It would seem that video games and outdoor sports are at different poles of human activity. The antagonism of a lover of skiing or cycling is a nerd who sits constantly at the computer, accumulating not kilometers traveled off-road, but hundreds and thousands of hours in Dota. Nevertheless, even these sets sometimes overlap – when it comes to a genre such as sports simulators. Five years ago Ubisoft pleased fans of active winter recreation with a good Steep, and now releases Riders Republic . Before us Steep 2 or something really new?
American Beauty
What a new project Ubisoft Annecy similar to Steep, it was clear from the time of the announcement. Everything that we saw in the previous game – a huge open world filled with many tracks for extreme sports, a variety of equipment, costumes, tasks and tests – migrated to Riders Republic virtually unchanged. More precisely, there are changes, but they are mainly quantitative, not qualitative.
If in Steep There were only winter sports (plus wingsuit and paragliding flights), and the surroundings themselves were classic snowy highlands, but here the map is noticeably more diverse. The reason is simple: bicycles of all types have been added – from racing to stunt, and accordingly there is a need for types of terrain other than snowy. We took seven American national parks located on the west coast of the United States as a basis, uniting them on a huge map.
The result was a typical Ubisoft open world (and what, someone was expecting something else??): a clear division into biomes, regions unlocked as you progress, and unique hand-made places where the player is unobtrusively offered to admire especially beautiful views and take a couple of photos of his loved one surrounded by natural beauty.
And there is something to see here: the picture is quite decent even without the discount on the huge size of the locations. Changing time of day, weather effects, the already mentioned variety of environments, very beautiful landscapes – all this allows you to use the game as a means of relaxation. You can relax while traveling around the world without any fuss – for this, a special “Zen mode” is available in the main menu, where nothing will distract from your relaxation.
Not a luxury, but a means of transportation
However, natural landscapes, no matter how beautiful they may be on the screen, are still better to admire in real life. A Riders Republic, despite all external data, first of all – about competitions. We are offered to compete in several disciplines, which are divided into five types of careers: bicycle racing, bicycle stunts, snow racing, snow stunts and air flights. Each career is divided into three sports: for example, for bike stunts it is freeride and slopestyle, and the third type is a comic competition – like racing on an ice cream man’s tricycle or stunting on skis made from rough scraps of wood.
Don’t expect realistic physics – for example, you can ski on sand, although not as fast as on a bicycle.
According to the career, https://gsc33casino.co.uk/ equipment for the corresponding sports is also divided. Here the developers did not skimp, adding dozens of models for each discipline. Equipment differs not only in appearance, but also in characteristics – to unlock more advanced ones, you need to complete tasks, earning experience and in-game currency. Finally, there are special vehicles needed to quickly move to points of interest: jet skis, snowmobiles, paragliders and jet bikes.
Managing all this wealth is quite simple – a few buttons plus their combinations to perform tricks. For hardcore fans, I advise you to disable grinding and landing assistance in the settings – the rides become more difficult, but noticeably more interesting, and in this case they give much more experience points for successful tricks.
First-person view is more convenient, but when performing tricks the external camera turns on, which sometimes gets in the way.
Faster, higher, stronger
Let’s move on to the most important thing – directly to the competition. Markers of races available for start are scattered around the map – they do not appear immediately, but as you progress through your career (sports, by the way, also open gradually – you will have to spend several hours to gain access to all). In these races you will have to compete either with bots or with “ghosts” – recordings of past attempts of other participants. For completing the route, the player receives stars, which reflect career progress and serve as a measure of the character’s coolness.
The feeling from such competitions is twofold. It seems that this is the main type of competition in Riders Republic, but all the rivalry is taken offline – the sensations, of course, are completely different from those on the Internet. It would be better to remove these ghostly opponents altogether, especially since they are not so incorporeal – you can collide with them, which sometimes leads to sad consequences.
There are many interesting places on the huge map: races, remarkable natural objects with short descriptions, and “Mega Stunts” – special tests of agility and speed.
Not everything is going smoothly with purely multiplayer battles either. Taking part in them, on the one hand, is as easy as shelling pears – you need to sign up for a queue at the hub, which is a sports camp in the center of the map. But the limited number of participants (only a dozen) and the long recruitment of players are not encouraging, although while waiting for the start you can go about your business, including riding in regular races. In addition to regular racing, there is also such a multiplayer discipline as Tricks Battle – a battle between two teams of six people each, where you need to earn points by performing tricks.
Finally, the most potentially interesting multiplayer fun is the so-called mass racing. These are special events that are not available all the time, but only at a strictly defined time (approximately every hour). Over fifty participants compete in a race divided into several stages with a “seamless” change of sports discipline. In the announcements, all this looked much more interesting than it turned out in practice: the mass nature here is rather a minus – the chaotic crowd of players (especially at the start) makes it terribly difficult to navigate, and the use of several sports at once sharply reduces the chances of winning for those who are not strong in at least one discipline.
During mass races, it is sometimes more useful to stay behind the leading group – this way you can better see the control points on the track.
I was hoping for a sort of analogue of Fall Guys in a sports setting, but it turned out to be an ordinary race, and not very convenient at that. Perhaps this is a good challenge for those who are already bored with regular tasks, but beginners will not be able to get used to these massive races right away.
Selfie with mountains in the background
Interaction with other players is not limited to competitions. Other fans of virtual extreme sports can be met while traveling on the map – they will be marked with a special icon. In a similar way, only with an icon of a different color and size, they indicate computer racers – the idea is clear (to create a feeling of mass participation), but it looks completely fake.
Players you meet in the open world can be called into a group – this allows, among other things, to compete with each other while completing regular tasks. There is also indirect interaction – a separate creative mode where you can create your own tracks and share them with the community. Well, photo mode, where would we be without it – a bunch of settings, filters, poses and other gadgets allow you to create quite decent pictures.
Ubisoft reinvented the wheel by releasing almost the same simulator as Steep, – but this is clearly not the case when developers should be blamed for such an approach. Yes, Riders Republic was not a revelation or a milestone in the development of sports games. Before us is a logical and consistent development of the ideas of the previous project Ubisoft Annecy, with the principles of gameplay construction familiar to the authors and proprietary service. The advantages here are still the same – a nice-looking picture, the “Just a little more and that’s enough” effect, because of which, after going for a couple of races, you stay for a couple of hours, and there is even more variety in all aspects. If you like Steep, then the new product will definitely not leave you indifferent.
Pros: variety of sports disciplines; the opportunity to simply relax while traveling around a huge map; nice picture.
Cons: the competitive part looks faded compared to other gaming activities.