RIDE

  • Thread starter Fryto
  • 1,129 comments
  • 62,901 views
The XBox store shows RIDE 2 for pre-order, playable at midnight tomorrow

is this correct, as far as we know?

Thanks in advance 👍
 
The 1995 fireblade will be a handful with no brakes. It's also still the wrong 3d model for a 1995 fireblade, it's a 1992 model, same mistake as ride 1. I will wait to see how broken it is at launch before considering ride 2.
 
Hm, I wonder if the February 2017 thing is to do with DLC? There'll be lots of new / updated bikes next year because of Euro 4, and there are also some glaring omissions of bikes new this year (e.g. MT10). These new bikes will be announced at the big motorcycle shows such as Intermot (right now) and EICMA next month.

It seems like a 2017 DLC pack would be a good idea, since you probably shouldn't put your new bike in a game available / scrutable before the official unveiling...
 
I know back in the PS2 days. The game may get pushed back or delayed but 99% of the time it was complete.

Then the next console generation arrived and suddenly patching was a realistic option.

Can't say I care about day one patches, but obviously it's a different matter if it takes weeks or months after release before serious bugs are fixed.

I could never make up my mind about whether I really enjoyed Ride 1 or not, but decided mostly in favor, so I pre-ordered Ride 2 today. Unlocks here in 39 minutes.
 
Some sample loading times for those comparing that to the rather lengthy ones in Ride 1.

Quick race, Monza, sunny - 30 seconds
Quick race, Nordschleife, rain - 42 seconds
Time trial, Nordscleife, rain - 27 seconds
Time trial, Ulster, sunny - 17 seconds
Time trial, Macau, sunny - 16 seconds

A few other impressions.

- It's a fairly handsome game, certainly no DriveClub Bikes level of visuals but it holds up pretty well by more typical racing game standards.
- Still some slightly annoying loading times whenever you want to customize things, and even a very brief loading screen when you do something like backing out of eg. the sound volume menu during a race.
- I don't know much about bikes so I can't comment on sounds (and I've only used the starter bike I chose anyway, about to test some others in time trials now).
- Can't really say for sure if physics have improved over Ride 1 but feels pretty good to me (and certainly less arcadey than the DriveClub bikes, as much as love those and that game in general), though so far playing only on semi-pro.
- The view stays level in the helmet-less first person camera, but tilts a little in helmet view (I think less aggressively than Ride 1, though my memory might be off).
- I can't remember how the career structure and related aspects were in Ride 1, but here it feels like you definitely need to upgrade your bike if you don't want to see the entire field pull away from you on the straights. I'm never better than mediocre in racing games, but in my first career race with a baseline KTM Duke 690 I came in 14th against AI on very easy. The bike pp rating was 333, the race allowed up to 570, and most of the AI racers were over 400, some well over.
 
I'm still a little puzzled by the initial career/world tour progression. Second race, again very easy AI, finished 14 out of 16.
I have upgraded my starter bike now (one of four different styles of bike you can choose initially), and with one or two more upgrades I think the KTM Duke 690 probably maxes out at less than 400 pp. Yet the only events available to me with that bike allow bikes up to at least 470 pp, the naked bike race I just finished up to 520 pp. 14 out of the 16 AI racers had bikes above 497 pp, and while I was certainly not hitting apexes with scalpel precision they were simply outrunning me too easily. And that was on the very lowest AI difficulty.

Looking forward to hearing some other opinions so I can know whether I just plain suck or the tour is indeed a little unbalanced in the beginning, until you can afford a better bike (I beat professional AI in DriveClub Bikes, seems like very easy setting in Ride 2 should put me at least a little higher than almost last).

I'll stick to quick races for now, I came second in my previous as they match pp ranks much closer than the tour races. Not really getting anywhere if I have to settle for 50 credit awards from lost tour races :).
 
Really looking forward to hearing some different opinions on the tour structure in the beginning. It's still a complete head scratcher to me.
A number of events where the starter bike I chose is allowed to race, but none where it even upgraded can come close to the significantly more powerful bikes it's up against (like a 163 hp Ducati Diavel in the same race as my 83 hp KTM Duke 690). Even at 6th place in my latest attempt I was 11 seconds behind first - I overtook three bikes in the last corner, only to see them pull past me on the last straight with little effort due to superior power.
And that's on "very easy" AI difficulty, which feels like medium or higher difficulty in any other racing game I've played.

I guess it's back to grinding quick races (which are also a lot tougher than they were in Ride 1) and time trials in order to buy a competitive bike.

Everything else about Ride 2 I really like, but being the toughest racing game I've ever played annoys me a bit since content is locked away without a good credit income, and when it has five supposedly different difficulty levels (I tried medium for one race, didn't do worse than on very easy).
 
That sounds like a repeat of the career mode in the first RIDE. I expected that so it doesn't sway my interest very much, but it's too bad they couldn't do a better job of balancing the events.
 
got my copy yesterday afternoon. it is extremelly good!!!and a huge upgrade from ride 1.
very good physics, better game play and graphics.
the carrier its more than enough and until now no glitches...
played it in semi-pro physics and the opponents at hard
realy enjoy it!!!well done millestone

if you want ask anything let me know
 
Last edited:
I have been enjoying my first few hours with it, the bikes handling feels good to me kn semi-pro and the loading times have not been that bad. The single rider events load pretty fast just seems lower when you need to load the a.i riders.

