''Ridge Racer'', released in Japan as , is an

arcade racing 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 ...

video game developed 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 Portable. It is named after the

eponymous An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

Ridge Racer is a racing video game series developed and published for arcade systems and home game consoles by Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Namco. The first game, '' Ridge Racer'' (1993), was originally released in arcades for the Namco System 22 ...

'' video game series to which it belongs. The game was released in Japan on 12 December 2004, in North America on 24 March 2005, and in Europe and Australia on 1 September as a

launch title This list includes terms used in video games and the video game industry, as well as slang used by players. 0–9 A ...

. Available in the game is a fully playable version of the Namco arcade game ''

New Rally-X is a maze chase arcade video game released by Namco in 1981. It is a lightly tweaked version of 1980's ''Rally-X'', with slightly enhanced graphics, easier gameplay, a new soundtrack, and a "Lucky Flag" that gives the player extra points for r ...

''. ''Ridge Racer'' has been described as a 'compilation' of the series, featuring tracks, cars and remixed soundtrack from previous titles in the 1990s. ''Ridge Racer'' was very well received by critics and was praised for its visuals, gameplay and soundtrack. It was re-released in 2005/2006 as a platinum title. A sequel titled ''

Ridge Racer 2 is an arcade racing game that was released by Namco in 1994 for their System 22 hardware. Despite its name, ''Ridge Racer 2'' is more of an updated version of ''Ridge Racer'' (which had been released in the previous year), than an actual sequ ...

'' has also been released for the PSP.

Gameplay

The core aspect of the entire ''

'' series is drift racing, that is traditional lap racing against opponents with the added twist of intentionally

oversteer Understeer and oversteer are vehicle dynamics terms used to describe the sensitivity of a vehicle to steering. Oversteer is what occurs when a car turns (steers) by more than the amount commanded by the driver. Conversely, understeer is what occ ...

ing and sliding the car through sharp corners and turns, known as "drifting", which earns the player several bonuses during a race. Game modes are ''World Tour'', ''Single race'', ''Time Trial'', and ''Wireless Battle'', which supports up to 8 player

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system ( couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

over the PSP's ''ad hoc'',

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

network capability (see PSP Wireless Networking for further information). The game also features a full motion video opening, that shows series mascot

Reiko Nagase is a virtual idol fictional character in Namco's '' Ridge Racer'' series of racing video games who is its most prominent race queen and one of Namco's mascot characters. Reiko has first appeared in '' Rave Racer'' in 1995, before her official in ...

Nitrous

Notable in the game is the "

nitrous A Nitrous Oxide Engine, or Nitrous Oxide System commonly referred to and known as NOS, is an internal combustion engine in which oxygen for burning the fuel comes from the decomposition of nitrous oxide, N2O, rather than air. The system incre ...

boost" system. The player has a ''Nitrous Gauge'' made up of three nitrous tanks, which at the start of a race are either completely depleted or only partially full. As the player drifts through the corners (especially at very high

slip angle In vehicle dynamics, slip angle or sideslip angle is the angle between the direction in which a wheel is pointing and the direction in which it is actually traveling (i.e., the angle between the forward velocity vector v_x and the vector su ...

s) during the race, their nitrous gauge fills up. When the player fills up one of the three nitrous tanks, it can be activated to achieve a temporary speed boost. The nitrous tanks cannot be recharged while any tank is in use though, but the residual speed increase when the nitrous boost expires can be used just before entering corners to recharge the player's nitrous tanks at a faster rate than normal.

Music

The music in the game is a collection of new songs and songs taken from previous ''Ridge Racer'' games, arranged across several "discs". The "Red" and "Blue" discs contain all-new songs put together specifically for the game while the two "Classic" discs contains a collection of

remastered Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

songs from ''Ridge Racer'' titles. Lastly, the "Remix" disc contains songs from past titles remixed by their original composers.

Red Disc

# Highride # Warp Trooper # Bassrider # Pulse Phaze # Chrome Drive # Synthetic Life

Blue Disc

# Disco Ball # Night Stream # Light Groove # Vanishing Horizon # Tunnel Visionary # Tek Trek

Remix Disc

# Rotterdam Nation Remix - from the PlayStation titles, ''Ridge Racer'' and ''Ridge Racer Revolution''. # Speedster Remix - from the PlayStation titles, ''Ridge Racer'' and ''Ridge Racer Revolution''. # Drive U 2 Dancing Remix - from the arcade title ''Ridge Racer 2'' and the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Revolution''. # Rareheroes - featured in many past ''Ridge Racer'' titles. # Blue Topaz Remix - from the arcade title, ''Rave Racer''. # Motor Species Remix - from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Type 4''.

Classic Disc 1

# Ridge Racer - A remastered version of the title tune from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer''. # Grip - from the arcade title, ''Ridge Racer 2'', and the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Revolution''. # Euphoria - from the arcade title, ''Rave Racer''. # Silver Stream - from the PlayStation title, ''Rage Racer''. # Naked Glow - from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Type 4'' # Your Vibe - from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Type 4''.

Classic Disc 2

# Move Me - from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Type 4''. # Movin' in Circles - from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Type 4''. # Eat 'Em Up! - from the PlayStation title, ''Ridge Racer Type 4'' (this was a secret track acquired along with the ''Pac-Man'' car after unlocking all 320 of the cars featured in the game). # TsuiTsui - from the PlayStation 2 title, ''Ridge Racer V''. # Samurai Rocket - from the PlayStation 2 title, ''Ridge Racer V''. # Daredevil - from the PlayStation 2 title, ''Ridge Racer V''.

Reception

''Ridge Racer'' 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 ...

. Its graphical ability and visuals were incredible on a portable device in 2004, and it was further praised for its gameplay, soundtrack (which also consisted of remixed tracks from older ''Ridge Racer'' titles) and multiplayer option. ''PALGN'' praised the game's graphics and the gameplay and considered the best ''Ridge Racer'' title for PSP. GameBiz also held similar sentiment 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 two eights and two nines for a total of 34 out of 40.

References

External links

* {{Ridge Racer series 2004 video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Multiplayer online games Namco games PlayStation Portable games PlayStation Portable-only games Racing video games Ridge Racer Sony Interactive Entertainment games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Yuu Miyake