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"content": "\n\n---\nRacing games. When you hear or read those two words next to each other, most people outside of the genre would think of something rather safe, sedate and outwardly, uncaringly stale. Games like Gran Turismo 7 or Forza Motorsport 8 immediately come to mind, or perhaps something like Assetto Corsa, RFactor2 or iRacing if they've heard of the hardcore sim scene on PC. Games that, while passable, don't do anything to entice people who aren't already into cars and real-life motorsport, nothing that appeals to the average person on a gut level. Games that, even if they did, are devoid of meaningful structure, a vibrant character, or even just something new and exciting. But, from the 5th console generation through to the 7th, that couldn't be further from the truth.\n\nAs time marches on and people become more and more disillusioned with the modern, online-only slop dystopia that now plagues this troubled genre, people are re-acquainting themselves with the legends of the past. Games like Need for Speed Most Wanted, Gran Turismo 4, Split-Second, Burnout Legends, Midnight Club 3, even some more out-there ones like F-Zero GX and Scud Race. The racing genre has seen some renewed interest, not from the games that lead the charge on the modern front, but from the games that laid the groundwork. Games that, while flawed in a great many ways, are long-lasting, fulfilling experiences with plenty to see and do, much more than their successors. More than anything, they've reasons to exist that make their players form lifelong attachments to them, an identity, a beating heart, a soul. And, to me at least, no racing series exemplifies this special relationship between the player and the game more than namco's Ridge Racer.\n\nSince its first incarnation in 1993, Ridge Racer was at the forefront of technology and artistry for over 10 years, from its Arcade beginnings, to its tragic and unceremonious departure. A series of racing games that consistently tapped into pop culture and transformed it into a wholesome, dreamlike pastiche that pushed the limits of graphics technology to immerse you in its artistic vision, and provided instant, accessible and visceral Arcade gameplay. And of course, its music, often so sublime that it could make someone like me, \"Mr. Jazz Fusion and Prog-Rock\", form a deep appreciation for electronic dance genres like house, techno, jungle and drum n bass.\n\nThey were flawed, like many racing games were back then, but much like their contemporaries, their problems melted away like magic when you immersed yourself in what they did best. And being such a long-running series with over a dozen entries, there's bound to be things that some entries do better than others, controls, art style, graphics, music, structure, features, etc. So many ups and downs over the series historic run that set each entry apart in ways that make it legitimately difficult to pick a favourite. You may like one's art style and music, but you may prefer another's mechanics, but then this other one has the longest, most complete campaign in the series that's too enticing to refuse, with your favouritism ping-ponging back and forth nonstop.\n\nI know I've experienced this myself over the years, probably more than most, having played and loved almost every game in the series, even the PS1 version of the original. So let's step through the ones I've played, which happens to be most of the series, game-by-game, taking a deep look into their strengths and weaknesses, and just for fun, I'll be putting them into my own personal tier list (Rank S to Rank F) as I go about writing for each game. They won't be ranked by any \"objective\" metric, as in, how much content they had for the time, or how intuitive and smooth the mechanics are. No, instead, they're going to be ranked purely just by how I feel about each game, just as Ridge Racer games, irrespective of any other racing series, so just keep that in mind as we go through these. Feel free to make your own and share it with me if you like, I'll be interested to see what you put where! :D\n\nSo, start your engines, and catch that rocket start. Let's go!\n\n---\n# Ridge Racer (Arcade: Namco System 22) - 1993\n\n###### --- π WOW, WHAT A START! THIS IS JUST WHAT I WANTED TO SEE! π ---\n###### --- Near the end of the Mountain course, showing a little farm ---\nRidge Racer, the debut entry from 1993, is still to this day such a lovely slice of the Arcade. I've already spoken quite a bit about this game already, [in this here video I made in another life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WxE5v8xJsg), but with the amount of time that's passed since then, my opinion on this version of this game is at least slightly different, we'll get into that later.\n\nIt's namco's first game on their System 22 board, a bit of kit that earns a legendary status just from being the birthplace of this and Time Crisis alone, and is one of the last examples of an Arcade board of its kind. The kind that was custom-built by the manufacturer to be the most powerful games machine on the planet that far and away outclassed contemporary home consoles and PCs. At the time, it certainly would've felt space-age, given it was capable of more detailed, cleaner 3D graphics than the PlayStation, which would launch with Ridge Racer itself just over a year later.\n\nAnd with that tech, namco crafted such a lovingly detailed world that, for its time, feels like it could be a real Japanese street race. You start in what looks like a pretty normal stor Forza Motorsport 8 immediately come to mind, or perhaps something like Assetto Corsa, RFactor2 or iRacing if they've heard of the hardcore sim scene on PC. Games that, while passable, don't do anything to entice people who aren't already into cars and real-life motorsport, nothing that appeals to the average person on a gut level. Garting grid, with grandstands, sponsored crash walls and everything. (Which is quite an interesting dissonance between the game's inspiration, illegal street racing, and its setting. You're drift racing on public roads like an illegal street race, but it's technically a fully-legal, officially-sanctioned racing event in-universe, but I digress). \n\nAfter you leave the grid, you make your way through a miniature version of a big city highway system, then through tunnels bringing you to a bridge atop a mountainside, before a small coastal town with a giant hotel looming large over the landscape, and so on. It makes you feel like you're taking a long journey through the best slices of Japan, even if the size of the course itself is pretty small, with a little suspension of disbelief, it's a very special, fictionalised take on the Japanese street racing experience.