There are a few things to take into account when buying this game,
1: This isn't an indepth racer or car modification game
2: The purchase price reflects what sort of game to expect, (although I was actually pleasantly surprised)
3: If you remember playing Street Rod 1 & 2 for DOS this game is kind of a modern evolution on it but with more hydraulics, bling and much less frustation (remember Mulholland drive races?)

I enjoyed it.

I've reached Rank 1 and finished the game, here's my view.

The handling is terrible so let's rule out all the circuit racing etc. Drag racing is incredibly easy. I slaughtered everything in my path every time. Betting full amount I can each time I had copious amounts of money, bought the best I could and once I reached the boss, well... he was too easy.

The customising part is minimal. Has a few set things you can do. Things such as wheel size can affect speed so there are small factors that can come into play but you're never that close in races for it to matter other than you own personal best 1/4 mile times etc. As for styling you can do a few basic things but nothing major. Paint, wheels, tires, ride height, window tints, and some special things like gold trim.

There is a mode where you can use hydraulics to complete in competitions. I can't get it to score any points in the freestyle no matter how much I try. Probably bugged. It's fun to play around with hydros for a few mins in the test mode but it gets boring after that.

It has a score system for reputation for each race. No idea what that does. I think it might affect multiplier in the hydro mode but again, can't score, so useless.

I was hoping it would get more difficult as the game went on but nothing changed. It was the same from start to finish.

The low riders in this game are so real I sold my car and drive this game to work every day.

Lowriders aren’t a common presence in video games. Most car customizations and the certain subcultures which might entail them, rarely go beyond scratching the surface. Ride ‘em Low wishes to combine the hydraulic system competitions with more conventional street racing. It succeeds in a large part and despite not aging so well (2013 release), it’s still among the few titles focusing on this particular type of cars. It was the Steam debut of Red Dot Games and this is quite obvious even if in recent years, the developer has shifted towards comprehensive and far more entertaining Car Mechanic Simulators than the game I’m writing about today.

Much like the hot rod/rat rod car customization style and subculture, the lowriders also trace their origins in Los Angeles, California and share a similar time frame, even if the similarities end there. Lowriders never go to the same extremes of stripping an old car apart and keeping just the essentials which are also exposed to the elements, most of the time. No grandpa’s car which youngsters decided to “freshen up” and also offer an entirely new look. Low rider vechicles focus more on what’s under the hood than the aesthetics. In case you’re wondering, I’m a fan of any type of customization, cars included. Stock parts and looks, simply don’t offer owners the same satisfaction as an object which they took an interest in and decided to add a personal touch to it.

I first came in contact with the term and the (digital) visual representation of lowriders in 2005, while playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The slick maneuvers and stunts which were achieved with those custom hydraulics as well as the subsequent portrayal through rap music videos, captivated me. Back to Ride ‘em Low, players get to forge their own tales in real time. As with the older titles within the Need For Speed series, you also get to name your in-game avatar and have the freedom to choose which car model you want and then go crazy with the customization of it. The car brands themselves aren’t named as such, for obvious reasons. Time has proved that even more established series such as DIRT and GRID, may suffer from costly licensing issues. So naming the car as “Caddy” instead of Cadillac, makes sense in the long run.

American car brands, naturally. Even if you have limited interest in automobiles, you’ll still recognize the form factor on those generic names used in Ride ‘em Low. For some weird reason, opting for the Metric unit system instead of Imperial, also changes the currency from US Dollars to Euros. A career mode is implemented in the sense in which players shall have to earn cash through racing events before even having a large enough budget to install a noteworthy hydraulics system and participate in the traditional lowrider competition involving that iconic bouncing and “dancing”.

From the looks of it, Ride ‘em Low features a proprietary graphics engine. The cars are rendered quite nicely, with both the textures and reflections to show off the attention to details. If only I could say the same about the racing tracks or the fonts and scaling within this game. Those are abysmal. Playing in my monitor’s native 4K resolution, I had to choose between downsampling enough until the cars looked like they came from a PlayStation 2 port or accept the glitchy fonts to all the in-game text which had line collision or even fused sentences & words. First time I experience this with a Steam game and I’m quite disappointed since I couldn’t find a workaround.

The sounds are all repetitive and forgettable. Take my advice, mute them altogether and blast off some old school rap to your heart’s desire. It will make those races and hydro competitions far more enticing.

