Low traffic on streets of Ridge Racer Unbounded

[BBC123]

I am playing Ridge Racer Unbounded for past few days. I have noticed that the street of the city that is available in the game has no traffic. I mean a whole city without any traffic, it seems odd. It can be acceptable at night time, but in day time when people might be leaving for work in their cars, it cannot be accepted. Also traffic would have added more challenge to the player. What do other people who played this game feel about it?

[Ashley Parker]

Yes, I too think that this game has very less traffic. In whole game, all I noticed was a Crown Vic Taxi, white Crown Vic, red Crown Vic, white Caprice Estate woody, red Caprice Estate woody and a Chevrolet G-series panel van roaming on the street. Also the number of cars was so low that I could find only four to five civilian cars on street in one whole race. If there was traffic in the game, it would have added a more challenge to the player as crashing into civilian car means reduction of speed and increase in damage. It would be more fun to drive car while avoiding the traffic, this will test more of the skills that a player needs.

[VazV]

I agree, the AI of this game is so difficult to beat. If I reduce my car’s speed even a bit, they go past away my car. With increase in traffic, chances of opponent’s car hitting the civilian cars resulting in their slowdown will add some ease to the game. Also one can use the civilian cars as an indirect mode for crashing opponent’s car. I used to do it in Burnout Paradise, while racing I would push a civilian car in direction of opponent. In order to avoid it, opponent would go sideways and crash into wall. If not avoided, then it would be destroyed by crashing into civilian car. Having civilian cars means having wrong way and right way will be possible. So the developers can add bonus points for driving on the wrong way without crashing. Again destroying an opponent would become easy by pushing him in wrong way where the traffic will be coming from the opposite side.

[Shae]

Low traffic is not a big issue, if you keep comparing the game to realism, the it wouldn’t be possible to break concrete walls using a car. If you haven’t noticed then let me tell you that crashing into a civilian car give a small rise in power. If many cars are added, then one might crash or even touch many cars giving rise in powers many times. This will disturb the flow of game as the power will be used more times. The speed of player’s car is so high that it won’t provide enough time to player to decide in which direction he should push the car. Also if you have noticed, then AI is designed such that it avoids the civilian car even if it is close by. In other games, where an AI crashes into civilian car, in Ridge Racer Unbounded, AI successfully dodges the traffic. So if large amount of traffic is added, then all you will see is your opponents going in zigzag manner in full speed on crowded street. This will seem funnier and will irritate the player more. So I think that this game is better without mush civilian traffic.

[mbangali]

Traffic even though low in the game is preprogrammed. Even if a civilian car sees you car fast approaching towards it, it won’t get out of the way. This makes me think that the only civilian cars that are available in game are pre programmed to follow a pre designed path. If you crash in a civilian car enough to push it from its path and then slow down, you will see that it resets itself to align according to specified path and continue its task. It seems like brain dead zombies are driving the vehicles. In many racing games, when the civilian cars detect any threat from oncoming car, they change their path or maybe try to act aggressively themselves. I played Driver: San Francisco in which if you damage a civilian car and stop nearby, then it will come to fight with you till the moment you don’t go far away from the vehicle. Developers should add some feature like this in this game, maybe a patch would help.