\n\n\n\n###### ---- The coastal section of the Ridge Racer course, also showcasing its time of day changes ---\n\nThere's a lot more where that came from, SO many little details are all over the place. If you look closely, you can see trucks on the highways above the start of the track, there's a construction site near the end of the course, with a moving excavator, boats out to sea on the water, birds that fly around the hotel, etc. When you take the time to take a very very close look at just what they've crammed into this world, you really appreciate how much effort they put into making it feel as real and alive as possible, like this is a real place that you yourself could actually go to. It really does everything it can to jump out at you and leave an impression that'll stay with you for a long, long time. I know it certainly has with me.\n\n\n###### ---- The near-end of the course, showing a yellow truck hauling street signs around the city ---\n\n---\n\n###### ---- About halfway through the expert version of the course, showing the construction site ---\n\nCompleting this lovely aesthetic experience, is the music, comprised of four techno tracks, one gabber track, and one jazz fusion track. Composed by namco's triple trouble of Ayako Saso, Shinji Hosoe and Nobuyoshi Sano, its absolutely seaping with love and care for the genres it tackles, capturing different vibes that mostly work really really well for this game. For me, the joyful, upbeat Ridge Racer (Track 1), Rare Hero (Track 2) and Feeling Over (Track 3) emphasise the game's vibrant visuals. The more hardcore, unstable sound of songs like Rotterdam Nation (Track 4) and Speedster (Track 5), accentuate the game's controls and the sheer tension that they and the narrow tracks create alongside the race opponents. Track 6, Rhythm Shift, is kinda halfway between those two vibes and isn't as tight in my opinion, but it's still pretty cool all its own.\n\nJust like there's much to see that makes the world feel alive, there's much to *hear* that makes it feel even more alive, call-and-response in the leads, background details that sit *underneath* the lead, strong punchy basslines that accentuate the pounding drum break loops. All of which absolutely break through the speakers in the same way the visuals break through the screen, overwhelming you in the best possible way. They're absolutely choc-full of sampling, in a way that some may find a bit overcooked, maybe even gratuitous, but I personally love it, it feels like a self-aware, loving send up of the genre in that sense. That it knows it's just a video game, knows how silly it is, and doesn't pretend to make a \"serious\" dancefloor track, it just has fun with itself, because it's a video game. And that's what video games do best in my opinion.\n\nWell, I've gone off on one quite a bit about how it looks and sounds, so how does it play? Well this is where things get a slight bit tricky, at least for me. For most other people, I'd say that this game still plays great to this day. The steering, when played on MAME with a gamepad, doesn't have quite the same weight to it that modern racing games do when optimised for a gamepad, but I personally really like it. It's perhaps strangely \"literal\", for lack of a better word, with the car reacting to even the slightest tilt of the stick with such precsion that it almost feels excessive on a modern gamepad. That's not a knock against it, not at all, it's just the way it is, something to keep in mind. If anything, I'd say it's a positive, considering they've tuned it in such a way that, by some cosmic miracle, happens to work so very very well on a gamepad.\n\nWhen it comes to the drifting, it's very easy to whip out at a moment's notice, working just like most arcade racers, tap the brakes while steering to engage a sideways slide through a corner that'll make Keiichi Tsuchiya very proud of you. It's here where, all of a sudden, there actually *is* a slight amount of weight to the cars, you can almost feel the centre of gravity within yourself as you drift, and honestly now that I'm thinking about it, it's a slightly odd clash with the game's steering controls. Not to say it's bad, and like it ruins it, not at all, it's fine, but it is a bit weird now that I think about it. But no matter, because when you're in a drift, listening to the music and staring at the road, it's quite the exhilirating experience, something akin to [\"High-Intensity Zen\"](https://youtu.be/XRF06DpQE0c?si=vWXLZNFDCEwmmCvB&t=400), as I've heard it called.\n\nThe way this game's smooth controls let you slide across corners with grace at ridiculous speeds is like nothing else, it's a pure adrenaline rush, one that'll bring to mind Wangan D and Initial Midnight (never watched them), and get you giddy with excitement. What's interesting about the fundamentals of Ridge Racer is that it doesn't actually want you to power slide around a corner like crazy with smoke coming out the tires at every turn. On the contrary, it actually wants you to drive as clean as possible, sticking to racing lines to make turns easier and to create better setups for drifting. Like I said, you have to play in both a predictive and a reactive manner, you have to predict when to drift, and roughly how to drift, and then react to the car as it gravitiates ever so slightly toward a wall, trying to pull it away from the sides. As such, sticking to racing lines even during a drift minimises the risk of loss of speed and/or hitting a wall.\n\nA working title for this... Article? Essay? Β―\\\\_(γ)\\_/Β― Was \"Drift in line, Tap in time\", referencing tapping your feet to the music, but also drifting on racing lines, which yeah, *that* is pretty fundamental to the way Ridge Racer actually works.\n\nThis game's controls and track design work so well together to create an absolutely hypnotising experience that it makes you try things that you wouldn't even consider in the later games. You have other motivations in those games, like unlocking new cars, unlocking harder events, etc, but in this game, the only motivation you have is to just *get better at the game*, which I absolutely love about it. Very few games are able to get their hooks into me in such a way that, all I ever want to play this game for is its raw mechanics, and Ridge Racer does that wonderfully. The way this game gives you noticeable, instant feedback, as you change your driving even in the absolute smallest of ways, in the form of just going across the track faster is addictively satisfying. It's something indescribable, this particular \"X-Factor\", if you will, that clicks about this game's simplicity just makes it work in a way that other games of its calibre never could, and it's this \"X-Factor\" that gives it such a special place in my heart.