I think it's a sign of the times for this game's release that so many reviews of it cited the drift mechanics as a selling point: they're so stiff. it feels a bit like a minigame that you play when meet the conditions for entering one (cranking the wheel while feeding the car gas out of a turning brake/no acceleration) where you have to center the nose of the car in a balancing act with the d-pad. what makes it feel stiff is the abrupt transition between it and the regular physics, where entering a drift suddenly makes you feel like you aren't controlling the car proper anymore, and where leaving it causes your car to suddenly jerk out in the direction you were facing (sometimes) without necessarily matching the speed you were in during the drift. I also couldn't really get the drifts to work just by downshifting, which I'm pretty sure is doable from looking at arcade footage but may not convert correctly to playstation. there are other random issues with it... like the car accidentally drifting in the wrong direction on occasion, or clipping through the geometry inconsistently. for all of the slack I can give it for being so early, it's hard to look favorably upon its drifting and physics when daytona usa did it so much better within a year's time.

besides that, the package is decent and fun to mess around with. there's a single track with a beginner lo-speed mode, an advanced mode that dials up the vehicle speeds, and then an expert course with a challenging construction site addition to the track. the game runs at a smooth 30 fps with little pop-in; this is probably the big factor that pushed rr and the psx over daytona's poor draw distance at 20 fps on saturn. the selection of songs is namco sound team genius, ranging from more poppy dance music to hardcore techno verging on gabber. there's multiple different cars too, and reverse versions of each track... all in all a tidy little package. I don't think it holds up amazingly as a racing game, but it's definitely cool to see the playstation hardware in its infancy.

I'm glad Namco had enough sense to bundle the hi spec demo with R4 instead of trying to sell it. It's very cool as a "look what we've done!" but there's no getting away from the fact that there's less than 20 minutes of entertainment to be had here. They even put a football game on the disc too. Did they ever put a demo of Ridge Racer out on a free disc? In doing so they'd have made buying the full game pointless.

The only reason I'm logging this is because I want to talk about R4 more. I got a physical copy to play on my little CRT and I love it.

Back to the origins of the best arcade racer series (sorry Sega fans): it was a brain-melting technological marvel in 1993, and this System 22 version still impresses compared to the Playstation port.
The main issue with Ridge Racer nowadays is pretty obvious. There's only one car (the F/A Racing) and one course (later known as Seaside Route 765). You can choose between four races: novice (two laps), intermediate (three laps), advanced (three laps on an extended version of the track) and T.T. (not really a time trial but a 1-on-1 with a rival on the advanced track). Every race is faster than the last one, kinda like going from 50 to 100 and 150cc in Mario Kart. This is an extremely short game, but it makes sense when you see it as a replayable ride.

So, how does it play? Well, it's a smooth racing game with simple but very fun to master drifting mechanics. While turning at high speed, let go of the gas pedal, tap the brakes, and then accelerate. You'll start sliding gracefully on the road without losing too much speed. There's a couple of turns where drifting is imperative.
AI is very simple. The other cars are merely obstacles, their main purpose being to obstruct your driving line. There's an exception though: a yellow Solvalou which acts as a "rival" car. It can be a bit of a pain in advanced difficulty, since its speed varies greatly from "obviously waiting for you" to "so fast I'll soon break the laws of physics". Probably some kind of weird rubberbanding going on, but if you don't make mistakes it's definitely beatable.

Last but not least: the soundtrack. There's between six different songs to choose, all pumping electronic music tracks. It was probably a shock for a lot of people back then to hear gabber in a video game. Well, it sure was for me when I was a kid!

Did I enjoy replaying the original Ridge Racer in 2022 as much as in the 90s'? Hell yeah, I did! But it took me 30 minutes to beat all the races so it was a short pleasure.

The original Playstation killer app and the start of Namco's impressive track record on Sony's console. While it wasn't really "arcade at home", it was an incredible showcase for 3D gaming in late 94 when the competition were stuck with Virtua Racing and Stunt Race FX.

Honestly, it's still a fantastic entry in the series. People complaining about how short it is don't realize how barebone the original arcade game was. This Playstation port is full of bonus content: 12 different cars to choose (4 at the start + 8 hidden), a reverse "extra" course to unlock (sure, it's the same course backwards, but you still have to "relearn" it to beat it), and an hidden boss car you need to beat to unlock (a staple in the series).

Having different cars to drive is quite the jump from just one, especially since they all have their different characteristics. The driving model has been tweaked compared to the original. Drifting is harder to pull off and a bad turn can send you to the shadow realm after too much oversteering. I'd advice to use drifts wisely to limit risks. Another tip is to use a very fast car with low grip: you only need to step off the gas a little and quickly accelerate again to start drifting, which is way more manageable than by using the brakes.

Graphically it does the job (keeping in mind it was a Playstation launch title, of course). It's the exact same course as in the arcade version, and they even added a helicopter flying around! The only issue is the poor visibility during the night driving parts, better know the track very well because you can't see anything.
Soundtrack is still as good as in the arcade version. If you're playing on original hardware there's even a disc swapping trick to play your own songs! I used to do that quite often as a kid for the novelty.

Ridge Racer is an excellent port: more content, and with harder and more nuanced driving. A clear leap over the original.

No doubt a breakthrough for its time, but considering that there is a grand total of one track and four cars that control very similarly, this is one of the most bare bones racing games I've played to date. It also doesn't really help that the drifting mechanics are very stiff and inconsistent, as evident by the fact that you lose a ton of traction control when drifting and sometimes drifts won't even happen even when you think you have the right setup for them. Wouldn't really recommend it unless you're very curious to see where it the series got its start.

