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A must-have PSP title!
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Sun, 16 October 2005
by: Special K
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OK. I thought I'd start this review with OK because the announcer insists on letting me know constantly throughout the game that everything's OK. Now that's out of the way it's onto the review OK?
As you may or may not know, I'm one of those people who doesn't own a PS2 or an X Box. The PSP caught my eye because of its size and appeal for the long trips to work on the train. That and the fact that it has the single best LCD screen I have ever seen.
The history of Ridge Racer stems back to 1993 when Ridge Racer appeared in the Arcades. Then in 1994, Ridge Racer 2 was released in the arcades and Ridge Racer made it's first appearance on Sony's PlayStation console. From then on, it has gone through many more revisions and platforms (see Wikipedia for a good breakdown of these releases). With it's arrival on PSP, like many of the PSP releases, it combines the best features, tracks and cars from all the previous versions.
 | | Mmmm... Pixelated Panties |
First of all, I fired up the World Tours mode of the game to start unlocking new cars and courses. At this stage I was still blown away by the intro to the game and the appearance of Reiko Nagase but not Ai Fukami of Ridge Racer V fame. What I did find, in my travels around the web, is a lot of sites dedicated to discussions on which grouping of pixels looks the hottest. General consensus is that Reiko is hotter and she scored the spot in the game…. sorry I digress. Where was I? Ah yes the intro. Lots of short white skirts, a ticking watch and some damned impressive visuals of the cars that show off the hardware as much as the software.
As with most racing games, it is necessary to start with the World Tours as there is very little you can do until you start unlocking those tracks. Your first decision will be your choice of control – analogue vs digital. I started out using the directional keys in favour of the analogue stick. It seemed easier to get yourself drifting with the pad. While the steering feels great with the analogue, it was often a little sluggish and seemed to be the difference between finishing first and just qualifying for the next round. In an unusual turn of events for me, I managed to unlock all of the first nine tours in the Basic Tours section. The Pro Tours I have just started but are increasingly difficult and will require some more focused attention over the next few weeks.
This brings me to my first experience with the PSP in the wild – or on the train! I managed to make one charge of the battery last the full working week (five days) just running Ridge Racer. This amounted to about one hour and twenty minutes of gaming a day with the screen set at full brightness. I was quite impressed with this result and found the system easy to use standing up too. My advice to those of you that haven't fitted your white strap to your PSP is to do so before you go out in public. I have averted many disasters simply through putting the strap around my wrist before starting the game. It really is amazing the number of bumps you get while you're on the move.
Now on to the racing experience! I was astonished with how quickly you picked up the steering and drifting of the vehicles. It wasn't long before I found myself drifting around hairpins and rounding up the next driver with ease. This made it a joy to play. Even more so is the sense of speed you have throughout the game. Slower cars feel slower. When you have a clean run, you're really steering by the seat of your pants and drifting for the most part of the lap. This to me is really impressive. A - that they have been able to get such brilliant performance out of the software and B - still deliver battery life that is acceptable along with a real adrenaline rush that comes with increasing speeds and close finishes.
 | | I can only dream of unlocking this car |
Another new feature in the racing is the Nitrous metres. Each time you drift, you build up charge in your Nitrous Tanks. There are three tanks and each fills in succession. It is possible to fill up all three tanks then fire them off one after the other to get a continual boost around the course and catch up to the leaders. So the key to more speed is to drift as much as possible. This helps when you experience my pet peeve with the Ridge Racer series. When you slam into another car from behind, they accelerate away and you slow down. It's almost like an acceleration transfer and it really sucks. I do like the handicapped start of the race and often found during the course of the race that the other cars offered little to no challenge as if they were backmarkers letting me pass. The Pro Tours on the other hand throw down more of a challenge and appear to vary their path around the track making them much harder to pass. This is why I can't tell you a lot about the Pro Tours as they are proving difficult. There is an illusive section that says View Prizes. The manual states: "View the rewards and prizes that your racing prowess has unlocked". My trophy cabinet is still empty…
I have tended to avoid the other sections of the game as they seem to rely on the Tour events to unlock all the tracks and vehicles. Time Attack is as it suggests. It takes the race and lap times from Single Race or World Tour events and your aim is to beat the times. Ghost cars can be saved for each track and would appear to be limited only by the size of the Memory Stick you have in your PSP. The single race is just one event and runs as it would if it were part of a World Tour with 11 opposition cars.
It was only recently that I noticed that when selecting a track when playing the Single Race option, the logo of Ridge Racer version is displayed. A very minor detail but cool if you want to know where you had seen the course before.
Ridge Racer visually, is a triumph. The detail in the car models is only surpassed by the equally detailed environments. Most of all, the frame rates and fluid animation make it a pleasure to play. As a lot of others have said, this is a must-have PSP release title.
by: Special K
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More articles by Special K
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