\n\nThat being said, both the steering and the drift, having gotten so used to the PS1 version's controls, feel rather stiff. It's at this moment where everyone had to pick their jaw up off the floor, because I'm actually one of the very very few people who actually really really likes the PS1 version of Ridge Racer, in fact I think it's quite a bit better than the Arcade version. \"WHAAAAT????\", everyone says. \"HOW on EARTH could you prefer THAT version??? Its controls have AGED\", whatever that even means. And don't worry, we'll get there sooner than later.\n\nBut simply put, the Arcade version's steering is too wide and the drift is too slow and weighty for this game's narrow, winding passages, making the cars feel, like, twice as big as they actually are, and clearing certain corners is way way harder than it really needs to be. Sometimes, it feels like the game just takes control away from you just because it feels like, as if its decided \"Okay, you've had enough fun for now, eat some concrete now please :)\". I ground this game's time trial mode to dust from when I first played it back in 2020 all the way through to 2023, and honestly, I don't regret the time I spent with it, it was an incredibly special experience to get times down further and further each time I played. But at some point, I figuratively hit a wall with my times. I couldn't get down past a 1:10 lap time no matter how hard I tried.\n\nThere would be times I'd drive almost perfectly, the same way I would in a 1:10, but sometimes get 1:11's or 1:12's instead, like peaking out at 1000 skill points on Wii Sports Bowling. Other times I'd *literally* hit a wall and get a 1:15 or even times pushing 1:20. Getting a 1:09 in the Arcade version is like getting a strike every frame in Wii Sports Bowling, it's *technically* possible, but it's *practically* impossible, because once you get good enough, your own skill doesn't matter anymore, and you're at the mercy of the game.\n\nBut in Ridge Racer, you're not at the mercy of wonky motion controls, but rather wonky drift controls. While you can be reactive with your *steering*, being reactive with your *drifting* is another story entirely. Because of the weight and the centre of gravity, it's actually quite difficult to influence the direction of your drift. It is easy on a macro level, but when you get into the nitty-gritty like I have, it feels like a total paradigm shft in difficulty. I normally love that in a game like Daytona because everything else about that game's controls and track design are much more conducive to that uncertainty.\n\nThe handling being more realistic in Daytona works because everything else about Daytona's controls is more realistic. The steering circle widening at speed, the car slipping in reaction to over-use of the throttle, spinning out from drifting too hard, etc, means it's much more intuitive for the drift to carry so much momentum. That, and the tracks are wider and acommodate more cars with much more advanced enemy AI that all compound, it's lots of sources of a little bit of difficulty that all add up. Whereas in Ridge Racer, it's one or two sources of a lot of difficulty. While that's not necessarily bad per se, it's a form of difficulty I tend not to prefer.\n\nYou'll notice I haven't touched on actual *racing* part of this game much, and that's because honestly, it's pretty basic. Not bad at all, and for an Arcade game of the time, it is indeed serviceable, but it absolutely pales in comparison to Daytona's much more dynamic, aggressive AI that makes life hard for you as much as it can, and makes *that* game an absolute beast that's so satisfying to tame.\n\nBut at the same time I can understand why that may be a turn-off for some, so in that case, Ridge Racer can and will serve you nicely, but for someone like me, I like there to be a bit more challenge in the racing itself, and not just in getting my car round the track. Especially when there's only one track in the entire game with only one variation on that track. There's a version for the slower Beginner/Medium difficulties, and a version for the faster Expert difficulty and Time Trial mode.\n\n###### --- Beginner/Medium --- \n\n###### --- Expert/Time Trial --- \n\n\nEven for its time, even for an Arcade game, the fact that there's only one track, with one variation on that track is honestly not good enough. I personally don't mind, I accepted it a long time ago, because this track is so bloody well designed that I stop caring, but it still bears bears mentioning that this game is embarrassingly light on content. This is further hindered by the fact that you only get one car which, if you're familiar with the PS1 version, is the red all-rounder car, the #3 F/A Racing (known in later games as the Kamata Fiera/Fiaro). There are other cars in the game, but they're only playable by the other players in the multiplayer mode, and as far as I know, have absolutely no differentiating stats like they do in the PS1 version.\n\nBut despite its flaws, and my many many nitpicks with the game's controls, I can't bring myself to dislike it, it's such a charming game with so much effort and soul that bursts through the screen, feeling like a time capsule the likes of which can't be replicated. Something that captures the very essence of video games, and the state of pop culture in general in the early 90s.\n\nSo it's for these reasons that the Arcade version of Ridge Racer goes into the A tier for my list. It's a bloody good start to the series, and despite not being everything it *could've* been, it was certainly everything it *needed* to be, and still deserves high praise as a pioneering Arcade classic that defined an entire sub-genre in the process, all in one-fell-swoop.\n\nRighto, what's next?\n\n---\n# Ridge Racer 2 (Arcade: Namco System 22) - 1994\n\n###### --- π WOW, WHAT A REPEAT! THIS IS JUST WHAT I WANTED TO SEE AGAIN! π ---\n\nA few of you just now went \"What? This exists?\", and yes. Yes it does. Taking a page out of SEGA's late-80s playbook, namco decided to make an updated version of a game they already made, and name it as a sequel, for some reason. But ignoring how unnecessary this may seem on the surface, I'm actually very glad it exists, because this is probably the best Ridge Racer game released in the Arcades.\n\nSame as the original is its art style, and level of content. But while most things are the same, there are some very notable differences. Firstly, the handling is a little bit different. Gone is the heavier handling model of the first game and in its place is a slightly tighter turning circle, which makes certain turns much easier than they were in the original. The drift also comes out quicker, is more responsive to adjustments, and makes a smooth exit much more doable.