What more can I say of the gameplay? It certainly offers a challenge at the very start of your lowriding career. The stock car you purchase is underpowered and no matter how much you cheap out, you won’t be able to afford crucial upgrades until you grind those race tracks and up the ante by betting on yourself. Not a exactly the definition of sportsmanship but hey, these are street races afterall. I doubt something like this would be legal in real life. I would have enjoyed some more details relating to the mechanical upgrades instead of just naming the next upgrade which seems like an improvement only because it costs more than the previous one. At least you can customize the exterior as well. Don’t expect the absolutely bonkers customization from the Saints Row franchise though.

If I didn’t find the lowrider topic and the classic cars even remotely interesting, you can bet I would have rated down Ride ‘em Low. 60/100 is my minimum prerequisite for recommending a Steam title and I felt generous enough since my scaling issue can’t be replicated by those which play in lower resolutions. Your mileage may vary and that pun is intended. I’m also not gonna act as if Steam game from 2013 absolutely had to include Cheevos and Cards. It would have been a nice touch, if added in a future update, but even as it is, you almos get your bucks’ worth out of this title. Waiting for a Steam Sale or bundle is ideal and the game shall certainly entertain fans of the lowrider subculture.

+ Pleasant graphics.
+ Decent customization options.
+ Sufficient racing track & vehicle diversity.

- No Steam Trading Cards nor Achievements.
- Resolution and font scaling issues.
- Limited sound selection.

Rating 60/100

This review was submitted for ReviewExperts, through the generous contribution of Daniël - REX ♥ Gaming.

the most pimpin game after lowrider simulator even tho its the same game
i rate 50 inch rim / 10

Whenever you run out of money you automatically get "hooked up" with 500 dollars from your "homie".

gangsta/10, would play again

im a fan of racing games and car customization games, this game is not very good in either aspect. the gameplay itself is just meh, very bland and no depth. also if your not smart about which mods u make to your car your gunna get obsolete and smoked real soon. buy a cheaper car and give it all performance mods do anything cosmetic in the beginning of the game and u will regret it. the race winner is determined by who spent ther money better, not skill. save your money for real car games.

Its not a... Bad experience, its just not really a good game. Even by Red Dot Games, there are better racing titles from them than this.

I had some hopes when trying this game out, I shouldn't have.
I don't know what is worst about the game, but I'll just point out some facts:
- Specs are pretty high, had to turn some graphic options down on my notebook (i5 with Nvidia 3100 1 Gb and 8 Gb DDR3) to run 100% smooth. I expected good graphics when I saw that, I was wrong
- Graphics look like a 90's game, some light effects and shadows that seem to be more modern, but it still sucks.
- Gameplay seemed promising from the description but it's just awefull. Racing sucks, car control is bad, turning just makes you lose speed, which is low anyways, you can't hit or do anything to your opponent, you will always race in straight lines, car upgrades have sick prices and you get close to no upgrade. you have to bet your money on races on straight lines and you will lose to opponents with weaker cars if you don't upgrade enough. There is no fun in the gameplay, that's the worst part. Play it only if you want to see some low riders cars and if yo uare bored to look at google images (which have a lot better graphics btw).

One of the worst games I ever played

This game is kind of endearingly awful. It looks like something that came out ten years ago, the UI is terrible, it's full of typos, and it doesn't have much to pass for gameplay. You get to pimp out non-trademark-infringing knock-offs of classic cars (Gazelles and Walkers instead of old school Impalas and El Caminos) and then race them or show off how ridiculous your hydraulics are, except both types of events have very little depth and kind of iffy controls. If you don't win, you will have absolutely no idea why you didn't win or what you should've done differently. The rate you do get money from winning is quite low and makes it feel like it's meant to have microtransactions so you can actually afford to upgrade your car in less than six months of playing. It's also very easy to completely run out of money if you buy the wrong stuff and then lose a couple races, and the amount they give you to get going again if that happens is so low that you might as well just start over.

That said, the keyboard controls for driving are still somehow better than the keyboard vehicle controls for a lot of mainstream games, especially console ports, even though they're kind of meh, which should make a lot of major publishers/developers ashamed of themselves. And I still can't entirely dislike this game, because it has that kind of charm to it that only comes from people trying really hard to make something and completely and utterly failing to succeed.