One thing I don't understand is the PP system. I tried the 2 stroke 135PP series and was getting destroyed on a 135PP Aprilia rs 125, I looked and the a.i and they were using the Honda NSR 125. I tried that and at only 129PP I won by over 5 seconds.
 
I have been enjoying my first few hours with it, the bikes handling feels good to me kn semi-pro and the loading times have not been that bad. The single rider events load pretty fast just seems lower when you need to load the a.i riders.

One thing I don't understand is the PP system. I tried the 2 stroke 135PP series and was getting destroyed on a 135PP Aprilia rs 125, I looked and the a.i and they were using the Honda NSR 125. I tried that and at only 129PP I won by over 5 seconds.

this came from gran turismo, it's the meter for all upgrades you have. for example nsr and aprilia can be both 135pp but honda has more upgraded engine, aprilia may have suspensions etc. honda will be faster but aprilia will be turning better, you have to upgrade all the parts (not only engine for example) to have a good bike
 
this came from gran turismo, it's the meter for all upgrades you have. for example nsr and aprilia can be both 135pp but honda has more upgraded engine, aprilia may have suspensions etc. honda will be faster but aprilia will be turning better, you have to upgrade all the parts (not only engine for example) to have a good bike
OK my Honda was pretty much fully upgraded but since its a lot faster and handles better (than the aprilia)I would think the pp would be higher
 
Anyone in the states able to find this game on the consoles? I've checked all the major retailers here. Ebgames, walmart and target and they've got nothing.
 
A few thoughts after a few hours:

Contrary to outward appearance, the handling seems finer, easier to control. It's still a bit twitchy and hard to pick a line, especially at low speed, but improvement is improvement. The visual feedback in first-person, no-helmet view is very TT like and that I like. Wheelieing is more fun because you can see where you're going now.

Still very engaging physics (pro, no aids save auto tuck), but, because of the more stable controls, it feels a little more filtered and staid. What this implies is that it was always heavily filtered, but the controls were just wayward before. They need now to inject some life and broader feedback into that virtual rider to create a better sense of the dynamics at play.


Sounds are improved:
There are now better samples from better recordings - these are a bit "sample-y" sounding, like GT (think idle transitions). Some bikes sound incorrect, though, and there are still no modified sounds. But it's a good start.
Still no doppler in replays, no details like wind noise, tyre noise, chain noise etc. Very sparse soundscape.
The source selection, balance and mixing is still way off - most of the time you can hear your own bike when racing (which is I suppose an improvement) but in replays it's a total cacophony. Also bikes behind you don't scale in volume properly with distance.
Banal music again; now with stuttering issues! The menu sound effects are infuriatingly repetitive and cannot be turned off.
If you switch the menu music off, the little incidental videos are silent.


Menus are improved, but the core loop still has needlessly tedious button presses for confirmations and lots of mini pauses for loading / saving / synching. Main loading times are massively improved as others have said. I had issues with network timeouts, too, due to not being logged into PSN; you get a lot of hangs until you set synching to manual, which you have to do each boot and only after the first failed synch.


Customising:
No more separate icons for wheel colours etc.
Prices are all over the place: 2000 credits for a brake disc but only 500 for full carbon lace-up wheels?
Rear brake lines can now be coloured too (but not on all bikes), as can handlebars.
Chains improve torque, but not power?


The World Tour is pretty badly maimed I think, at least going by what's available at the start, plus one of the middle tiers. Gone are the sensible categories like triples and twins, replaced by things like "street style" and broad events like "nakeds"?! I don't quite understand the significance of the seasons (after 8 races, you start a new season), and there's some weirdness with the invitationals (I couldn't continue with the World Tour until I did one). I think it's intended to add variety, but the races are basically the same just with easier AI and bigger payouts - perhaps people ignored them in the first game.

There are sometimes far too many bikes available to use in the races, and the performance variance, as mentioned, is huge. I guess this is so you aren't funneled by your first bike choice so much. The bikes you draw depend on what you enter, but there's no real balance and there are lots of "rabbits". The PP system is clearly broken; you can annihilate the likes of an F800R with an XJR1300 on a fast track (predictable from the power figures), but the Yam loses out to the Beemer by around 50 PP! That was after my Duke 690 got annihilated despite having a slightly higher PP. Best to use power and weight figures, plus knowledge of the track, as before. The problem is that events have a PP limit now, and going in blind is not fun...

Tyre and AI skill choices help a lot to balance your personal difficulty, unfortunately by trial and error almost per event category. The credit bonus for optional difficulty is much appreciated - I'm currently running at 21% which makes up for my slow progress through infrequent wins! (Medium AI).

I chose the Ducati as my first bike, because it's a V-Twin; I got told I favoured style above all else, which I resented at first. Then I proceeded to put shiny bits on it. Perhaps she has a point, I am a tart after all! :P


Overall it's much more polished and the core gameplay (riding bikes) is fun enough to hold my attention, easily replacing the first game. Although the familiar grind and "what next" feeling from the first game has resurfaced here (made worse I think by the arguably nonsensical structure of the World Tour), I think it's just about a worthy sequel for the better controls, sound and general polish.

However, compared with the first game, the sequel's World Tour does very little to educate about types of bikes and their traits as compared with the first game. It's like: "hey look: bikes, go nuts!" instead of creating an implicit understanding (though hands-on experience) of why they're all so different and why manufacturers make certain decisions about packaging and engine configuration.

It's certainly a much better prospect for anyone new to the idea or who passed on the first game, but I think they failed to make it as interesting and engaging for the long term (save adding new content...)
 
Back