The cards have been shuffled a bit over at Nacon. The TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge bike racing series, formerly managed by KT Racing, is now getting a new developer tackling the challenge – Italian team Raceward Studio of the rather undercooked RiMS Racing from 2021, to be exact. But to be fair, despite the team featuring various veterans of the legendary Milestone team among others, it was still a studio’s first proper attempt at a full-fledged game made from the ground up. Let’s see, some two years later, how they managed to improve their craft in a game dedicated to one of the most dangerous motorsport events in the world. This is XboxEra’s review for TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, tested on Xbox Series X.
No Man’s Tarmac
Whether you’re new to this series or this motorsport event in particular, it doesn’t matter – what you need to know is that the TT Isle of Man is a highly popular and prestigious event that has been held every year for over a century on the Isle of Man, a self-governing isle under the British Crown, located more or less inbetween the seas of England and Ireland. The event puts extremely fast Superstock, Superbike, etc. bikes with daring drivers having to drive as fast as possible in the streets of the island, which are astonishingly tight and surrounded by walls, trees and more. It is perhaps a relic of the past and extremely dangerous, far more than your average MotoGP, Superbike, etc. race on a closed off racetrack, but it’s also a completely unique one-off event with many fans across the globe.
It is perhaps unsurprising then that licensed videogames exist for this peculiar event, and the TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge’s third installment brings a much welcome addition to the formula. As opposed to only having the event’s iconic track configurations, for the first time a recreation of the entire island can now be explored in an open world mode, with players getting to find historic locations, doing timed challenges and more. While this is perhaps the game’s most advertised and promising feature, the execution feels lacking. Unlike in, say, Forza Horizon games, only the roads can be explored, of which there aren’t too many to begin with. Secondly, there’s not really an activity of other bikes, riders or anything, so it all boils down to driving from point A to B on roads we already see often to start an event or collect a piece of historical content, if not downright using the many fast travel options to skip the free riding altogether.
The racer in me
Oh well, we’ll write it off as a fun diversion, but obviously the real meat of the experience is the actual racing, right? And the game does seem to offer everything: not many tracks, though it incudes various historic track configurations as well; a lot of licensed bikes and riders from the real life event; a season-based career mode, custom offline races against up to 10 AI riders; online matchmaking, private races and leaderboards; all events can be customized in weather, time of day, length and more. The basics are there, but not much else unfortunately, as the game’s features (aside from the disappointing open world) are about what you’d expect from any racing game.
The graphics of TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 are also on the basic side. The game’s world feels pretty empty, shallow, with models and assets feeling competent enough but with nothing really standing out. This at least does guarantee a high resolution and a stable 60fps on Xbox Series X (and even a 120hz mode if your TV supports it), but you won’t find too much eye candy on this fascinating island. There is a pretty thorough photo mode, but replays’ camera angles tend to sometimes get stuck behind some building that covers the view, and crashing often results in the bikes and riders showing less than plausible behaviours, even compared to most videogames of this kind.
These rims feel off
I’ve been putting off the most important aspect of the game so far to talk about features instead, but it’s finally time to tackle what really matters: how the game handles. TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 takes a simcade approach, in that the bikes feel heavier and more unstable than your typical arcade racer, but not as meticulously simulated as you’d find in a more professional simulator used in eSports. Unfortunately, they did seem to iterate on RiMS Racing’s rather unreactive control style, making it surprisingly difficult to navigate through tight paths regardless of the controller settings, bike setup and riding assists used. I spent a decent amount of time trying to tinker everything, but no matter what I did, changing the turning direction and sticking to the inside in a fast section just felt virtually impossible.
It ultimately feels like the game’s developers are not really sure who they’re targeting with this game. It doesn’t have the depth and simulation levels to be appreciated by hardcore racing fans, but it also has a difficult driving model that isn’t at all snappy and reactive, making each corner feel like a major commitment under braking and while riding out the racing line. And with only the limited variety of tracks that the island offers, an unimpressive and frankly unnecessary open world addition, flat graphics and rather basic game features, it’s hard to recommend the rather average experience that is TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, one that I hoped would be a bigger upgrade from RiMS Racing.
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- The Isle of Man is a location like no other
- Solid online and custom offline events
- Many bikes and licensed drivers
CONS
- Pointless open world
- Basic features
- Unconvincing driving and physics model
- Not an eye-catcher
Very disappointing to see a limit of only 10 AI racers has not been improved. Racing the full in course on TT: RotE 2 was exhilarating, yet often felt empty, as the game only included about 10 of the 72 competitors per race. Not that difficult to run a basic AI routine for riders outside a player-bubble and a limit-hack for maximum AI riders within this area, which would have meant negligible extra load on CPU or GPU. Games over 30 years old managed to do this, how the hell can these guys not figure it out…?
Looks like minimal effort was put into this sequel beyond cosmetics, and yet, the graphics aren’t even up to modern standards either! What a wasted opportunity.