\n\nEspecially that first drift before the mountainside bridge, there was always that chance of the car sliding out of the corner too close to the right-side wall for comfort, ending in a crash. The only way to avoid it was to do a mini-drift away from the wall, which would also eat away at your time and give the yellow rival car a chance to catch up. Now in Ridge Racer 2, the drifting and turning have both been tightened up, giving you more leeway in reacting to sub-optimal setups. You can engage a drift, slide more into the apex of the corner, then slide away from the wall when the drift is over, no pixel-perfect setup or split-second correction drift required. The cars also have a 10kmp/h boost in speed, so laps that were 1:10s in the original, turn into 1:07s in this new version, and combined with the refined drift controls, getting a perfect run of three flawless laps has never been more satisfying.\n\nThere's also been some changes to the soundtrack as well, which I honestly don't prefer. The original track select and race win themes have both been replaced, gone is also the Ridge Racer Theme (Track 1). In addition, 6 new tracks were added, which honestly just aren't as good as the tracks from the first game, they're really aimless and lack the same sense of \"storytelling\" that were in the originals. They don't have the sense of having a beginning, middle and end, they just kinda happen for several minutes until they're over, basically. I know I'm being very vague in describing these, such that it may come off as a bit unfair, but there really is just something different about the way these tracks feel to listen to, even if they sound similar to the original tracks on the surface, using a lot of the same samples and synths. And honestly, perhaps that's the problem, they're too similar to the originals to stand apart from them, and they don't do the original style as well as the original tracks do, so they just feel really pointless.\n\nThe exception to this though is \"Maximum Zone\", that track is awesome. It sounds similar to the original in some surface-level ways, some of the same synths and drum samples are at play. But, compared to the first game's tracks, it has a bit more edge to it, feeling a lot less light-hearted and optimistic than the first game, or even most of the other new tracks it sits alongside of. it's a bit more grounded and \"grown up\" in a way, like it just got a septum piercing or started wearing its cap the wrong way. Combined with a lovely sense of dynamicism and flow that match the best tracks in the original, and you have one hell of a track that sits up on the shelf alongside the series's best.\n\nPerhaps it's beacuse I've listened to the original tracks over and over again for much longer so I just have a stronger attachment to those than I do to these, but even still, I got attached to them a lot quicker than I've been able to with 2's tracks. It took a few listens, but I really got into them really quickly. These ones in RR2 are just as annoying to listen to the 70th time as they are the first. Five of the six tracks from the first game are also here, but in the form of remixes. They mainly change the arrangement in various ways, shuffling around the structure and melodies in ways that, again, I don't prefer, serving only as slightly-offputting bootlegs of the original classics. The originals were very lightning-in-a-bottle tracks, coming together ***so*** well the first time round, that even just *slightly* changing them in any way shape or form will only make them slightly worse. Also, this is really nitpicky, but I'm not the biggest fan of the changes made to the menu sounds, and the lap split chime either, plus the announcer's lines are too different as well.\n\nSo, the game looks the same, handles better, and even has a rear-view mirror for blocking other racers. But the music sounds worse, which brings down the quality of the vibe by almost the same amount. It's hard for me to determine if this is better or worse than the original version, it's a bit better in some ways, and a bit worse in others. Even if the changes are, rationally, pretty minimal, there's something about this version that doesn't feel as \"whole\" as the original because of that, even though it technically has more stuff. But that 10% of a quality drop makes 90% of the difference in the feel for me, which is paramount in any Ridge Racer.\n\nWith that said, I'm gonna put Ridge Racer 2 right next to the original in the A Tier. It has better gameplay than the original, but diminishes the vibe juuuuuust enough to keep it from being unilaterally better, at least for me. Now, why isn't it good enough to go into S-Tier? Well, all will be explained when we move into the next game, sit tight!\n\n---\n# Ridge Racer (PlayStation) - 1994\n\n###### --- ICHI NI SAN!!! ICHI NI SAN!!! ---\nLadies and gentlemen, the first *ever* PlayStation game. Serial ID SLPS-00001, Ridge Racer, launching with the PlayStation on December 3rd, 1994. Honestly it's kinda weird to think that this is what started the PlayStation legacy, in a time where Japan is all but absent from Sony's first and second-party output, this thoroughly-Japanese gem and many others like it forged a brand that has a special place in my heart. Honestly, I really miss when PlayStation was by Japan, for Japan, now that its currently-American incarnation has watered down its character and destroyed what made it special, but I digress.\n\nSo, Ridge Racer then. Let's get the most obvious thing outta the way first, it doesn't look as nice as the Arcade version, with wobbly polygons, warping textures, diminished shading and colour depth at half the resolution and framerate. But if I'm being honest, I still really like the way this looks, it captures most of the essence of the Arcade version's visuals, with some caveats of course, and for the PlayStation, this looks better than many games on the system that would come out years and years later. Namco were always incredible at adapting to new technology, priding themselves on pushing it as hard as they could, and it shows here. The vibe is not 100% the same, it's a little different, but it's still just as charming. Instead of that charm of the best of the best in hardware at the time, it has a more modest charm, one that brings me back to my childhood in the late 2000s playing N64 and PS1 games that look just as chunky.\n\nReturning from the original is the soundtrack, that's right, this uses the original versions of the original six tracks, with none of the new tracks from Ridge Racer 2 making a return, hallelujah! And as such, *that* vibe is back in full-force here, worming its way into your heart and geting your feet a-tappin just as quick as the Arcade original. Also returning are the original sound effects and voice lines, which is nice. There are a few little details missing, like hearing the sound of the engine bouncing off the walls when you get really close to them, that would've been nice to have, but no matter.