Just over three months after the debut of Ride 4 on current-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft, Milestone's new motorcycle racing title also makes its debut on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S, promising an even more impressive and engaging gaming experience. Although the contents of the next-gen edition have remained unchanged overall, with more than 250 bikes available and 34 playable circuits, the real novelty of Ride 4 is to exploit the greater computing power of the new consoles, further increasing the realism and the authenticity of the title, all heightened by a wise use of the innovative features of the Dualense of PS5.
Ready Set Go!
Once Ride 4 is started, the title will not only allow us to recreate ours in-game alter ego, deciding name, nationality, sex, physical aspect, race number to show off on the bike and the driving style, but will immediately catapult us on the track to familiarize yourself with the game controls and with your new adventure companion. After this first test phase, we will have the possibility to choose whether to start with the renewed Career mode, which will allow players to have maximum control right from the start (choosing where to start their journey: American, European, Asian League) or directly from the main menu. Got access to the regional championship, we will have to get access to the related licenses, which will give us the opportunity to compete. It is mainly evidence challenges a stopwatch or single races against others 11 opponents controlled by IA of the game divided into 6 events, which will unlock the next races.
As we reported on the occasion of the review of the PS4 and Xbox One version of the latest effort of Milestone, which you can find at the following link, Ride 4 presents several innovations that aim not only to make our experience on the track more plausible, thanks to the introduction of a day / night cycle and dynamic weather conditions, but ad further increase the level of challenge, mainly due to the revolutionary neural artificial intelligence system ANNA (Artificial Neural Network Agent), based on machine learning. Although the new driver AI promises a higher competition rate, we have encountered problems with theartificial intelligence of the latter.
In certain situations, especially when you find yourself facing the straights of the tracks, the opponents will not notice your presence, making their behavior rather unpredictable and frustrating. Unfortunately, unlike the previous chapters of the series, Ride 4 features only three different types of motorcycles: athletic, naked e supermoto, and a new game mode. Endurance will allow players to manage their own strategy and every aspect of the match. Driving style is important, but so will the management and consumption of fuel and tires. The wear of the latter will not only be influenced by our driving style, but also by the weather conditions of the track. If this were not enough, during the pit stops we will be called to make key decisions, which could have repercussions on the track. Will it be necessary to change the tires? Or do you need a refueling? To you the arduous sentence.
Improvements of the next-gen version
The update significantly elevates the gaming experience compared to the PS4 and Xbox One versions, thanks to the 60FPS support it's a resolution reaching 4K. This will allow you to admire your racing cars in all their splendor, with very high quality shaders and textures and a level of detail never seen before, both as regards the construction of the bikes and the environments. In addition, the Milestone guys have paid particular attention to the gaming experience, making the more precise driving, satisfactory e natural. But that's not all, given that the power of the new generation consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X / S) has been exploited by the developers exclusively to create the various bikes present in-game as faithfully and accurately as possible, thanks to the use of advanced technologies (Laser and Drone scanning, CAD and 3D scans of real models), but also for reset loading times and increase (albeit slightly) the number of elements on the screen, even if the stands continue to remain bare and lifeless. The generational leap is further accentuated not only by the wise use of lighting, which crashes on the track or on racing motorcycles, but also from dynamic weather events and races, both online and offline, even more exciting, with 20 drivers competing for the win. As for the online multiplayer component, the title will use dedicated servers, in order to guarantee players stability and unparalleled performance.
Adaptive triggers and haptic feedback
Although visual improvements are the sector that has found most benefit from the generational shift, along the lines of other productions that initially made their debut on the current generation consoles, Ride 4 not only manages to give its best on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S from a graphic point of view, thanks to the greater computing power of the peripherals, but finds in PS5's DualSense a damn addicting weapon. The gameplay of the motorcycle simulation of the development team finds new life in the new features of the new pad, which manage to revolutionize and make theeven more immersive in-game experience. Clearly the adaptive triggers are the real stars of our races, since their resistance (both during braking and acceleration) will vary according to the conditions of our bike or our driving style. Furthermore, the haptic feedback manages to make us convey the difference between the asphalt, the curbs of the track and the imperfections of the dirt road. These elements manage to dramatically increase the immersion of the game, allowing the player to have full perception of the elements that surround him.
