Ridge Racer Preview

Very few consoles launch with a killer app. In recent memory, only Halo on the Xbox and going further back, Ridge Racer on the PlayStation and Mario 64 on the N64, can truly be classed as killer launch titles. Nintendo was an established player, but would the other two have faired as well without their killer games? At the time the PlayStation was stepping into a fight with some established players, and the same was true for the Xbox. Today, PlayStation is the dominant force in home consoles, but in the handheld market Nintendo reign supreme. Can Ridge Racer repeat what it did ten years earlier? We think so.

Ridge Racers takes twelve tracks from the entire series (along with their reversed forms), spruces up the visuals, includes an awesome soundtrack and implements a control scheme that feels perfect. WOW moments don’t come along all that often, but from the moment your PSP is powered on, your mouth remains open, jaw locked, in utter amazement. It is hard to explain how special it feels, almost as if you are playing something many years ahead of its time.

Anyone familiar with the series will feel right at home from the moment you start playing, gliding around the tracks with the kind of style that only Outrun 2 can hold a candle to. Once you’ve calmed down and realize that you aren’t dreaming, the World Tour will be the focus for most of your play time. Spread out over three classes, each including many championships, this mode will not be easy to complete. As you progress new cars are unlocked along with various collectables such as novelty vehicles and video clips. We aren’t talking Gran Turismo levels of depth here, but there is more than enough for an arcade racer.

While the additions to the series are little, Ridge Racers does introduce speed boosts. Diehard fans may well be crying into their pillows at the thought of their beloved series being bastardized in such a way, with cries of “Die EA die” being heard through the still night air, but these worries would be unnecessary. The boosts work well and when used correctly can give you the edge over an opponent. Power sliding round a tight corner after boosting in a top class car is quite a thrill, as is timing your boost perfectly, taking the lead inches from the finish. Purists will probably still bemoan their inclusion, but they do make the game more fun.

Time attack and single race are also available if you tire of the World Tour’s structure, and WiFi link-up is available for up to Eight players. We haven’t been able to test this out, but when racing against A.I. is this much fun, taking on some mates is sure to raise more than a smile. Unlike Ridge Racer DS, all participants will require a copy of the game, but being the key launch title, the majority of PSP owners should pick this up.

If there is a game to convince you of the handheld’s power, this is it. Running at an almost constant silky smooth framerate, with colours that burst out of the screen, this is a stunning looking game. While anyone who claims the game looks PS2 quality is probably getting a little carried away, visuals this good, on a device this small, on a screen this crisp and bright are hard to take in. When you consider that this is a launch title that probably had a relatively small development period, with a lot of work not being done on final hardware, the future of the machine is looking very good indeed.

The soundtrack perfectly suits the game, giving you the adrenaline rush that can be associated with all the true Ridge Racer games. Sound quality through the unit’s speakers is excellent, but headphones will give even better results, as with all games on the console. Battery life is an issue that had many people concerned. With the screen brightness set to full and sound set to a clearly audible level from the speakers, the battery held up for four hours. When no more juice remains the unit switches to sleep mode, so you can resume your game where you left off, either after a charge or by running the PSP off the mains.

Anyone looking to import the game from Japan can do so, with very little getting in the way for non Japanese speaking gamers. Even though there is little English in the game, navigating around the menus is pretty simple and pictures accompany most of the options, giving you an idea of what everything does. There is no question that we have on occasion not known what we were doing, but it is not enough to prevent the game from being perfectly playable. A victim of our lack of Japanese knowledge was our game save. Not being able to understand that we could only have one save, we overwrote our save on two occasions. This was a little annoying, but playing through the early tracks again was hardly a chore.

Ridge Racers is a game that could change the handheld market. Nothing on any handheld has ever made this much of an impact on me. People who have been disinterested in handheld gaming will suddenly take notice when the PSP is released in Europe and Ridge Racers will be one of the key games, convincing them that home console quality has made its way to a portable gaming device.