i don't really enjoy cars, i don't think i understand them. i don't get the excitement, i don't get the aesthetics, i can find beauty in a car design, but i don't get a rush out of it. simply put, i'm not a part of its culture

i am, however, gonna dig any car that has "DRUAGA" written in big bold letters on top of it's paint an immense amount. i'm sure this game is better for people who actually do like these machines, but i was genuinely content playing it. listen, Namco was king once. way before Atlus could start to even concede it's proven true red and black combo. this here is elegant, provocative and powerful, masterclass in design, really, in every way. nothing else was doing it like videogames were and much less like Namco was.

i honestly love how this game controls, i love how there's only two (three technically) different locations with tons of variations on how they're raced, i love the soundtrack, i love picking colors for my car, love the duel system, love the obnoxious DJ, i especially love driving at night it feels like everything to me. winning feels good, this game will make you tense and it will also make you relaxed because believe it or not there is enough time to appreciate the scenery.

i don't like cars but maybe if i had ridge racer v during my formative years i would have played racing games other than mario kart. or at the very least more ridge racer

Ridge Racer V: Launch Titles and The Lost Magic of Console Generations
There's nothing quite like zooming through the streets of Ridge City at night time, while "Euphoria" plays on the radio.
As of recently I've been on a bit of a Ridge Racer kick again, most notably putting my attention back on the fifth main installment in the series. The best way to describe R5 is bold. It's a game screaming with confidence and promise, amazingly optimized at 60fps and boasting insane visuals for the year 2000.
But that's just right, R5 was a launch title for the PS2, one of the highest selling consoles of all time. And yet, it fell under the radar compared to many other games on the system, even when it came out (I'm assuming that goes to Tekken Tag Tournament being the more appealing Namco offering). It's buried under the popularity of the entries in the series both before and after, being sandwiched in between Ridge Racer Type 4 and Ridge Racer 2004. It's overall a somewhat forgotten game, it didn't even sell that well and has never even been ported a single time… and yet, I find it one of the most profound launch titles of all time.
R5 represents a time when the leap in console generations was greater and mattered so much more. While its predecessor RRT4 was a game about looking towards the next millennium and the future of racing, R5 is the future, as insanely flashy UI and hard techno beats blast from the television screen. It boasts the technical prowess of this new generation of gaming in every single way it can. It's fucking AWESOME.
But the sad truth is that it doesn't feel like that anymore with the last two leaps in console generations. The jump in hardware doesn't land as much because we've reached a point in graphical fidelity that can't go much further than looking more realistic and being able to handle more of said demanding visuals better. This isn't entirely the fault of modern game developers, it's simply just the sad reality of how fast digital technology has evolved. And sure, maybe I am biased… I don't despise modern games but I certainly aren't very passionate for them aside from more stylistic ones that feel like old games. But it simply makes me sit back and wonder how the hell the next generation of systems could really do anything major to impress me, something to sell me on the next console and go “holy fuck, gaming has evolved.” It makes me a bit sad I missed seeing the insane revolution that was the fifth and sixth generation consoles.
Ridge Racer V is not the most impactful launch title, nor would it have been the most important pack-in title had it been one. But what R5 is, is a game that showed the promise and passion of the sixth generation of gaming hardware, and paved the way for the most important console generation of all time.

Ridge Racer V is a difficult game, which is a massive departure from Type 4's more pleasant and easy going difficulty, that I feel compliments the game's entire direction. The music is a lot more abrasive, the announcer has a less relaxed cadence and a new racing queen Ai Fukami replaces fan favorite Reiko Nagase. The visual aesthetics are of that Y2K futurism era and even though it's going for a different tone, it does feel like a Ridge Racer game with the mix of urban, seaside views and drifting.
While I do enjoy how it's a tougher game than Type 4, I'll admit that a Ridge Racer game being a relaxing experience appeals to me a lot more. The fact that this game made me question if I preferred it over Type 4 says something about its quality and appeal though and I would love to be able to play the game on original hardware, or at least a smoother experience than how my PC was emulating it.

EDIT June 1st 2023: I must have been playing it on normal difficulty, because I made sure to put it on easy this time and it's a lot more laid back. Also, using a later build of PCSX2 that emulates the game better on my PC, even though it's not perfect, so uh yeah this game rules!

a very natural evolution from the PS1 games. the announcer sounds like a total goober(awesome). all the courses are various different paths in one big city which is pretty cool honestly. For a PS2 launch title this game also looks great, albiet maybe a little jaggy but that doesn't hurt anyone. The menu design is a vibe of its own. