Ridge Racer Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 31 August, 2005

Let's go round again.

Version tested: PSP

Bands love doing this. They release a few good albums, do a couple of tours, hit the studio again and crank out some nonsense, then return to form with a self-titled EP. Ridge Racer's a bit like that. Indeed, if the people who made Ridge Racers 1-4 did go on tour, that probably explains why RR5 and R: Racing were so ARGH; they probably whipped their heads round so fast demonstrating the cornering routines that they spun clean off and had to be surgically re-attached. Game development is much harder when you've accidentally decapitated yourself.

It's easy to lose your head talking about Ridge Racer, too. Technically, it's as amazing to see on a handheld now as it was when we first got hold of our Japanese PSPs last December. It looks like a proper racing game. Reflections slide silkily over the bright chassis of your opponents, as you slide silkily round apex turns; biplanes swoop past mountainside tunnels before you dive down a hill and snake round a grassy chicane. It's never shy when it comes to the view. You can turn a bend and see a whole valley stretching out in front of you, suspension bridges linking narrow roads on either side; or neon cityscapes bouncing across your field of vision as you boost off the top of a hill, land on another bump and then boost again.

Okay, so we still don't like the music, but apparently we're in a minority on that one. Pfft. Screw you.

Frankly, we wouldn't care less if it looked and sounded like an N64 game. We'd still play it; what's happening with your thumbs is compulsive stuff. Played ideally from the bumper-cam view, it negotiates the return of clichés like "white-knuckle" and "high-octane" with so much conviction that it ought to get a regular slot on Newsnight talking to politicians about where all our bloody money's gone. (Where has it gone? Oh yes, we bought an import PSP.) Last year we likened playing Ridge Racer to a rollercoaster; it's not far off, even if we had been drinking too much mulled wine that day. As you drift into a corner, releasing the accelerator and then reapplying it to cut loose the grip on the rear wheels and point the camera at the inside curb, you really could liken it to hanging on for dear life - particularly as you reach the upper echelons of the Pro and Expert difficulty levels and too many lost seconds are tantamount to a lost race. Handling that fishtail exit on corners to skirt the barrier and shimmy round other cars is like adding aftertouch in a football game.

Annoyingly, the early stages are much too easy, and anybody with any experience of Ridge Racer is going to clobber them in a few hours without surrendering the top tier of the podium even once. But you'll probably realise even then that it's special - from the first corner, in fact. Keep going and the onslaught of duel races, longer tours, faster cars and more fiendish track designs will make up for the slightly dull opening.

'Ridge Racer' Screenshot 1

It's just so smooth...

The track design, definitely, needs to be celebrated. There's a lot of recognisable track design from earlier Ridge Racers, but the actual circuits merely borrow the best elements, and it's a tactic that works well; played forward and backwards at different points, there are very few weak tracks. Some of the better ones can be ludicrously punishing; we still shudder when we hit the hilly S-bends, or have to cross the river twice in quick succession, which we've never quite done without a pang of anxiety. Likewise having to send our car into a fearsome power-slide a split-second after landing a jump in front of a right-angle turn. Fouling that up is as bad as it sounds. More or less all the tracks send you up and down hills at breakneck pace (there we go snapping people's heads off again), and they're rarely wide enough to be easy. Even when they are easy, they have the decency to be entertaining, like the hairpin split over two levels that you negotiate sideways in midair.

The addition of the "nitro" meter, meanwhile, is well judged. Nitro's been around in racing games for yonks of course, but its inclusion here is much more than a knee-jerk reaction. You fill nitro slots by drifting, and there's something deliciously entertaining about emerging from a spectacular drift on somebody else's tail, tugging on that right shoulder button and watching them vanish into the rear-view like a stranded spectator. And you can double the entertainment value when you're playing wirelessly against a friend.

