Ridge Racer
3 other R titles that might be interesting:
Rez - As immersive a music game as I have played.
R-Type - The classic horizontal shooter.
Rodland - In the style of Bubble Bobble, brightly coloured and very Japanese and cute.
1. The Playstation Portable is, I think, the only games console that I have bought truly at launch - going to a late night opening at my local games store in 2004. I did not even want one until TGS 2004 which completely turned my view on the machine with a very strong showing by Sony.↩
2. And the train home was kind of needed for this. This meant that portable gaming really exploded in Japan and elsewhere, not so much. Commuting created that market.↩
In terms of gaming, I think I have seen the future twice - Ridge Racer on the Sony Playstation, and Ridge Racers on the Playstation Portable. Both launch titles for their respective hardware platforms and both so massively different to what was considered normal that they changed the whole landscape of gaming. Well, for me anyway.
The original Ridge Racer was a simple, bold and colourful game with no pretensions of simulation in terms of the physics but a ludicrously fun feel. As an arcade game, there was just one circuit which was tightly designed to provide enough turns and introduce you to the joy of the drift. Coming up to a turn that is obviously too sharp for your speed? A quick release of the accelerator, turn and the step on the power and suddenly, you were pointing into the turn and sliding around it at incredible speeds like some kind of crazy ride. As you were playing, the soundtrack was provided by the engines, some 90s techno and a really excitable commentator using choice phrases like
"Wow! That was a great corner".
The arcade machine came in a number of different models but there was one famous version which used a full size Mazda MX-5 as the cabinet which could be found in the London Trocadero. The normal sit down cabinet was more common and a friend of mine played it a lot on a school trip at around about that time (maybe '94). At that point, the PlayStation had been announced and the most impressive of impressive arcade games would soon be playable (in 1994 in Japan) in your home. A portable 14" screen would not be enough for these games.
The Ridge Racer series developed but retained much of the feel and joy with the addition of new tracks and cars. That it did so in spite of the massive changes in the racing genre was both risky and conservative and, up to a point, successful. Ridge Racer Revolution was a small upgrade to the series with a new track but Rage Racer turned out a career mode. In this you could create a team, upgrade your car and race around 4 different, and I mean very different tracks. It also introduced a grittier new look and selection of cards and drift models with a drum and bass soundtrack that compares to some of the best CDs of the age. Ridge Racer Type 4 was released after Gran Turismo and added a beautiful and evocative sheen to all racing with a great lighting engine and, most importantly, great art direction. It attempted to create a dreamlike world a world away from the realism and technical brilliance of Gran Turismo. Rage Racer (Lightning Luge was superb, in particular) and Ridge Racer Type 4 had some musical elements in common but Ridge Racer Type 4 added a little more melody and stands as one of the best game soundtracks of all time. it also prompted me to search out other, similar music and can probably be in some way connected to my love of Squarepusher. One games forum I frequent had a comment to say that the soundtrack was the finest thing Namco had ever done. High praise indeed.
I remember playing a launch demo of the PS2 in London and giving Ridge Racer V a quick spin and being relatively underwhelmed as I started and then some stranger came up to me:
"It isn't as good as Gran Turismo is it? That is what we are all waiting for."
And he said it in such a received wisdom sort of way, as if it was just fact and I was ready to agree. And then the first corner came. The drift was initiated and the smile returned to my face.
When the launch of the PlayStation Portable.[1] came about, Namco were again ready for the launch and they made Ridge Racers as a sort of compilation of the previous games in the series (Revolution, Rage, type 4 and V) along with new cars and tracks. And to compare it to any other handheld driving game was very unfair on the competition, the bright, bold colours on the sensational PSP screen was truly a futuristic feeling experience. And in my pocket!
The soundtrack was also immense with a few classics in amongst some great new songs and the game was absolutely perfect for my journeys at the time being short enough to play in chunks and with a real sense of progression.
Arcades had come full circle - we would no longer travel to arcades play games, we would play arcade style games while travelling. Ten years after the PlayStation changed the living room, it could do the same for the train home[2].
Rez - As immersive a music game as I have played.
R-Type - The classic horizontal shooter.
Rodland - In the style of Bubble Bobble, brightly coloured and very Japanese and cute.
1. The Playstation Portable is, I think, the only games console that I have bought truly at launch - going to a late night opening at my local games store in 2004. I did not even want one until TGS 2004 which completely turned my view on the machine with a very strong showing by Sony.↩
2. And the train home was kind of needed for this. This meant that portable gaming really exploded in Japan and elsewhere, not so much. Commuting created that market.↩
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