\n\nThe biggest changes made in this version is to the content and the mechanics. It doesn't have any additional tracks, but it does have up to four cars to start with, all with differing stats, prioritising handling, acceleration, or top speed. While the game is loading, you can play a little minigame based off of Galaxian, and if you can shoot all the enemies before they fly away, you unlock another eight cars, bringing it up to twelve cars. All of which have different stats of their own, with different colours and liveries based off of various old-school namco classics like Mappy, Xevious, and so on.\n\n###### --- The #4 RT Ryukyu, one of the four starter cars ---\n\n\n###### --- The #5 RT Pink Mappy, one of the eight unlockable cars ---\n\n\nWhen you beat the first three races, and then set a leading time in the time trial mode, you unlock reverse versions, and if you win those, you unlock the #13, 13\" Racing, the most powerful car in the game.\n###### --- The #13 13\" Racing, unlocked after beating all events ---\n\n\nSo, the hanlding then. When playing with the d-pad, it's somewhat based off of Ridge Racer 2, in the sense that the car's inherit the 10kmp/h boost in speed that RR2 had. The turning circle is roundabout the same, albeit taking a bit longer to fully lean into a turn, given you no longer have instant access to the full tilt, so yeah, a bit different but mostly the same, not much to write home about. But it's in the drifting where things start to get interesting...\n\nI'm fully aware of how awkward this game's drifting is, in fact I *hated* this version's controls when I first played it, just like everyone else does. And honestly, still to this day... I can't blame anyone who just can't jive with it, it's real weird... Unlike the original, drifting isn't as simple as braking into a turn, instead engaging the drift is done in such a way that some would call \"bass-ackwards\". In this version, you have to get up to speed, go full tilt into a turn, let go of the throttle until the car leans all the way forward, and when it *has* done, hit the gas again, then *and only then* does the car start drifting... Yeah...\n\nIf you didn't understand any of that, here's a slow-mo GIF below showing exactly how stupid this is.\n\n\n###### π --- WHAT CONTROL!!!!!! --- π\n\nNotice how I didn't once touch the brake button on Square, not even once, like why the hell did they do it like this, especially when the Arcade version of this, and Daytona USA set the standard for Arcade racing drift controls already? However, for as stupid as this is, like it's not intuitive at all, I will say... It's not that hard, it's actually pretty easy.\n\nWhat? Doesn't this game control like garbage? Yes, it does *IF* you play it with the chasecam, a series first in this version. Yeah, turns out this game's biggest achilles' heel isn't control issues, but camera issues. The angle on the chasecam is so dogshit, changes so much, so quickly that even just basic steering is a challenge, let alone drifting. Seriously look at this.\n\n\n###### --- I GOT EVERYTHING ON CHASECAM SO YOU'LL VOMIT LATER HUH? ---\nThis is one thing that I, Grandmaster General of the PS1 Ridge Racer Defence Forceβ’, *can not and will not* go to bat for, it's just no good at all. Also, you may have noticed, when drifting in the chasecam, the camera doesn't follow the rear of the car at all. It may not look that bad in this here GIF, but the car is capable of turning even further out of alignment with the camera to the point you can get the car's side visible while it's drifting the corner, it's absolutely horrendous. And because of the camera angle, the fact that it doesn't change orientation with the car, combined with the speed at which you can drift a corner, you have a recipe for disaster. A series of problems that compound upon each other so badly until the car exits the drift seemingly on its own, sending you careening into a wall with basically no time to process the visual or kinaesthetic information the game gives you, it's a total mess.\n\nBut when you drift with the bumpercam, the car *is* the camera, so you're able to tell far easier how you're turning and how you're drifting, giving you much more useful and immediate feedback when turning, so the basics are much easier to nail. But it's the drifting where the real difference is made, because once you realise precisely how the game wants you to engage the drift, then orienting yourself to exit smoothly is muuuuuuch easier. Once you engage the drift, just point to where you want to go, tap the d-pad to create a very slight counter-steer, then let go, and within moments, you're out of the drift, barrelling forward right where you pointed it. It's even better when you play it with namco's \"NeGcon\" (pronounced \"Neji-kon\", because it comes from the Japanese word \"Nejiru\", meaning to twist). This might be the first ever analogue gamepad for the system, launching with it in 1994, and when using it, you can steer quicker and tighter than you could with the d-pad, such that you can clear certain corners without even having to drift, yes, you read that right.\n\nBut yeah, check this drift out\n\n\n###### --- Blink and you'll miss it ---\n\nIt's this delicious, smooth drift that absolutely *makes* this version of the game for me. That, combined with the tighter turning and the music gives me that [\"High-Intensity Zen\"](https://youtu.be/XRF06DpQE0c?si=vWXLZNFDCEwmmCvB&t=400) that I crave in a good Ridge Racer game. You may think that the challenge disappears from this version given how easy it is to clear corners now. But the thing is, because of how quick the drift is, you have to trigger a drift just slightly after a corner, almost like you're reacting to it, instead of predicting it slightly before, like in the Arcade version. And when you're just clearing a corner with a good turn, you still have to absolutely *nail* racing lines, otherwise you *will* hit the wall, and your pace will be destroyed. It doesn't destroy the Arcade version's sense of challenging flow, rather it just gives it a *brand new* sense of challenging flow that's unique to it, but still distinctly \"Ridge Racer\".\n\nJust like the Arcade version, the racing is nothing to write home about, it's still some good fun, but it is *nothing* compared to the sheer hypnotic satisfaction I get from setting laps in the time trials. That \"x-factor\" I spoke about earlier is turned up to 11 in this game, there's just something about this game's controls, track design and overall vibe with the music and graphics that just makes the world around me disappear. Time is but a concept and reality is a mere suggestion as I spend hours and hours of my time engrossed in this dream-like world as the kitschy, musical pastiche fills my ears and wraps this blissful disintegration of the material world in a 32-bit bow.