You return to the scene after your prison term is up, and now have to claw your way back up the racing ladder and exact your revenge on the insufferable git that got you in this mess to begin with. These fill up more of your boost meter in one go, essential as you get to the latter half of career mode and find one missed trick can be the difference between 1st and 8th.Īnyway, the tutorial/prologue culminates in your character getting screwed over by a rival racer and getting slung in prison for two years. You’ll also earn xp as you go through races that results in Skill Points you can spend on further stunts that are increasingly complex. Of course, you have to ensure you have the time to complete them or end up getting flung from your ride with all the force of Brock Lesnar if he’d just discovered you sat in his hot tub, eating his dinner.
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These are all done exclusively with combination flicks of the analogue sticks. When your rider gets enough air of a ramp or wave, they can perform stylish stunts on their vehicle to earn boost meter units. The most intriguing aspect is learning about the tricks. It’s standard stuff: R2 accelerates, X boosts, yadda yadda yadda. You pick one of two racers to start your new life of competing on the choppy waters of illegal hydro races. The centrepiece of Riptide GPR is the career/story mode. To be fair, I’d rather they focused on making the actual racing fun to play and watch, and clearly that is where the focus has gone. Instead, they’re just rather functional in a slightly crude manner. The vibrancy of the races, even in the gloomier, more desolate tracks (coupled with the immediacy of the gameplay), is impressive, giving you a good sense of speed and competition without bogging you down in the minutiae of precision racing, so you get to fully enjoy the impact of the wildly colorful tracks.ĭeveloper Vector Unit has definitely made the most of a relatively low budget here, with the only noticeable concessions being the odd stilted bit of animation and menus that aren’t especially enthralling.
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Renegade does this without sinking too far down the nostalgia bait hole thankfully, so it’s a pleasant feeling that isn’t tinged with the usual memory lane misery.
![riptide gp ps4 riptide gp ps4](https://www.teamvvv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/riptide_gp_renegade_-_aug_2015_-8-.jpg)
Everything is brightly-colored and set to a throbbing dance soundtrack like the arcade racers of the late 90’s and early 00’s. The obvious comparisons are to fondly-remembered arcade water racers such as Wave Race and Hydro Thunder, and in visual presentation terms that’s a compliment.