correctly and you can impressively and satisfyingly exit straight out of each corner. Take a corner at speed, tap the drift button, and you can throw the rear end of your car into the corner. Each one of these actions refills your boost meter, which means that by the time you hit the ground, you can trigger it again. Activate it on the next bend and, if you've timed it well, the thrust will extend your drift (Achievement get!), let you frag a rival car (Achievement get!), smash through a roadside billboard (Achievement get!), and launch up a ramp to catch a few seconds of air (Achievement get!).

Perfectly execute a drift around a corner and you'll fill your boost meter. Avoid trouble, race in a perfect line and, paradoxically, you'll do worse than you would if you careen into concrete, brick and metal.Īll of these actions make winning races in Unbounded about perfecting a special kind of messy finesse. Using it at the right time can give you the extra speed you need to close the gap between you and the race leaders, the power you need to create shortcuts by punching through certain destructible buildings, or to frag other cars off the track in spectacular Burnout-style crashes.

Filling that boost meter completely, via perfect power slides, clean overtaking or hitting roadside paraphernalia, lets you supercharge your car for a few seconds. Crashing into any of these obstacles won't slow you down, but will help fill your boost meter. The second comes in the form of concrete pillars, low walls and lamp posts.

Ridge racer unbounded pc wikipedia