THE RIDE OF A LIFETIME

Hit racing series ups its game to deliver visceral thrills

- CHERYL MULLIN

Customise your bike to gain an edge

BIKES and I have an uneasy history.

When I was a kid, my dad was a bit of a biker, using his Suzuki to get to and from work while my mum ferried my sister and I around in the family car.

But one night, with mum at work, a teenage me found myself without a lift home from jiu jitsu.

To my excitement, I found dad waiting on his red bike, and offering me the spare helmet. We lived just five minutes away - all downhill - and I screamed the whole way. I don’t even think dad turned the engine on, he’d just freewheeled us home.

But in the world of video games, I’ve learned to be much braver.

The Ride series of games has been around since 2015.

The franchise was developed by Milestone, a studio with a strong history of superb racers, starting with its debut Screamer on MS-DOS in 1995, to 1999's Superbike World Championship and several additions to the MOTO GP franchise.

But Ride was the jewel in Milestone’s crown, almost immediately being described in some quarters as “Forza Motorsports with bikes” - high praise indeed.