That, by the way, is another thing you're going to want to do. You'll probably want to practice first - learning these tracks will be a joy anyway - and once you're ready you can get up to seven other people involved. Each of you will need a copy of the game, but of all the titles in the launch line-up, this is one we can definitely imagine your friends buying too. The graphic-whoring casual gamer with an eye for shiny new toys - and, if we're honest, plenty of our friends are - will have spotted Ridge Racer a mile away, and playing wirelessly against them is a mostly lag-free experience.

'Ridge Racer' Screenshot 2

The little circle highlighting your lead uses retro graphics. Namco loves us.

There are some things worth bitching about. The computer-controlled opposition is very good on the upper-upper levels, and has an uncanny ability to block your path before you can react to it, or boost past you on the home straight. But you'll probably be sufficiently pleased with the way it feels to play that you'll treat them not as pointless obstacles on the road to fun, but evil lines of code fit for munching nitrous' equivalent of dust once you find your A-game later on. Or at least once you've unlocked some of the delightful special-class cars. We're particularly fond of the one that looks like it has a giant desk-fan strapped to the back of it.

That's not to say our love of Ridge Racer is a question of novelty value, however. And don't be confused by this relatively straightforward commendation. Sometimes we do feel the need to wax nonsensical about trends and structures and clever hooks and the like, but with Ridge Racer it's pretty simple: good tracks, great sensation of speed, tremendous driving model. It could have done with an intermediate entry level, and it suffers for that, but it seems churlish to mark it down too far for making you grind for a half a day when the following hours then give way to days, weeks, and, in our case, months. As you know, we played it to death at the end of 2004. We've played it beyond death now. It's not quite heaven, if we're honest, but it's definitely a heck of a good racing game, and the best Ridge Racer in ages. Go buy it.

9 / 10

Ridge Racer is due out on September 1st in Europe.

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (31) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • OnlyMe #1 7 years ago

    Is this better than Ridge Racer V or better than Ridge Racer Type 4 (the best one)?

  • trevd72 #2 7 years ago

    i have never been a fan of ridge racer prefering daytona when the two first came out....but this version is excellent. To have a racer of this quality on a handheld is a thing of real beauty.

  • kewny #3 7 years ago

    agreed looks and plays superbly.

    PS. put some early impressions of virtua tennis on the lumines readers comments section if anyone's interested.

  • Aretak #4 7 years ago

    One of the four reasons I bought a PSP (along with Wipeout, Virtua Tennis and Lumines).

    "Ridge Racer Type 4 (the best one)?"

    R4 was the best racing game ever made for the PSone... yes, it's better Gran Turismo and the sequel.

  • GraySquirrel #5 7 years ago

    Yeah man, RR4 was easily the best racing game I've ever played. Not had the pleasure of playing it with the Neg Con yet, though.
    I do, however, love the DS version. Give it some time and the touch steering feels awesome.

  • OnlyMe #6 7 years ago

    R4 was great, but you can't really compare it to Gran Turismo, as one is an arcade game and the other was more or less a simulation. I was more of a Gran Turismo freak, and I never really enjoyed the awkward drifting style in Ridge Racer. It just didn't feel very fluid to me.

    And there are tons of other excellent racing games on the PSone other than just those two. Don't forget about TOCA 2 and TOCA World Touring Cars, Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and V-Rally 2 either. Not to mention Need For Speed 3 and 4.

    Oh, and Motorhead. What a great game that was.

  • JHuxley #7 7 years ago

    You're all wrong...Rage Racer was the best in the series and still is, at least in its faster Japanese version.

  • Aretak #8 7 years ago

    "R4 was great, but you can't really compare it to Gran Turismo, as one is an arcade game and the other was more or less a simulation."

    I can compare it in the sense of how fun they were to play... and in my opinion, R4 was streets ahead of Gran Turismo in that sense.

    And yes, there were some other great racing games on the PSone, but R4 is the best of the lot for my money.

  • Beano #9 7 years ago

    "Is this better than Ridge Racer V or better than Ridge Racer Type 4 (the best one)? "

    In my opinion the new Ridge Racer(s) is the best one yet.

