Namco Bandai Announces Ridge Racer Unbounded for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 in 2012

Namco Bandai showed off its current crop of games at yesterday's IGNITE event, including Ridge Racer Unbounded. Attendees of the press event saw the CG trailer yesterday, but now it's been

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Namco Bandai showed off its current crop of games at yesterday's IGNITE event, including Ridge Racer Unbounded. Attendees of the press event saw the CG trailer yesterday, but now it's been unbounded for the masses to enjoy.

The street-racing game is set for the Windows PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, and the video gives a vague 2012 release window. The press release promises that this game will "shake up the genre" with an emphasis on destruction. Other racing games may bind their destruction, but Ridge Racer went and unbounded it.

We have our own theories on why Namco Bandai chose this name, mostly revolving around a thesaurus. But "unbound" would've worked fine as a substitute for "unleashed," so why they made it "unbounded" is beyond our ability to explain.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 4, 2011 11:46 AM

    The trailer is crap, I can imagine the guys that came up with this:

    "We should have a chubby looking car, and it gets into this corridor, and a girl comes out and walks weird because she's a girl, and she gets into some smoke, and then she comes out of the smoke, and then she gets into another can and smashes a taxi because FUCK TAXIS"

    Yeah. But anyway, isn't Bugbear the developer of Flatout? That could mean good things for this title, also pleased to see a PC release announced, that must be a first for Namco.

    • reply
      February 4, 2011 12:07 PM

      Actually it was probably..

      Lets have Reiko (the Ridge Racer girl) drive up in a typical Ridge Racer car, have her get out, walk through smoke to emphasize the transformation of the series, have her drive past her other car to show she is leaving it behind, and then have her hit cars in traffic again to point out this isn't your typical Ridge Racer.

      With that said, as someone who has played all the Ridge Racers (yes even the dreadful "R"), I am not looking forward to this based on the trailer. It would be like taking a game like SSX and making it look like Call of Duty....oh wait.....

      • reply
        February 4, 2011 12:17 PM

        Totally agree :) I am looking forward to it too, plus it gona be on the PC for the first time, NICE!

      • reply
        February 4, 2011 1:59 PM

        Hah, well said. But I'm with Fhaze on the funny walking... what the hell was up with that? Her walk looked like something out of a budget game in the 90's or something. Usually Namco does such a good job of making her look hot. I guess Reiko's actual model isn't bad... but the animation is really bad. Her hips swing so much when she gets in front of the second car that she probably would have severed her spinal cord and been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

      • reply
        February 5, 2011 9:46 AM

        If EA can make Need For Speed into any type of racing game, why can't Namco with Ridge Racer? So yea there totally stealing a page from EA on this one. I guess remaking the 1st track in every Ridge Racer isn't selling as well as it once did.

    • reply
      February 5, 2011 1:09 AM

      Before Flatout, they made Rally Trophy, the best rally simulator after Richard Burns Rally.

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