\n\nSetting a record time, seeing the red text signifying as such and hearing the announcer telling you how well you did is a feeling like nothing else after spending minutes, sometimes hours grinding out a good time, is exhilirating. All the later games' time trial modes don't come close to being this good, only ever having either great music, or great control, never usually both at the same time. If you can't have both, then all of a sudden, time trials don't seem as appealing, at least not to me. Half the fun of the time trials in this game isn't just setting times, it's zoning out as well, giving you a brief reprieve from that pesky real world. And if the visuals, music and mechanics don't come together all at once, firing on all cylindars, then it's a real hard sell, but this game makes it seem effortless.\n\nAll in all, this game goes firmly into the S-Tier. Its improvements on the core mechanics combined with one of if not the best soundtrack in the series takes what was already a classic and turns it into a stone-cold classic, and a misunderstood one at that. Yes, the lack of extra tracks is still a sticking point, and would continue to be so for a while, but I can absolutely forgive and forget when the experience it provides already is simply unmatched. Well done namco, well bloody done!\n\n\nOkay, that should be Ridge Racer 1 over and done with. Who knows, we might even get a *different game* next???? :O\n\n---\n# Rave Racer (Arcade) - 1995\n\n###### --- Well uh... I uhh, huh... Hmm... Yeah... ---\n\nOkay, so uh... Yeah... Rave Racer... S'a game innit.\n# Ridge Racer Revolution (PlayStation) - 1995\n\n\n---\n###### --- jk lol ---\n\n\nOkay, jokes aside, I *will* talk about Rave Racer, and well uh, this entry's gonna be a bit weird. This is the final Arcade-original game in the series, and it's quite the oddball. So, right off the bat, I'll just say that this is one of my least-favourite entries in the series, but also that some of its flaws are probably the result of me playing it in MAME more than anything. But hold that thought, put it under your pillow, stick it behind your ear and stow it in your glovebox, because that's gonna come up again later.\n\nSo, the first thing is obviously the graphics, and I will say, its got some interesting changes compared to the first game. *Now* it's got a bit of a less-saturated colour palette. I certainly don't prefer it to the first game, but I really do appreciate the attempt to have one foot in the past and another in the future, and the result is certainly admirable. It's the first true sign of Ridge Racer starting to change and evolve, not just on its own, but also alongside the pop culture it's surrounded by. The primary-coloured, optimistic, plastic half of the 90s that had lined the series's trademark aesthetic, was gradually being replaced with the measured, grey, concrete and glass half, and it looks awesome.\n\nHere is a small collection of some of my favourite landscapes in this game\n\n\n###### --- Beginning of the City course, showing its lovely skyline ---\n\n\n###### --- Near the end of the Mountain course, showing a little farm ---\n\n\n###### --- Roughly halfway through the Mountain course, showing BUILDIGNN!!!! ---\n\nThe music is a little less consistent though. It has high highs, low lows and mid mids all up and down the shop. On a micro level, there are some absolutely fantastic tunes that make up some of the series's best, like Rare Hero 3, Jazz Mission (sans intro) and Euphoria (which straight up steals a riff from The Prodigy's \"One Love\", but who cares, it sounds sick). And then there's my personal favourite in the whole game, Heart of Hearts, an absolutely insane ride of intruicate drum rolls and percussive clangs driving bouncy, rhythmic bliss. \n\nThere are some not-as-good, but still very very enjoyable tracks like Exh*Notes, Blue Topaz, Rotten 7 and Kamikaze. Then there are some which are just really friggin gosh dang weird, including some of the ones I mentioned already... Something like Teknopera takes a choir sample that feels like it belongs in a dramatic opera about the second-coming of Tap-Dancing, Ridge-Racing Christ himself, and repeats it with obnoxious efficiency that borders on laziness, weaving it in and out of these weirdly-chipper melodies that almost feel at odds with the game's visuals, and the rest of the music to be quite frank. Some others in this game, like Rotten 7 and Kamikaze have a bit of a fascination for playing around with dissonance, strange harmonies, gratuitous sound effects, and vocal samples that run their course before the first loop is over, let alone the second.\n\nThen there's a track like Wrong Love, which is actually Track 1, so if it's the first one you picked either playing the game or listening to it on its own, then it is BOUND to leave SUCH a bad impression on you the first time that you'd be forgiven for never bothering to listen to the rest of it. It is an absolutely slap-dash mess of noise, and it's difficult to know where to start. Its got it all, annoying vocal samples, sound effects that make no sense, and melodies that feel like they came about as a result of Shinji Hosoe's cat walking across his desk until sound just so happened to emit from his speakers. In fact, most of the tracks with really nasty moments in them are compoased by Hosoe-san.\n\nI'm not saying he's a bad musician and everything he's made in the history of ever is an abomination, far from it. He's actually an exceptional talent that's made some of my favourite namco music ever. But his proclivity to experiment, while sometimes producing interesting results, doesn't always serve this game very well at all. If you've ever listened to some of the stuff he's made for Supersweep or Nanosweep albums, a lot of the stuff he makes can sometimes feel like unrefined tablescraps that betray his usually-keen sense of beautiful and satisfying song-writing, and most of his tracks on Rave Racer here feel a lot like those. Like I've said, I'm aware of plenty of exmaples to the contraty, see his work on Dragon Saber, Final Lap 2 and hell, the first Ridge Racer.\n\nI do appreciate Hosoe-san's desire to explore new territory, in fact it's this desire that gave us the original's fantastic soundtrack, I do really wish he reigned it in perhaps a little bit. At the very least, I suppose you can say this game's soundtrack is never boring! Oh yeah, and then there's \"Yororeri Hey\", which abuses the ever-loving hell out of, of all things, a yodelling sample, couples it with an absolutely ridiculous-sounding beat that feels part techno, part-ska, coming together to make a grotesquely-catchy track that walks the tightrope between masterpiece and disasterpiece so well that it almost feels like it was put there as a joke... I love it.