Ridge Racer
by Namco
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Our Price: $16.99 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $5.99 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Ridge Racer
Customer Review: Tremendous game
Summary: 5 Stars
This is obviously a tremendous "Ridge Racer" game in all-time period. Although PSP is much smaller than PS2, it has the good graphics that every people want. The game itself is good and exciting. It provides all the circuits that I played before from 12 years ago in 1993 to 2000 (10/26/2000). For the circuits, I still like the short circuit from Ridge Racer 1 because "it never gets old." Sounds true, huh? So, no matter what, this is the game, baby!! :)Customer Review: A little warning
Summary: 3 Stars
I rate how much I like video games by how much I enjoy it and by how long it takes to win. Ridge Racer is addicting, and I spent plenty of time on it, but found that I'd unlocked all the tours in less than five days. It's hard to win all the tours, though, so that might keep me occupied for a while. Still, many would find it discouraging to go around the same track over and over and over. If you can rent it or borrow it from a friend, do so. If you can only buy it, go for it, but be ready to want to trade it in after a few weeks.Customer Review: Stunning
Summary: 5 Stars
I made an impulsive decision yesterday by buying the PSP. Just in case you didn't know, I'm from Singapore, and Sony only officially launched the"ultimate portable gaming console" at this part of the world yesterday. I walked past the shop, took a look at the demo, and took out my credit card.
Going home together with me is the inaugural title for the PSP, the racing classic Ridge Racer. I've played the game on my wife's colleague's parallel-imported PSP some months ago, and was pretty impressed by the look of things. But it was only when I had the time to finally take on the game on a more prolonged duration, that I fully appreciate the beauty of it. And it is, as I mentioned, just beautiful.
The thing that immediately captures your attention is obviously the graphics. Fantastic is an understatement when it comes to how good Ridge Racer looks. Even when you're primarily focused on the road while racing, you can't help but notice the amazingly detailed background. For one, your races will take you thought different hours of the day, which means you'll come across the brightness of the day, as well as the cosiness of sunset. During different courses, you may also notice an airplane flying above you; or see yourself driving past an awe-inspiring lake; or a crowd of spectators cheering you on... you get the idea.
The graphics also put a lot of emphasis on speed. So when you're bursting down the road at 240km/h in a tunnel, you'll find the background fading away in a blur to create a sense of speed. The best part, however, is that the frame rate never seems to skip a beat despite the extensive graphics. Having the screen freezing for moments while I go side-by-side with a rival car in other racing games (such as Burnout) on the PS2 is definitely not a problem for the PSP and Ridge Racer.
You've a few options to approach the game, while single events like Single Race and Time Attack may be a good training ground for newbies, you'd expect to spend most of your time unlocking new tracks and cars in the World Tour mode. The earlier tours are relatively easy to pass, but from what I heard, it just get tougher as it goes, so expect to redo races a lot of times as you progress. Oh, and did I mention you can have a wireless racing session with your friends if they also own the PSP?
The controls are relatively standard. You've the X button for acceleration, and Square Button for brakes. If you're using the manual gear, the Triangle button shifts a gear up, and the Circle Button shifts a gear down. The "L" button switches between first and third person view, and the "R" button activates the nitro you earn while doing power drifts during corners. Oh, and you also control the direction using the D-Pad, but I'm sure you already know that. The controls make reduce the need for any tedious learning curve, and make sure that you can start right away to do the thing that you bought the game. That is, to play!
Now, the next big thing for this game. The audios. If you're played earlier renditions of Ridge Racer, you should have knowledge of how cool the soundtrack, er, sounds. You get some rehashed tracks, as well as new tracks that really make it a joy to listen while you take on the competition. You'll also get to select from different playlists, so you're by no means stuck with what you don't like. An archive is also available for you to listen to remixes of old Ridge Racer tracks. Now, for the nostalgic fan, this is really a cool idea.
On the whole, Ridge Racer is a testament to how good a game can be on the PSP. If you're not a Ridge Racer fan, you may not enjoy it as much as those who're. Still, you can't deny that the graphics and audios in this game are worth another look. It's a pity that the sound couldn't do better, due to the limitations of the console itself. Listening to music on the PSP without earphones is like listening to a badly tuned FM receiver in my opinion, but then again, earphones are provided! Anyhow, I'd highly recommend Ridge Racer for fans of the racing genre, if only just to enjoy the beauty of the game's aesthetics.
Customer Review: They tricked me!
Summary: 5 Stars
I first loaded up this game and this cheeseball old version of ridge racer came up. My temper began to boil and i was livid! I just payed fourty bucks for this piece a????? But after realizing it was just an interactive front to the real game I continued on and one of the must stunning game intros began to play that I have ever seen, let alone on a portable game device.
Gameplay is fairly simple. You move left to right, accelerate, brake, and drift. Great part is, the more you drift the more nitrous you build up. You dont have to burden yourself with tweaking your car in the pit. Theres pretty much just a handful of cars to start and as you race along and beat computer opponents, more cars become available. Oh, there is a manual and auto tranny option.
Stunning graphics and exciting gameplay await. Ridge runner is a must have game for the PSP.
Customer Review: 3-2-1 Go!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best looking game I have seen so far on the PSP. The animation is very smooth and the controls are pretty tight. Racing on the amateur tracks is pretty forgiving which helps you gain familarity with the tracks and with drifts (the speed and duration of drift turns are how you accumulate nitro) and gets very challenging at the pro levels where just one or two mistakes will lose the race.
As noted, there are quite a few amateur and pro level tracks with more available as you continue to win races. Winning races also grants access to new cars and tracks. There are time trials and single race challenges as well as a career mode. Also the original Ridge Racer is available and will bring a smile to older gamers. As with most racing games, the full replay after the race is usually entertaining and offers some minor perspective in tightening up some problem spots. Music is generally techno and appropriate to the heart pounding pace.
I have not tried it yet, but racing against someone via wifi should be great fun... and my understanding is that since the game resides in memory, once the race has been loaded, you can swap out the disk so you'll only need one umd for a race among several participating PSP's. That's a helpful.
This really is fantastic (graphically, animation, gameplay) game for the PSP and well worth owning.