Posted by RetroKingSimon on May 28, 2010 23:26 (May 28, 2010 23:26)
Every now and then you'll get an arcade game that takes the world by storm. A game where everyone talks about it, plays it, or talks about playing it.
Ridge Racer was one of these titles.
When the game was announced as a launch title for the PlayStation, its arcade fans went into hysterics. "We can now play the best racing game of all-time in the comfort of our own homes!", they all exclaimed with glee.
It arrived on the shelves; they all bought a cop; played it for a couple of hours, and realised that Ridge Racer was far from the best racing game of all-time! A valuable lesson to us all then that good arcade games do not always make good home console games.
Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. It is true to some extent though.
Our chief concern is the number of courses on offer here: one. Okay, it's a good course, and to be fair a pretty big one at that. But even for an arcade game one course just doesn't cut the mustard. Some fans defend the singular course by claiming that Namco had a very short amount of time to develop it, having to rush it out in time for the PlayStation's launch. This may be true, but looking at Ridge Racer Revolution, the sequel to this game, the one track design is still prevalent and Namco had plenty of time to get things right with that one.
As mentioned though, the course is more than half decent in itself. It is quite a large one and takes you from the city over bridges and through tunnels past such views as a construction site, mountainsides and a beach.
Before the start of any racing though you must choose a car, and there are four available to choose from. Actually, one nice feature of this conversion is that while the game is loading you can play a single-screen version of Galaxians - If you manage to shoot all the aliens before the game loads, the quota of cars is trebled.
To beat the Devil car you have to spend a fair bit of time racing him to learn the line he takes. Once he's parked up and let you pass, you then have to race his line to block him. If at any point after he's parked you fail to block him from passing you, its game over. His predictability is his only weakness. Once you've got the Devil car, its pointless using it as its so ridiculously overpowered that it removes any challenge from the game. I've managed to honestly beat it a couple of times, but I've lost the will to do it again. I never did maintain that challenge in Revolutions to get the Angel car though.
The 'weird twisting' is fine once you learn how to control it. Pick your line, enter the slide and then don't overcook it and you've a lot of control. The slide itself is largely on rails, so the turn is more about controlling your exit smoothly. Rave Racer is very much like the earlier games in design, its nothing like the much expanded Rage Racer.
Fair enough, you make some good points, but it's splitting hairs to say it has two courses. It's one and a half at best! I know it's much newer but the powersliding in something like Burnout is how I like it, not the weird twisting back and forth in this game. With regards to your last point, I thought Rage Racer was a PS conversion of Rave Racer?
I'm with Boyo on this one. I think the original Ridge Racer is a superb bite of gaming beauty. It looks good, it plays good, you can burn through the whole thing in an hour, and that's why I love it. Of all the PS1 games I own, none has seen as much gameplay as this one and its one of the few I keep returning to. 10 minutes to kill? A few laps of Ridge will do the trick and cheer me up no end. Yes, the powerslides are on rails, but that's part of the charm. Its a completely arcade experience, not a driving sim. As for bumping into the sides... if you're doing that, you're just not good enough at the game ;) The TWO courses may be limited, but they're both well formed and fun, with the reverse tracks doubling up that element of track learning. Having said that, I'm inclined to just play the first short course, its such a blast. Admittedly the sequel Ridge Racer Revolution is a little lazy in terms of new features, being little more than a new track pack, but the link play does make it a worthwhile purchase. Split screen gaming is all well and good, but dual screens are far better. The only disappointing thing about the Racer series is that we've never had a home conversion of Rave Racer, so I've had to make do with the imperfect emulation of VivaNonno.
Yes, I like the series from Rage Racer onwards. PSP RR is awesome! I just don't like the original and RRR. Daytona is awesome, but could do with a few more courses itself. Still, three is better than one!
Jun 16, 2010 23:51:14 (
Jun 16, 2010 23:51
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