Ridge Racer (PlayStation Portable, 2005)

Ridge Racer was originally a arcade machine and i have very fond memories of being a youngster, spending lots of money to play this game. Namco joined the Sony game console revolution almost a decade ago and it has not looked back since. Ridge Racer really has not changed very much over the years. Apart from the obvious improvement in graphics and sound, the game play has remained the same, solid, fast arcade style racing! No car modifications, no tinkering with gear ratios or any of that jazz, just a fun arcade racing game!

SO HOW DOES IT PLAY?

I will admit i had my doubts about buying Ridge Racer on the PSP. As much as i love the Ridge Racer series, i just had a bad feeling that this game was just going to be real pretty graphics with no game play, I have however been very pleasantly surprised! When you first turn the game on you are greeted with a very old 1980's looking racing game, that looks as though it has come straight from the NES or the Sega Master System (more on this later), once you get past this you are treated to a very nice introduction that really shows you just what the PSP is capable of. Once the Intro is over you are asked for your name, then you get to the main menu.

There are a number of choices on the main menu. You have the options menu as you would expect to find in any game you then have the 4 main modes of play in this installment of Ridge Racer, Single Race, Time Attack, World Tours, and Wireless Battle. Single race and time attack modes are fairly self explanatory. Single race you can pick any of the available tracks (ones you start with or tracks you have unlocked) then you compete in a single race! Time Attack Mode again is sort of the same, you can pick any available track or car and you can try to record your best lap times. Wireless battle, if you have a friend with a PSP and a copy of Ridge Racer you can play against each other by using this option. World Tours, this is the main part of the game.

TIME TO START YOUR ENGINES

World Tours takes you on a journey through a series of multiple race events. You start of with the basic tour, at your disposal are 3 different kinds of cars. All have different handling styles. One of the cars is very balanced, quite safe and easy to control, another is harder to control and will be more of a challenge for you to pull of drifts (more on drifts later) and the last car it is very easy to pull of drifts over long stretches! All the way through the game this setup will not change. The only characteristic that changes on the cars are how fast they can go. The more you progress through the game the faster the cars get. In all there are 54 cars for you to unlock. You Unlock more cars and tracks every time that you complete a tour. The basic tour is very, very easy and will not offer much of a challenge. This is good because it allows you to master the art of drifting!!

FINAL THOUGHTS

I love Ridge Racer. This is how racing games should be! Fast, Fun and Furious, no messing around, just buckle your seatbelt and enjoy the ride. This is a great game on a great system, you will not be disappointed if you purchase this game, it will last a while and has plenty enough to keep you coming back for more! Will be the best $39.99 you will spend for a while!

What can I say about such a great series as Ridge Racer? If you have never played this arcade racer, you owe it to fun to try it. It is not like ordinary simulation type racers, this is a game of pure arcade drift style racing. You have to learn to drift around the corners to succeed in these games.

The graphics are top notch for the PSP version, especially considering this was a launch title for the PSP, or close to. The sound, music, gameplay are all spot on. The replays are very cinematic and can be saved to watch later. The courses are all from previous games, including the original and Ridge Racer V.

There is Wireless play and a world tour mode that lets you fight it out to unlock new tracks and cars. If you have Ridge Racer V for PS2 and you didn't like it, you will still love this game as it is better on every level including realism. This was also the first Ridge Racer game to include Nitrous. You will not get tired of this game. I also have Ridge Racer 2, the sequel to this game on PSP, and it is just as good but with more of everything. I wanted this title for my collection. Great game...

This is the best racer for the PSP at this point, in my opinion. It plays like an arcade style racer, insofar that the cars have easy handling with super slick drifting.

The physics engine is really nice for this game. The cars that have a heavier front end drift in a different way than the cars that are more evenly balanced throughout. The slightest bump from another vehicle will cause a shift in your center of gravity, forcing you to scramble to get back up to speed and to keep from crashing into a wall if you're in the middle of a drift.

As you play, you unlock new tracks or new areas of previously unaccessible tracks, so despite the fact that there's really only a handful of different areas, you don't feel stifled. The game also offers up new cars in the same way, so as you win races, you don't simply unlock new parts or slight speed increases for the vehicle you already own.

The game has very nice graphics. The opening movie is definitely next generation graphics. However, the in-game graphics are very slightly dated, but this has pretty much been the style of Ridge Racer since R4 for the PSX. You have the choice of not one or two sets of music, but ALL of the music Ridge Racer's ever offered. It also contains a fun little arcade game of the very original Ridge Racer which you can either set to play when you start up the game, or switch it so that you go straight to the opening FMV.

The first time I played this game way back when the PSP was released, I was deeply impressed, so now that I finally own a PSP of my own (which I actually bought for Crisis Core), I'm glad I found a copy of this great racer.

The game has beautiful graphics, tons of unlockable cars, and many song tracks. The multiplayer features are great. I think the game lacks unlockable extras, other than cars. There is a Rally-X mini-game is a little fun. After 20+ hours of playing this game, I felt the game got a little repetitive. Overall, this is one of the better racing on the PSP.

i played this game when the first PSP came out of Japan and my brother bought 2 psps and games and one of them was this game. i fell in love with these game because the cars look totally awesome and racing the few but spectacular views of the routes that u have to race. u unlock a car and race tracks every time you win a world tour which is really cool. overall, this game is worth playing.