\n\nAnd then there's issues that plague pretty much the whole soundtrack. The sample quality is nowhere near as clean as it was in the first game, with lots of aliasing across the entire soundtrack, the mix in a lot of tracks is muffled, lacking the punch and sparkle that the first two games had. It's so *everywhere* across its music that I have to wonder if it was intentional, as if they wanted to make something experimentally lo-fi, but considering how offputting it can be in the music's worst moments, that feels like a rather silly explanation at times. Especially when the first game's soundtrack was just so clean and well-put-together on a technical level that it makes you wonder just what the hell went wrong here.\n\nIt may sound like I kinda hate this soundtrack, and while I do hate some little parts of it, most everything else I like, some bits I even love so very dearly. If I were to describe this soundtrack's defining traits to someone with no context, they'd probably never wanna listen to it, but I absolutely implore that person to listen to it if they're a fan of the series and haven't heard it already. It's an absolute roller-coaster of quality that will take you from one flabbergasting track to another in such spectacular fashion that you'll come to love the whole ride from start to finish, through the bad and the good.\n\nThe game itself is absolute pants though.\n\nOkay to be fair, as I said at the top, I've only ever played the game in MAME with a gamepad (DualSense, if you're wondering). A stick and trigger on a gamepad has nowhere near as much range and precision as a proper pedal and wheel setup. I'm acutely aware of the limitations of a gamepad, given I've not only played a bunch of other racing games in MAME that make this plain as day, but I'm also ready and willing to use a different type of controller for the right kind of game. At home, I use mouse and keyboard for first person shooters and I use an arcade stick for fighting games. Recently, during a trip to Sydney, I got to play on a Daytona USA Arcade machine, and readily felt the difference. Having said all this, I'm quite certain that this isn't even what's causing most of the issues I have with its controls.\n\nThis game seems to have quite the peculiar handling quirk, where if you tilt the stick to one side, then either re-center it, or push it too far to the other side too quickly, then the car has a chance of sliding in the opposite direction. It's so weird and hard to describe, the car is almost behaving like it would if I were trying to counter-steer during a drift, but I'm not, I'm just trying to turn, so it doesn't make a lick of sense. This isn't something I've encountered in any racing game *ever*, be it a sim or an Arcade racer, it's such bizzarre behaviour. I noticed that, while using the chasecam, the car appears to be sliding on its side. Which, apart from being a weird visual, I thought might explain why it does this, but that doesn't really make any sense either. Again, I've not seen any other car, not in real life, a sim racer, or an Arcade racer do this, not once, not never. This one game seems to be the only one with this weird quirk.\n\nNot only is this inexplicably out of place, it's also basically random. There will be times where I make very very subtle movements with the stick that should serve to stabilise the car, only to them find myself sliding, so I quickly steer the other way to correct, which only makes the slide even worse. At no point does it ever feel like I'm in total control of the car, it often feels like I'm about to be betrayed by it at any moment, just because it feels like it.\n\nA good handling model in a good racing game should be like a bestest, best friend that you would always trust to catch you in a trust fall. You can be certain, that every single time, ten times out of ten, that you engaging the action will mean the appropriate result takes place. Even in the most sim-y of sim racers, being in total control of your car, while the car has grip at the very least, should be totally predictable, like you can get an assured handle on the car at all times. And generally, you *can* rely on this, because the car won't just randomly lose grip when it feels like. It'll certainly lose grip if you abuse the wheel and send the car careening in one direction with absolutely no regard whatsoever, and perhaps that's what namco was trying to emulate with this feature, but it absolutely *does not* come across the same way when playing this game. It always feels forced and sudden, like hearing an ad for Spotify Premium, it totally takes you out of the moment.\n\nSo on the off-chance I happen to have a victory in this game, it never feels satisfying like it does in pretty much every other Ridge Racer game, because it never feels like it was me who did it. It always feels like I just got lucky that the game had mercy upon me during that particular run, because I hadn't looked at precisely the wrong pixel in juuuuust the wrong way for it to get angry and take it out on me personally. Once again, perhaps this is because I'm playing it on a gamepad, and perhaps this comes across much better when playing the game on a real cabinet on a real machine, perhaps I'm even playing a bugged version of the game with this weird turning bug that got fixed in later print runs, who knows. I'm willing to concede some things, but again, I can't help but feel I'm being cheated out of a win every time I play this game.\n\nWhich is a shame, because the actual handling model, when it's working well, is actually really neat. It's a bit like the PS1 version of the first game, but feels even looser, if you're good you can theoretically jet across an entire track without slowing down much at all, and I'm sure that if I wasn't having these weird physics quirk, I'd be able to share that feeling with people who actually seem to like this game. I was honestly shocked to learn that there are people who really like this game, even an entire speedrunning community based around it, which is insane to me honestly, because my experience with this game has been almost uniformly negative.\n\nWhile I was playing the game for this article, my boyfriend compared it to Half-Life Source, with how much it feels like a pale copycat of another game with some strange creative choices coupled with bugs that feel like they should never ever be there in any universe, and honestly, I can see where he's coming from.