Ridge Racer for the PSP stands as a phenominally fun, deep, and intense racing game, regardless of platform.
User Rating: 8.7 | Ridge Racer PSP
Namco's Ridge Racer has made a tradition of splashing in on Sony's hardware launches since the original PlayStation, showing off technical prowess and bringing the classic Ridge Racer racing style to each new generation as it passes. By this time, gamers who are interested in this series are simply expecting a good game of Ridge Racer on the go, and you'll be happy to know that this game fits that bill well, and then some. Ridge Racer for the PSP stands as a phenomenally fun, deep, and intense racing game, regardless of platform. Ridge Racer is a unique style of racing game, to say the least. The game manages to portray enough realism to bring the player into the experience, but still exaggerates enough with handling and speed to be more entertaining than its simulation-racing counterparts. Though the game will undoubtedly be compared to games like Gran Turismo and TOCA Race Driver, Ridge Racer really is just about as unlike these games as you can get. In most racing games, cornering is a chore which must be handled slowly and delicately, and though this is done to conserve realism, it's not really all that much fun for anyone but the most intense fans. Ridge Racer completely ignores the laws of physics and inertia, allowing you to skid around corners as if your car were held to the track by a magnet. Just a quick release from the accelerator, then punching it again is enough to send you into a drift in most corners, making the brakes widely unnecessary. Most of this game's fun lies in finding unique ways to skid through a series of turns and twists without losing speed. As a matter of fact, drifting plays a large part in a new aspect of the Ridge Racer gameplay: nitro boost. Your car is equipped with three nitro tanks, and these tanks charge while your vehicle is in a skid. Once a tank becomes full, pressing the right shoulder button will give you a huge, but temporary, boost in speed. So, you'll likely find yourself throwing your car into a skid, even on turns that don't necessarily require it, more often to build up for a speed boost. Aside from the normal single race mode, Ridge Racer for the PSP features a World Tour mode which borrows tracks, cars, and even music from all the other games in the Ridge Racer series. It is designed to allow you experience all the best aspects from the other installments in the new graphics engine. These tours focus on different parts of gameplay and track style, and are great to play in one long sitting or just one at a time in spurts. You can even create your own tour, highlighting your favorite tracks. Completing these tours will unlock new and higher series cars, tracks, and more. Though you start off with the slower series 1 cars, as you progress through the World Tour mode you'll unlock faster, better handling, and higher classed cars. You'll also unlock new tracks along the way, though many of them will share similarities with tracks you've already raced on. As a matter of fact, most of the new tracks you unlock are just different parts of tracks you already had, or the track played in reverse. This can make it appear that there's only a handful of tracks since most of them share the same blacktop. This really is minor as you'll be unlocking new cars and such too often to care. The list of things to unlock is staggering, and you'll begin to question if you will ever see everything the game has to offer, or if there really should be so many unlockables in a portable game. Ridge Racer PSP really does a good job continuing its namesake with new features but still falling back on the things that make it so successful. Alternatively, since the game borrows so heavily from the other installments, you'll also notice unfortunately similar trends in your opponents from earlier Ridge Racer titles. They're just not all that hard. They don't do much to block your attempts to pass them, and they very rarely even pass each other. You'll feel like you're the only racer really trying to finish the race. Well, that is until some of the later stages of the world tour. The difficulty takes a ramp up, but that's really only because the speed takes a big ramping as well. The AI never really gets any smarter, and all the cars still follow their own lines, but even that can't spoil the fun of this game. The AI isn't necessarily smart, but can still prove to be a challenge from time to time in the faster cars and tracks. In case you didn't notice, Ridge Racer PSP looks fantastic, by any platform's standard. The environments are very well detailed and interesting to look at, and the frame rate never seems to stutter, which helps maintain to great sense of speed. Though the car models aren't as detailed as the environments, there is never a time where a graphical fault will distract you from the frenetically fast-paced action of the race, and that's an accomplishment on a portable, especially one as young as the PSP. Plus, even with that fault, the game still looks good even by the home consoles' standards. Though this isn't the primary draw of the game (or at least it shouldn't be), it just adds to an already good package. Alongside the gobs of content pakced into this game, there also seems to be room on the UMD for a fantastic soundtrack. There are several different playlists to choose from, each about the length of a standard CD. There are brand new tracks, remixes of old tracks, tracks directly ripped from the old games, and everything in between. Most of the music has a clean techno/rock feel that blends in very well with the gameplay, much of it reminiscent of the rhythmic Jet Grind Radio. The controls are surprisingly responsive, even when played using the PSP's makeshift analog stick, but the game plays equally as smoothly on the D-pad. Aside from acceleration and braking, you also have a nitro boost button, and a button to change between the first-person to the third-person behind-the-car views. The game's controls are very logical, and require no real adjustment that takes longer than a few minutes of play to pick up. Ridge Racer makes good use of the PSP's wireless function, taking full advantage of both ad hoc player-to-player connections and infrastructure connections to an internet-connected router or access point. The game really shines in this respect as you get the same action you've experienced single player mode but with real, live opponents. Really just about anybody with considerable skill will prove to be a challenge compared to the AI, which stands true for most games of this nature. So, whether you're trash-talking at your local EB, or seeking a more anonymous challenge, Ridge Racer's multiplayer features can deliver. Overall, Ridge Racer for the PSP is a very polished, complete arcade racing experience, and the fact that you can play it on the go only sweetens the pot. Its few issues such as repetitive tracks, less-than-stellar car modeling, and weak AI can be easily overlooked in favor of its pure gameplay and plentiful replay value. If you're not a fan of Ridge Racer's trademark slip-n-slide style of gameplay, there's nothing here that's likely to change your mind. However, if you're part of the majority of players just looking for a good racer, Ridge Racer is great choice. -Jeremy Yerby