  • Teeth #10 7 years ago

    I like the intro!

  • tengu #11 7 years ago

    Better than Halo!

  • Talha #12 7 years ago

    Of course 'fun to play' is a subjective thing. I am frankly tired of people harping on about the perceived 'fun' lead of arcade racers. Arcade racers are instantly accessible but ultimately lack depth and polish. Simulators may make you cry in the beginning but the rewards are amazing. One is for the casual gamer and the other is for hardcore.

  • myiagros #13 7 years ago

    Talha i completely disagree with you, there is more than enough space for both arcade and simulation racers. Don't tell me you don't enjoy Burnout and that it is only for the "casual gamers".
    Yes sims have more depth but it doesn't make them inherantly better than arcade racers. Burnout 3 and GT4 are even in my book.

    Back on topic, this is the best Ridge Racer as far as i am concerned (still not as good as Wipeout pure though).

  • Domstercool #14 7 years ago

    It basically plays like Type 4. That is why it's so damn good.

  • Wolfman #15 7 years ago

    "Oh, and Motorhead. What a great game that was."

    Motorhead rocks. Still one of my all time favourite racing games. Now I just want a PSP version of it!

  • Aretak #16 7 years ago

    "One is for the casual gamer and the other is for hardcore."

    What complete bollocks.

  • kenty #17 7 years ago

    Ridge Racer Revolution FTW!

  • Ceatlan #18 7 years ago

    Ahhh Motorhead, that was awesome. My favourite arcade racer on the PC of all time, and the graphics were stunning for the era.

    This is easily the best Rider Racer game I've ever played as well.

  • Nexus_6 #19 7 years ago

    someone mentioned burnout - anyone know when its out for psp?

    that is all - you can go about your business....

  • myiagros #20 7 years ago

    burnout legends - 16th September

    Can't wait!!

  • deaner #21 7 years ago

    Anyone know when Gran Turismo is due on the PSP?

  • Talha #22 7 years ago

    myiagros : You guessed right, I have both Burnout and GT in my collection. But I think you got me wrong: I did not as such say that arcade racers were not fun - I was merely complaining about arcade racer fans claiming that their kind of racer was inherently more 'fun'. As you said, there is room for BOTH genres, it is just that the fun in arcade racers is more accessible and perhaps less long lasting than sims. Different strokes for different folks, that's all.

  • myiagros #23 7 years ago

    next march apparently, but you know what sony are like with gran turismo.

    Probably be ready for summer 2007.

  • myiagros #24 7 years ago

    sorry Talha, i misjudged what you said.

  • deaner #25 7 years ago

    I'm just not sure if I'd need Wipeout Pure, Gran Turismo, Burnout, TOCA 2, Colin McRae and Ridge Racer. It's best to just pick two.


    [EDIT] Lots of PSP racing titles, aren't there!
    Edited by 1 at 31/08/05 @ 13:13

  • Machiavel #26 7 years ago

    Rage Racer! Top speeding hi-jinks - superb fun.

  • myiagros #27 7 years ago

    not that bothered about colin mcrae or TOCA but the other 4 you mentioned are all must haves.

  • gamingdave #28 7 years ago

    Its a lovely game. Different length tornements alowing you to pick one that will fit your journey. Load times arent too bad at all. Controls spot on (using d-pad) and the graphics are lovely, though they do suffer the bluring most of the earlier PSP games do.

  • Bumbuliuz #29 7 years ago

    the thing about this game that makes me hesitans buying it, is that when I saw it I felt the graphics were so-so. Nothing special. I must admit, I lover pretty grapichs :)

  • Yonda1me #30 7 years ago

    This is the game I´m buying along with my PSP

    `NUFF SAID

    PS : R4 In my opinion is by far the greatest

  • EraSerX #31 7 years ago

    It's a nice game but I got bored quite quickly with it.