this is absolutely my favourite racing game of all time
- controls are literally picture perfect, not a single issue at ALL
- enough content to keep anyone entertained at least a few hours
- don't even get me started on how good the soundtrack is
- honestly for a 2006 psp game it actually looks pretty great

i love this game so much bro

Take every Ridge Racer game from the start to about 2006 and mesh it together with not only wonderful visual flair but a love for each source and you get this game.

An unabashed love letter and compilation of the best the series has to offer with clean visuals, wonderful UI work, a banging soundtrack, and some of the best racing controls I've felt in my life.

Really the downside with this game is you're going to be racing on the same set of tracks a lot and the only variants available are mirrored versions of the same tracks. So the main tour mode with set track racing does tend to overstay its welcome.

However, outside that quirk, this entire game is a joy and a half for any Ridge Racer fan and a fantastic entry point for anyone wanting to get into the series and need a good idea of what it has to offer.

How familiar are people with Ridge Racer? I'm still a little peeved about how thoroughly the internet mocked Kaz Hirai for his enthusiasm in 2006. I've seen a lot of people discovering Type 4 in the last decade, and it's been very gratifying to see the newfound appreciation for it, but that's not all Ridge Racer is. After 5, the series took a dramatic turn - A big magnetic drift. They adopted nitro boosts and dumbed themselves down quite considerably. I don't think it's something to resent. It's became more of the wild arcade racer that many thought they were getting when they first heard about the games, and I enjoy it too. I just think it's worth clarifying that the bulk of the series is fairly distinct from the one that's in vogue at the moment.

Ridge Racer 2 (or Ridge Racer*s* 2, as it's titled, slightly more helpfully, in Japan) is something of a soft compilation. Every PS1 Ridge Racer track appears here, alongside a couple from the arcade-only Rave Racer. Like Mario Kart's retro cups, they've all been pulled into the new style of ridge racing. Think of it like a Tekken Tag Tournament or Mortal Kombat Trilogy, but for stylish Namco racers. After spending months tied to PS+'s ludicrously expensive Premium tier, Namco have finally opted to make their retro downloads available as individual purchases on PS4 and 5. Go check. You've probably got a freebie or two if you were excited about this stuff back on the PS3. The PSP emulation comes with some presentational quirks, and you're forced into a smoothing filter that diminishes the 2D assets, but the thought of Bandai Namco executives seeing new income from Ridge Racer enthusiasts should allay any frustration caused by blurry Tower of Druaga logos.

Where with Ridge Racer 1 (the actual one, not the thing they called the first PSP one) it's debatable whether or not you actually want to drift, drifting is the very core of New Ridge Racer. Do a drift and it builds your nitro boost meter. You can put up to three nitro boosts in reserve before you determine when's the best time to use them. Simple courses with long straight sections make boosting a bit of a no-brainer, but narrow, windy tracks are constantly building your meter, and push you to boost in some risky moments. You rarely feel too out of control in New Ridge Racer, as there's always a bit of guiding hand making sure you don't fall too far off the main racing line. Again, it's dumbed down, but that's justified by how quick and complicated the races can get.

Something that may deter fans of the older games is that the newer ones are huge. There was a time when a game consisted of one or two tracks, and the ability to play Time Trials were the big bonus. Before writing this, I completed 48 cups, varying in length from 2 to 5 races each. And those early ones were very slow and easy. It takes dozens of hours before you get to see how fast and exciting the game can be. It's a serious time investment, and I wouldn't blame you at all for turning to the instant action of the PS1 titles instead.

48 cups might sound like a lot of content. That's really stretching it. There's a lot of variants of the same tracks throughout. Some open up a slightly different route. Half of them are just the same tracks played in reverse. Most of them are just the same races played at different speed classes. A lot of cups feature a line of variants of a single track over and over again. It gets samey and repetitive. The game starts to wash over you.

A lot of this can be understood when you remember that this is a PSP game, back when they thought handheld games had to be different from home console ones. The idea of just making proper games and offering a power-efficient sleep mode hadn't quite caught on yet. Ridge Racer 2 was designed for commuters, in a pre-smartphone world. It's supposed to be the bit of Ridge Racer you play to kill time, slowly chipping away at it until you finally get the grand reward of some compressed PS1 intros in a gallery. The difficulty curve is very gentle, never threatening to make you sweat. It's still fun. Just tame. It's not a criticism I'd level at Ridge Racer 6 or 7. After many hours of introductory races, those games eventually become thrilling. Here, even the post-game content that's too hard for me is just kind of plain.

