 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Namco Bandai |
| Publisher: | Namco Bandai | |
| Genre: | Racing | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1-4 (2-14 online) | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | PlayStation Network (online play, worldwide leaderboards), Hard Drive (5GB install), HDTV (480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Well, here we go again. If a Sony console is launching, it’s a guaranteed fact that a Ridge Racer title will launch alongside it. The original Ridge Racer launched with the PlayStation way back in 1995, Ridge Racer V launched alongside the PS2, the portable Ridge Racer debuted with the PSP, and now here we are with Ridge Racer 7 and the PS3. Namco even branched out a bit with a fifth system launch, releasing Ridge Racer 6 alongside the launch of the Xbox 360 last year.
That last one was a blunder, delivering a largely last-gen effort on a next-gen console that had two other excellent racers at launch. While it was by no means a bad game, gamers responded by making it the worst selling game at launch in North America, and although it was the best selling in Japan that’s not saying much. Thus Ridge Racer 7 represents a chance at redemption for Namco Bandai, with the series returning “home” to a Sony console for a second attempt at a true next-gen arcade racer. Fortunately, this time they nailed it.
Make no mistake; from a gameplay perspective the core of Ridge Racer 7 isn’t really that different than previous installments. Which is perfectly fine, because fans of the series would be up in arms if it was. Rather, it represents a huge step forward and delivers some real innovation to the series’ tried-and-true formula, combining arcade-style drift racing with a deeper feature set, some smart new additions, and the ability to customize the experience.
At its heart, the Ridge Racer series is all about unrealistically drifting at insanely high speeds around hairpin turns. The actual mechanic couldn’t be any easier: simply start turning, let off the gas, and then immediately hit the gas again while counter steering to begin drifting. The game pretty much takes it from there, with drifting being performed almost automatically and completely unrealistically. You’ll either love this part of the game or hate it, but chances are that anyone that’s not a stickler for hyper-realistic racing will enjoy it. Drifting is complicated a bit by the fact that there are three different kinds of cars: standard, dynamic, and mild. Mild drifts the least but is also the slowest, while dynamic drifts the most (thus making it harder to control coming out of a turn) but is also the fastest. Each car fits into one of these three categories and there is a bit of a learning curve moving from one to the next, but generally dynamic is best for experts while mild is great for beginners.
Pulling off a good drift will add to the car’s nitrous gauge, which when used gives the car a huge temporary boost in speed. There’s also some strategy in using your nitrous as well. While it’s best to use it on straightaways for obvious reasons, it’s also wise to time nitrous usage so that you can use some of the residual speed on the following curve. If you can drift through a curve following a nitrous boost while still running on fumes from that boost, you’ll garner an “ultimate charge” that fills up a large part of the nitrous gauge. As a result, using nitrous intelligently can make a huge difference in any race.
Initially the nitrous gauge is made up of three different canisters, but this time around it can be customized into a number of different configurations. To me the best of these customizations is Flex, which just gives you one long canister and allows you to simply use exactly as much nitrous as you wish rather than one set canister at a time. Other customizations to the nitrous gauge include Quad (four canisters), Long (two longer canisters), Reverse Charge (you can only recharge nitrous while drifting on a nitrous boost), and Auto which refills the gauge regardless of how you drive.
Posted: 2006-11-21 13:12:34 PST