I wanted to sit down with this one and give it another shot after playing ridge racer revolution for a bit; thanks to kingbancho's review and this extremely helpful thread on giant bomb I suddenly had a much better conception on how to play this game. you'll want to stay in 6th gear virtually all the time without ever releasing the throttle, and for tighter turns simply feather the brake and you'll slide into place with no fuss. first-person mode is also preferable, as it aligns much more closely with the d-pad motions than third-person does from my perspective. with this revelation, I managed to actually beat the four main challenges + beginner extra without losing a sweat. it made the game much more fun than when I originally tried it, but it's also a little deflating. a game with a significant amount of depth (esp an arcade-style game) should demand a cycle of struggle, understanding, and then application. each step you make towards understanding the holistic vision of the game should improve your results and introduce you to new challenges to face. here all it took was one "a-ha!!" moment and then the game was solved; leading to boredom setting in after around an hour of play. if anything I almost would've appreciated more required drifting, as there's only one hairpin on the course that actually requires an skid-marks-and-squealing-tires drift, with the rest being more like nudges with the brakes to get the car on track. nailing that one turn felt great whenever I did it, but it feels a bit as if daytona usa just had the beginner track with the one sharp turn at the end. it wouldn't be memorable if it didn't require you to apply those skills in more and more difficult scenarios, something that ridge racer struggles to do.

extra mode is a neat little add-on to prolong the experience at the very least. it's functionally a mirror mode, and the signs indicating sharper turns are not flipped, meaning that you'll need to remember the track more closely in order to succeed. the time limit is much tighter, the AI is more aggressive, and the sun will set causing turns ahead of you to melt into pitch black. a main issue that annoyed me greatly about this course: there's a bump where the original track start was that will cause your car to bounce at higher speeds, losing a significant amount of speed. on beginner it's not a big deal, just pull off the gas for a second or two before you hit the apex and you'll lose a single mph at the most, but on advanced you have to slow down much more significantly, making it almost useless to avoid it. the AI cars are not subject to this from my observations, which I find annoying: why bother making solely the player suffer this if the rest of the physics are so unrealistic anyway? I also ran into some collision annoyances with first-person mode; in at least one race an AI car clipped through my car, which instantly spun me out on the straightaway right before the finish line. after trying advanced extra for a bit, I found myself tiring of the track I had spent the last hour grinding on and decided to move on. still a solid psx launch title without question, and a suprisingly technically competant translation from the arcade to home.

NTSC U/C copy played on a PlayStation 2 Slim.

I can't compare the PlayStation port of Ridge Racer to its arcade original but as a standalone console game, I think it's fair to say it's a mixed bag at best.

On one hand you have a fairly solid, if very early, form of the drift racer that the series would go on to excel at. While you can get away with holding the accelerate button for the vast majority of each of the two variations of the one track, only occasionally will you have to tap the break button to initiate a wavy drift before it locks you back into a standard driving mode again. It takes a while to get used to and master that "snapping" motion it forces upon you but once you've gotten a handle on it the maneuver can be satisfying.

But really that's all there is to talk about - the cars have different handlings sure but nothing to write home about and the track"s" on display here arr literally just the same one with a slightly more challenging route unlocked for the higher speed racers.

The music's pretty decent, depending heavily on how you view early 90s electronica - some are fun like the classic "Ridge Racer" (here in its more primal form) and "Feeling Over", but then there's the nightmarish "Rotterdam Nation" which feels like you're descending into some hellish landscape.

There are some extras and unlockables you can find, namely the mirrored tracks by driving backwards at the start of each race, and the bonus cars that can be accessed by beating the arcade mini game that plays during the "Now Loading" screen, but they don't radically change the game in any meaningful way.

I'd heavily recommend tracking down a copy of Ridge Racer Type 4 with the Bonus Turbo Disc included as this contains a 60fps version of the game, if a much more stripped back one.

Overall Ridge Racer isn't bad - it's solid and serviceable and worth the 2-3 hours it takes to master it, but I certainly wouldn't have been happy paying the RRP for it.

I've admired Ridge Racer from afar and I wanted to see what all the hubbub about this franchise was about. Now, there's a lot of cool things and a lot of things that have aged this first entry. First off, the music is incredibly stellar, filled with jungle and drum'n'bass goodness. I even got the remixes CD from Namco Sampling Masters. What's better is that this game lets you play music from burnt CDs, the only game outside of the PS1 rhythm games to offer this option as far as I know. As far as the racing goes, it's pretty forgiving as long as you have the timing of your turns right (and I would suggest first-person mode on this). This game is very very short when you have the tricks down, because you only have one track that changes based on difficulty. Sure, you unlock different cars and get a few from cheat codes but they hardly change the dynamic of the game. This is a game screaming for something a bit more, maybe another track possibly. It's a charming little PS1 game for sure, but I feel sorry for anyone who bought this at retail. Shoutout to those that were able to beat the Galaxian mini-game.

due to the fact that this game is a launch title for the ol PS1, its hard to really be harsh on this for being on the light side when it comes to content. However i would also make the argument that this game's short playtime makes it infinitely replayable as you just can turn the game on whenever and go. The singular course in the game is iconic and the soundtrack bangs. The controls can be a little weird due to this game being the first, but you will get the hang of em if you play enough. An arcade racing classic.