TGS 2005: Ridge Racer 6 Hands-On

TOKYO--Typically, the official, numbered Ridge Racer games have debuted on Sony's game consoles, while other systems ended up with games like Ridge Racer 64 or, in the case of the PSP, just Ridge Racer. For the first time, Namco is bringing a full-on all-new Ridge Racer game to a non-Sony platform with Ridge Racer 6. Though the version being shown at the Tokyo Game Show 2005 doesn't have much to it, it already seems like it fufills most of the requirements on the Ridge Racer checklist.

And what, exactly, is on that checklist? OK, let's see. Car named after another Namco franchise? Check--the one car in the demo is called the Mitsurugi Meltfire. Planes and helicopters constantly flying overhead? Though we saw only one track, that track was full of aircraft. That one track, called Harborline 765, also has a classic Ridge Racer design, complete with bridges, windy curves, tunnels, and so on. There's an English-speaking announcer popping off all kinds of nonsense. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the game plays precisely how you'd expect a Ridge Racer game to play. It's got the same sort of "on-rails" style to its drifting, where breaking the wheels loose with a quick tap of the brakes causes you to automatically whip around even the tightest of hairpin curves. The game also takes a cue from the PSP Ridge Racer game by giving you a three-stage boost meter, which fills as you drift.

The race being shown was a time attack event, so there were no other racers or traffic on the course. The game's track and car design fit right into the standard Ridge Racer aesthetic, though the overall visual quality of everything has been bumped up a bit. The game already has a good, smooth frame rate, and it manages to convey high speed pretty well.

So far, Ridge Racer 6 seems to play precisely how you would expect a Ridge Racer game to play. We'll have to wait and see what else Namco has up its sleeve to find out if there are any new twists to the long-running race formula.