It serves a different purpose from the Ridge Racer games that people are passionate about. And as an £8 app on your PS5 home screen, it serves that purpose pretty well. It's a big slab of Ridge Racer for whenever you want to play that. Unlike Type 4, you're not locked into little stories, worrying about which placement you need to unlock the right cars. Unlike the first couple games, you're not getting exactly the same 20 minute experience every time you turn it on. This is a more practical option. There's even a "Custom Tour" mode that creates a cup for you based on how much time you have to play. If you're a series fan, there's good reason to pick it up. It doesn't have the unique quirks or atmosphere of those earlier titles, and it feels purposefully genericised, but that's fine. Big tub o' Ridge Racer you got from the wholesalers. Eight quid. Bargain.

The best modern ridge racer game IMO. Has every course from the previous games, a soundtrack that goes HARD with both great new songs, incredible remixes of older songs, and original songs straight out of previous games. Should probably have been called ridge racer plus or something instead of 2 because this is really more of an expansion over the previous game rather than a sequel. This does pretty much invalidate any reason of playing the first one so just play this instead and enjoy the banger game that this is.

Ridge Racer 2 es un repaso de todas las entregas anteriores de toda la saga, incluyendo gran parte de los circuitos presentes en todos ellos, así como varias de sus bandas sonoras además de las nuevas canciones que ofrece éste.

Su jugabilidad es bastante similar a todo lo visto a estas alturas, pero ahora la maniobrabilidad de los vehículos es mucho más suave y responsiva, y esto se nota especialmente en los derrapes, los cuales anteriormente utilizábamos en algunas curvas para tomarlas mejor y podía ocurrir que se cortaran de manera brusca, pero aquí ya no. Esto se debe también a un mayor enfoque en que hagamos un uso constante de esta mecánica, que ha ganado también en profundidad porque a través de ella podemos rellenar hasta tres medidores de óxido nitroso que nos darán mayor velocidad de manera temporal, y que nos llevará a plantearnos en qué momentos derraparemos para rellenarlos y cómo los gestionaremos durante las carreras, pensando también si merece más la pena reservarlos para después utilizar varios seguidos o utilizar uno solo en algún tramo específico. El minimapa también cobra mayor presencia en las carreras, pues en ocasiones es conveniente ir mirándolo para saber cuándo se aproximan tramos adecuados para utilizar un nitroso.

El juego puede repetir muchos de sus circuitos al haber una gran cantidad de giras (56 nada más y nada menos, siendo las primeras 24 las únicas necesarias para terminar el juego), pero el hecho de que vaya en aumento el tipo de coches a conducir (de 1 a 6 tipos) reescribe el cómo nos desplazaremos a través de ellos, y se nota sobre todo cuando llegamos a las giras EX, en las que se van alternando de una a otra los tipos de los coches a controlar.

Si hay algo negativo que decir de ésta entrega es que la dificultad no está bien ajustada. Resulta extraño que a medida que manejamos vehículos más rápidos el juego va siendo cada vez más fácil, de manera que si por ejemplo manejamos una máquina de tipo 6 tenemos la posibilidad de acabar en primera posición antes de haber terminado la primera vuelta de una carrera, y por tanto el resto de ella deja de ser emocionante al no tener a nadie más a quien adelantar ni hay tensión de que los rivales nos puedan alcanzar. Sin embargo, cuando llegamos a las Giras Max, el juego se vuelve increíblemente difícil, pues están formadas por competiciones en las que te enfrentas únicamente a otros 3 vehículos, pero son altamente veloces y no tendrán piedad. En este tipo de giras verdaderamente sí que se siente una tensión constante en las carreras, y el más mínimo error te puede costar perderlas.

En definitiva éste es uno de los mejores juegos de la saga Ridge Racer. Nos permite participar en carreras frenéticas llenas de derrapes y saltos exagerados, además de que gracias a su maniobrabilidad más pulida que en entregas pasadas y mecánicas nuevas sus circuitos son más placenteros de recorrer.