- Acceleration and braking based on the pressure you put on the buttons.
Product description
-------------------
Experience all-new race car excitement on the powerful
PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system with Ridge Racer V.
Namco delivers its phenomenal racing series with more energy,
bigger thrills and superb gameplay.
The asphalt of Ridge City is once again thundering with
high-speed action and palm-sweating competition. The checkered
is flying and so are the cars. Amazingly detailed visuals,
from the glowing of heated brake pads to the smoldering of tires
in a power-slide, will have you captivated as the battle for
supremacy races on. It's all about speed, power, and control.
With Ridge Racer V, your search for unforgiving racing intensity
is over.
Review
------
The original Ridge Racer was the meat in Sony's launch sandwich
when the original PlayStation hit the U.S. The arcade driving
game came home and introduced console gamers to the next big
thing. But today, those halcyon days seem like ancient history.
As the Ridge Racer series evolved, it became much more than a
simple arcade port, adding more tracks and cars, and refining the
game's trademark powerslide style of driving. The last
installment of the game, Ridge Racer Type 4, really seemed to be
as good as the series could get on the existing hardware.
Thankfully, Sony has come along with a new box, and Namco is
keeping pace with a new Ridge Racer game. But Ridge Racer V all
but ignores most of the gameplay refinements that the series has
seen over the years, returning to the general driving style of
games like Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution.
Graphically, Ridge Racer V is the most impressive of the
PlayStation2 launch games. The game looks like the other Ridge
Racer games, but without all the pop-up and pixelated vehicles
and environments. Little things like trees on the sides of the
track, and the glow that emanates from your red-hot brake pads as
you brake while driving around corners really bring a lot to the
look of the game. You can even see the gauges inside your car
light up when your headlights come on in a tunnel or while
night-driving. The cars are well designed, and the environment
ping that creates the almost-too-shiny reflection on your car
is pretty amazing. The display isn't flawless, though. The entire
game has a very aliased appearance, making the edges of the cars
and tracks look really jagged. The better your TV is, the more
noticeable the aliasing becomes. Also, there are some seemingly
random moments of slowdown, but it's rare and only occurs for
less than a second. The game still sports only two camera angles,
a first-person and third-person view. The third-person view is
much tighter and closer to your vehicle than in the previous
games, and it takes a bit of getting used to. The two-player mode
runs at roughly the same speed as the single-player game, though
the draw-in distance is a bit closer in the splitscreen mode,
making the two-player races look a bit foggy.
The gameplay in Ridge Racer V is centered on the grand-prix
mode. This is the mode that will net you additional cars,
trophies, and new engines. You start out by picking one of three
difficulty settings and entering the standard grand prix. Then
you go on to the extra mode, a collection of four grand-prix
events. Standard mode lets you pick any one of the game's
base-level cars, then as you progress with that car into the
extra ranks you'll earn upgraded versions of that base car. The
track design is pretty standard Ridge Racer fare. Each track uses
lots of the same portions of road, and certain sections of track
will open or close depending on which track variant you're
racing. This makes all the tracks seem a little too similar and
limits the game's replay value. As in R4, the final track is an
oval-shaped racetrack built for sheer speed. Another knock
against the track design is that a lot of the sections are lifted
from, or at least heavily influenced by, the track from the
original Ridge Racer. You'll recognize the tunnels and turns the
first time you see them. It would have been nice to see multiple
environments and a more varied track design instead of being
limited to racing the tracks both forward and backward.
The car handling is similar to that of the older Ridge Racer
games in that it places a much heavier emphasis on powersliding
around corners so you can traverse the tracks at high speeds. The
sliding is emphasized by reducing the turning radius on most of
the game's cars, which all feel a little sluggish when you're
maneuvering back and forth across the lanes, when compared with
any of the previous games in the series. Even the grip cars
require you to do a decent a of sliding around turns. The
drift cars lose traction at the blink of an eye and really force
you to play to perfection. Luckily, the control is excellent with
the Dual Shock 2, and the game supports both of Namco's driving
controllers, the Negcon and the Jogcon. The game uses the analog
buttons of the Dual Shock 2, but it's extremely hard to notice
when the analog and braking make a difference. Some of the
later drift cars in the game seem to slide a bit differently
depending on how hard you tap the brake button.
The sound effects in Ridge Racer V are pretty nice. The
squealing tires and engine noise of the cars sound realistic. The
game has an announcer similar to the ones in the previous games,
but he repeats himself a little too often (for instance, he
almost always says, "That was tight" whenever you pass the
second- or first-place car) and mispronounces a few words, like
"comfort" and "rookie." It's almost funny.
The music has always been a large part of the Ridge Racer
series, and Ridge Racer V offers up a bit more of a mixed bag
than usual. Rather than sticking solely to various forms of
electronic music, RRV delivers some poppier tunes from the Boom
Boom Satellites, as well as some pretty hot techno numbers. One
of the best tracks is the music that plays in the menus before
the race actually starts.
Ridge Racer V is a fun, great-looking game that will please older
Ridge Racer fans. Players that picked up the series around the
third or fourth game may be a little disappointed with the way
the cars handle, but not so much that their fun will be ruined.
Overall, the game feels a little rushed with its easy-way-out
track design, and it's our hope that Namco will attempt to
address the aliasing and slowdown issues before the game is
released in the States later this year. --Jeff Gerstmann
--Copyright ©2000 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
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