Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is a decent adventure game that lets you play as the great detective. The trouble is, it wants to be more than that. It wants to be an action-adventure game with an open world. It wants Sherlock to be a fun and interesting player character, but the game makes him drag around a buddy who’s even less helpful than Watson.
What you see of Riders Republic is what you get: It’s a well-made and fun sports game in which you bike, ski, and fly over beautiful landscapes, performing tricks and racing other players in short, enjoyable contests. It doesn’t need to be any more than that. It’s not the sort of game that will absorb you for days, nor is it the sort of game that benefits from trying to do too many things at once.
I guess the best accolade I can give this game so far is that it’s another Far Cry game, and it’s a good one at that. It’s nice to see the return of the player character’s actual character. The villain is monstrous yet complex. Things explode. But it’s probably going to feel like a drag for far longer than it should, both in gameplay and in the story.