racing game
Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic ra ...
developed and published by
Namco
was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Namco Taiwan in Kaohsiung, ...
for the PlayStation 2, and was a launch game for that platform. Focusing on high-speed drift racing in the fictional Ridge City, the game features 7 courses, 15 vehicles and 6 modes of play.
Gameplay
In ''Ridge Racer V'' the player is a racing driver taking part in events across Ridge City in a variety of fictional cars. The focus is on accessible and fun driving rather than simulating how a car behaves in the real world; as such the player is encouraged to powerslide around most corners by tapping the brake when entering the turn. Racing on RRV is divided into different race formats. The primary mode is Grand Prix, a series of structured championships completion of which rewards the player with new cars. Other modes include
Time Attack
Time attack is a type of motorsport in which the racers compete for the best lap time. Each vehicle is timed through numerous circuits of the track. The racers make a preliminary circuit, then run the timed laps, and then finish with a cool-dow ...
, a long distance endurance race called the 99 Trial and free runs on any of the unlocked courses. Two players can also take part in a split-screen race against one another. A special race is unlocked after the player fulfills certain requirements: it features the arcade game characters Pac-Man in a roadster and Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde on scooters. Winning this race unlocks special duel class cars for use in other game modes. Duel class cars can be won by defeating bosses in the game's Duel mode after fulfilling certain requirements. After all 4 bosses are defeated in Duel mode, Battle Royal is unlocked, allow the player to choose any duel class cars and challenge all 4 bosses in a boss rush race (including ones the player have selected).
Development
Kohta Takahashi served as the sound director and lead composer of ''Ridge Racer V'', who was previously involved as one of the composers of '' R4: Ridge Racer Type 4''. To create an "exciting new experience", he brought in Japanese electronic music duo
Boom Boom Satellites
were a Japanese electronic music duo consisting of guitarist and vocalist Michiyuki Kawashima and bassist and programmer Masayuki Nakano. They were signed to Sony Music Entertainment Japan, with whom they had released all of their albums in Japa ...
,
Takeshi Ueda
is the bassist, programmer, additional vocalist and songwriter for The Mad Capsule Markets.Mijk van Dijk, along with Namco composers
Nobuyoshi Sano
, better known as sanodg, is a Japanese video game composer, musician and record producer. He is best known for scoring tracks for the ''Ridge Racer'' and '' Tekken'' series, as well as ''Drakengard''.
Biography
Early life
In elementary schoo ...
,
Yuu Miyake
is a Japanese composer and sound engineer formally for Bandai Namco Entertainment. His most known work surfaced with ''Katamari Damacy'' soundtracks, on which he served as a sound director. Other notable works include various tracks in the ''Tekke ...
, and Yoshinori Kawamoto, to contribute music to the game. This resulted in the game having a diverse soundtrack, including genres such as
trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
, death metal and breakbeat.
Takahashi connected with external artists via Toru Nagamine of Sony Music. Van Dijk felt honored to work on the game, as was already a fan of the ''Ridge Racer'' series, as well as
the first game
''The First Game'' is a painting by Arnold Friberg, and was commissioned in 1968 by Chevrolet Motor Division as one of four paintings to commemorate the then-upcoming centennial celebration of college football in the United States. It depicts ...
's ability to swap the music by replacing the CD in the PlayStation, where he raced to his own music tracks. To ensure that his music fit with the game, he played ''R4: Ridge Racer Type 4'' while composing the tracks in his studio.
Arcade
''Ridge Racer V: Arcade Battle'', the arcade port of ''Ridge Racer V'', first appeared in 2001 for the
Namco System 246
The Namco System 246 is a development of the Sony PlayStation 2 technology as a basis for an arcade system board. It was released in December 2000 on its first game ''Bloody Roar 3''. Like the Sega NAOMI, it is widely licensed for use by other manu ...
arcade platform. The arcade version has some features such as Duel, Free Run and Pac-Man GP removed. It was the last ''Ridge Racer'' game for arcades until ''Pachislot Ridge Racer'', which was a
pachislot
A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine (Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively a ...
game released seven years later (and the last traditional racing game for that market).
Reception
The PS2 version received "generally favorable reviews" according to the
review aggregation
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
. Jeff Lundrigan of '' NextGen'', however, said that his quote "bears repeating: 'Like its predecessors, ''Ridge Racer V'' will amaze you with flashy graphics and a great sense of speed. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of meat under the basic shell of the game.'" In Japan, ''
Famitsu
formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the f ...
'' gave it a score of one nine, one ten, one eight, and one nine for a total of 36 out of 40.
Also in Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed the arcade version in their February 1, 2001 issue as the second most-successful dedicated arcade game of the year.
The PlayStation 2 version was a runner-up for "Racing Game of 2000" in both Editors' Choice and Readers' Choice at ''
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...