\n\nIt's so bad that I almost forgot to talk about the game's new tracks. Returning from the first game are the two variations on the original race track (weee), and new to this game are two new tracks, called \"City\" and \"Mountain\", known in later games as \"Midtown Expressway\" and \"Greenpark Highlands\" respectively. And honestly, they're fantastic. Again, when youl're on a good run, the game can actually be really fun to drive, especially on the Mountain track. Its winding and twisting paths combined with the most insane elevation changes I've ever seen on a racetrack are to die for with a game that handles like this. Zipping about at those speeds around *those curves*, like oh my god, yes please.\n\nBut, in my experience, I've only ever really fully enjoyed them in the later games, because ya know, they actually work properly. \n\nAnd that's ignoring all the little things about this game's presentation that feel kinda rushed. The demo sequence is gaudy to a fault, and at one point flashes so much between two completely different shots that it kinda hurts to look at, the results screen has this ugly uuuuuugly picture on the top-right that feels like it was slapped together in Bryce3D in a femtosecond, and so does the race select menu as well. I normally like this kinda really rough mid-90s presentation that was really only present in 1995-1996, such a magical time of 3D games that have so many ugly bits that I still think are beautiful.\n\nBut there's something about the way Rave Racer does it that rubs me the wrong way, makes it feel like it was thrown together with not a whole lot of care. I'm sure the team cared quite a lot, namco were and still are a great team of very talented developers who clearly care a lot about their craft. And it *does* show, even in a game *like* Rave Racer, especially with those impeccably-detailed environments, but I just wish there was a little more polish in various places, to me it really feels like it needs more time in the oven.\n\nSo, after thinking about it for a bit, I've decided that I'm not going to give this game a proper ranking. Personally, I *feel* like putting it in either C or D because the bad parts of the music and controls really bring it so far down compared to every other game in the series that it doesn't really feel like it should be in the same ballpark. But given the circumstances in which I've played it, as well as learning that there is a fanbase for this game, I don't think it'd be particularly fair for me to be so harsh toward it. Perhaps it's actually fantastic, and I just need to play it on a wheel, or even on a real arcade cabinet, I'm not sure. So I'm gonna leave it up in the air until further notice. If my opinion ever changes, I might write a follow-up article who knows.\n\n\n---\n# Ridge Racer Revolution (PlayStation) - 1995\n\n###### --- John Madden Ridge Racer '95 ---\nLadies and gentlemen, the \"New Super Mario Bros U\" of the Ridge Racer series, your eyes do not deceieve you, this is a different game from PS1 Ridge Racer.\n\nWell to be honest, I won't have a lot to write about this one, it's like the first game... but different??? First of all is a brand new track to the series. That is track. As in singular. One track. Yehp. If it was bad in the first game, it's inexcusable in this one, there needs to be more content in this game, though there is one saving grace about this. Instead of just two versions of the track according to difficulty, there is now THREE versions of the track according to difficulty, it really is a revolution!!!!!!!\n\nRight, so. This game unfortunately uses the soundtrack from the second Arcade game, which is fine, but I really wish it did something more original, could've had the possibility of being something great that set this game further apart from the original. Instead it only serves to make it feel way too similar to the original. Same thing with the art style, which, I will say, I kinda like how this track looks, with the same charm from the first game, especially because it's unique to the PlayStation, and not trying to replicate an Arcade track. It's that PlayStation-exclusivity, combined with the slightly more naturalistic setting in many spots that gives it more of a homespun and quaint sort of feeling. But with that said, again, you kinda wish they did something a bit different with this game.\n\nThe track design though is classic, it's certainly as good as the first game, perhaps even better. Even if it's really inexcusable that they flat out don't have more than one track in the game, the one track they do have is once again a really really good-un, and absolutely deserves a top spot on the series' shelf of classic tracks. Though, I'd be able to appreciate it a lot more if they didn't fiddle with the bloody controls again. For some reason, they modified the drift in really confusing ways, for starters, the car almost seems to apply its own brakes and slow down in the middle of a corner as you adjust your angle, and when you've finished and let off the steering, it'll still hang on the drift for a bit.\n\nFrom what I understand, you kinda have to steer into the corner to set the angle, let go, then counter-steer to exit, and while that sounds really close to the original, it's really not, the way it feels is fundamentally not the same even if describing the differences is really hard. But it is there, and makes the handling feel really sticky, and way more unresponsive than it really needed to be, I'm legit not sure what namco were thinking when they made these changes. Perhaps it was a response to criticism of the first game, wishing to make the drifting a bit easier, but even then I'm *still* not sure, because they just ended up making it harder, so honestly I haven't the foggiest clue. Despite this however, the controls are otherwise 90% the same, and despite the iffy drift, you can still get good at this game.\n\nRidge Racer Revolution is a lot like a person who wants a real-life revolution. They always talking big about revolution this, revolution that, but they know deep-down that they're too scared to rock the boat, and with that, it goes right into the B-Tier. I'd say it's about as good as the Arcade verisions of the first game, but it falls way short in a bunch of really critical areas that it seriously should never have skimped on. For some, it's the most refined version of the original Ridge Racer experience, but for someone like me who wanted something a bit different, a bit more unique, it's quite disappointing, despite how good it really is. So yeah, B feels about right for now.\n\nThankfully though, the next game up really did feel like a revolution in comparison. And because of that, it's simultaneously one of the most important games in the series, while also being something of a black sheep. You sure don't get *that* every day. ",
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