From the development studio behind Beach Buggy Racing - a racer similar in many ways to Mario Kart - comes a fresh port of its water-based take on the genre: Riptide GP: Renegade. Opening with a cut-scene showing your character getting busted for competing in illegal races, this game has the potential to fill that Jet Ski version of Need For Speed: Most Wanted you never knew you wanted - the career mode even sees you tracking down key racers to invite them to join your group! Anyway, let’s dive in.
As you’d expect from pretty much any racing game, you’ll be competing against several opponents (in this case there are eight participants in each race), speeding around various tracks to hopefully get the victory. What sets this game apart is that all races take place on waves that change dynamically - so in one race you'll start a race when a storm is raging with waves that swell really high (and are therefore much harder to navigate).
Each circuit has a number of interactive objects such as ramps that enable you to perform stunts. These stunts (activated by creating combos with control stick movements) add some power to your boost meter, enabling you to speed up for a short while whenever you choose. An intricate balance of perfecting your tricks – which will fail and set you back if you land them incorrectly – and using your boosts at the most opportune times will help you to master the basics.
The game’s main area of focus - and easily the best way to spend your time within it - is its career mode. Here, you’ll find yourself entering various types of competition such as straight races, elimination rounds, slalom courses, and freestyle events where you need to master various tricks. As you make your way through these events, the money you earn can go towards enhancing your rides, helping you to keep up with other racers as they start to dish out faster times.
These enhancements can add extra power to your acceleration, top speed, handling, and boost capabilities, and as you progress you’ll unlock more and more hydro jets that have a greater scope for bigger and better mechanical improvements. You’ll also be earning skill points that can be spent on fixed abilities such as an improved starting speed for races, or better trick-to-boost meter earnings, and you can even fully customise the colour, decals, and racing number for each vehicle.
After the first handful of events, the career mode becomes seriously tough. You might find yourself needing to grind through some earlier tracks at various stages, just to build up enough money to fully upgrade your current hydro jet to stand a chance at winning. Police jets add to your problems after a while, too; in some races, these pesky blighters start to speed alongside you, bashing into your vehicle and ruining your perfectly lined up jumps and cornering. Of course, these are likely in place as a way of increasing difficulty in harder stages, but the random nature of their movements mean that they can’t always be avoided with even the best driving skills, leaving the player occasionally frustrated from being constantly hindered.
In addition to the career mode, you can jump into quick races just for fun or compete against other players in split-screen, or online multiplayer. The online races run smoothly and you have the option to join or create either public, or private games (although the online rooms seem very empty at present). Split-screen supports up to four players, with a few pre-determined selections from the game’s nine different courses available to select.
The multiplayer options are, of course, a very welcome addition, but the most interesting part of this game is the development and growth of your team in the career. The circuits and pure racing alone are fun, but not to the extent where you’ll likely want to play hours and hours of multiplayer races. Also, if you play with a single Joy-Con, the game makes up for the reduced amount of buttons by simply accelerating your hydro jet for you; all that’s left for you to do is steer, boost, and pull off tricks (which move to the face-buttons). If you’re wanting the full multiplayer experience, you’ll want to be holding a full controller each.
We noticed the occasional hiccup in the game’s frame rate, but overall everything runs very smoothly indeed and the minor drops we encountered didn’t hinder our experience. The courses are attractive places to race around, and the menus and user interface have a sleek, almost professional feel to them which add to the game’s overall style. From its appearance and gameplay structure alone, this title does feel like an improvement over the studio’s last effort on Switch.
In fact, the overwhelming feeling we have after playing this game is largely positive; the racing is fun, the career gives a good sense of progression, and the customisation options make you care about upgrading your vehicles. If the police jets weren’t so frustrating – perhaps only targeting the racer in first place to even out the field, rather than just punishing you even if you’re stuck near the back – and there was a little more incentive to play multiplayer, we could have had a truly wonderful racer on our hands.
Conclusion
Riptide GP: Renegade boasts many of the qualities that you would hope for from a racing game; a rewarding career mode, a solid racing experience, and – delightfully – a rather different element in the way that the waves throw you around a little. There are some little niggles and difficulty spikes that keep it from sitting alongside the best of the genre, and there isn’t quite enough fun in the racing alone for multiplayer to be particularly exciting, but if you’re after a slightly different racing game to dip in and out of on the fly, this wouldn’t be a bad choice, especially for the asking price.
