I’m not the biggest fan of racing games, or racing in general, but at the same time there’s that bug in me that can’t help but want to dip into one of the new racing games on the market now and then. With “Ride 5” this would be the first racing game I have played that is primarily focused on motorcycles that I could see myself hopping back into from time to time. Fortunately, I have a friend who I live with that happens to be a big fan and expert of both racing and racing games and he was much more excited about me reviewing this game than I was. From fellow Italians over at Milestone, the same people who also make the annualized “Monster Energy Supercross” series, which I reviewed a couple of in the past and didn’t fully love, but with the “Ride” series, this is not a franchise that is annualized every year so my hopes are a bit higher.
By far the biggest stand out with “Ride 5” is the extreme hyper-realistic graphics during the racing. They could easily fool some people into believing they’re watching real racing footage. The lighting, the textures, the weather changes, even something as rain drops hitting your windshield looks absolutely incredible. So, I couldn’t help but notice whenever you see people’s faces in the game, that there is something a bit off with them, they’re very stiff and robotic, it’s a very uncanny valley. What my friend pointed out to me was how much more accessible “Ride 5” is comparatively to the previous titles. There are varying difficulty levels, to the point where the game can really hold your hand the whole way across the finish line if need be, you can also change those settings at any point. An auto brake feature can be really helpful for those new to the genre, and my personal favorite is the ability to rewind time a little bit, so if I slam into a wall and am virtually about to become roadkill I can just time travel back and maybe step on that break a bit sooner or take that turn a bit sharper.
A big miss for me personally is the career mode, as a gamer who always gravitates to story and single player campaigns, there just wasn’t that much to chew on here that kept me invested or hooked. Again, I’m not the target demographic, people like my friend just want to race and just feel the experience of the race as much as possible. With the inclusion of the PS5 Duelsense controller, that elevation in reality really does go up a notch with that haptic feedback. Back to being invested, it’s nice to see that unlike many racing games out there right now, this one doesn’t wear you down by making you need to accomplish endless races to accumulate an acceptable amount of currency. Being able to purchase upgradable parts for my motorcycles always felt like a doable and reasonable task.
While I had a fairly decent time with “Ride 5” I was more curious what my friend thought of it, and while he had a couple little qualms or nitpicks, such as not being able to over wheelie your bike, or the UI speedometer goes away in first person mode, he did argue that while this is certainly an improvement over the previous entries in the series, the improvements themselves aren’t large enough to make this game feel like it added much rejuvenation to an already solid run in games. I’m going to have to agree with his advice that, while this may be the most accessible game in the series so far, if you already have the previous title, there isn’t too much to get excited over besides some of the technical improvements current generation consoles offer. Although if you’re new to the franchise and want to give this one a shot, you may as well go with the newest and shiniest model here.
7.5/10
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Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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