Comments 32
Cool game on Nvidia Shield K1 with joypad - buying it for Switch soon.
Hmm, I might give it a shot over the weekend
I would give this game a solid 8. Sure it isn't the most polished game in the world and I wish it had gone all in with HD Rumble but it has a lot of content and gives me that Wave Racing fix that Nintendo refuses to provide themselves.
For a tenner you can't go wrong and it makes a mockery of the other jetski game on the Switch that costs 4 times the price!
How come this review does not address Wave Race at all? Is this game a good means to scratch that itch for a new entry in this classic Nintendo franchise?
@Janus1986
It doesn't touch the greatness of Wave Race 64 but for its price of a tenner you can do much worse.
The water physics are decent and controlling your rider on the water is fun. It will scratch that itch for a while for sure!
@SBandy Thank you, that's what I wanted to hear
@SBandy totally agree. 8/10 is good score there alot content in this game. And pay alot more for alot less.
Pleasantly surprised this one got to keep the performance docked. Highly recommended if you like a splash of future sports in your arcade racers. Also can't argue with that price.
Not for me.....
Wave race or bust. Damn you Nintendo...damn you.
@Janus1986: this one feels more like Hydro Thunder, which is not surprising as Vector Unit brought Hydro Thunder: Hurricane to other platforms. And not a bad thing either.
Played this one a ton already. For $10 it’s a no brainer for racer fans. The storm courses are particularly fantastic.
This game is fantastic - played it on iPad and Xbox One already, and that's the only thing preventing me from getting it on switch - even though the switch is probably it's most natural home.
I would seriously recommend checking out all this developer's work. Apart from mousebot I have thoroughly enjoyed and played to death everything they've done. Lovely people too and very active on their facebook feed with their players.
Pretty sure i have one of the Riptide games on the 360.
Think I'll get this one
Seriously, why doesn't Nintendo revive Wave Race already?
Why is the multiplayer not so much fun? I always prefer racing in multiplayer, but the review says it’s not as good as solo without telling me why - is it poorly executed?
Vector Unit are masters of making cool and fun water based racing games, with an incredibly small size. Definitely buying this later once I clear my backlog a little.
@Melkac perfer 1080
Could scratch that Hydro Thunder itch in a way, I'll likely take a look come a sale!
@SBandy I don't want to live in a world where anybody would consider an 8 "solid".
@KeeperBvK
You misunderstood. I meant solid 8 as in a definite 8 not that 8 out of 10 was only a solid score!
I bet that if they release Wave Race you will give 12 at it.
This game definitely scratches that Wave Race itch for me. The water physics are great, controls are spot on and the post-apocolyptic "waterworld" setting is beautifully imagined. Unlockables include new stunts to pull off, new jet skis and new riders, including a robot!
While this is not Wave Race, it is to Wave Race what the FAST series is to F-Zero: A very reasonably priced fast, tough and beautiful racer full of content. 9/10 for me.
I clicked on this b/c Vector Unit developed the sequel to Hydro Thunder, a boat racing arcade game I remember playing with my older bro when he took me to arcades as a kid. If Riptide is anything like how I remembered Hydro Thunder to be, then it is definitely on my radar for when I buy or win myself a Switch.
@Bondi_Surfer Simply because the racing alone isn't as fun as when it is combined with the progression of the career. There are only a handful of courses and, unless both players are at very similar skill levels, you'll likely just see the same result over and over and get bored after a while.
The career mode on the other hand is great fun, if a little challenging!
BUY THIS GAME !!!
I got this game for PS4 when it was on sale there for a few buck, got the second game on Xbox One a similar way. It isn't bad, but I always felt like it would have worked better as a hoverbike Jet Moto kinda game. Something about the design of the vehicles and the way the physics are setup.
I guess like it comes down to the game feeling like it's made to be phone friendly so it can work with you just accelerating the entire time, and the stunts and boost system totally works like that as well.
Noticed the names of the police cadets in one mission ? Police Academy anyone ?
@NintyNate I don't.
This is $5 on the NA eshop right now. Picked it up last night. Not a bad deal.
@KillerTan98
It's on sale right now!
Not worth the price, even discounted. Generic gameplay, sudden difficulty spikes, less than average graphics. Lots of pop-in. In a nutshell, it’s a boring game.
@nab1 glad someone finally mentioned the games digital size. Imo it makes it essential as a switxh e shop presence
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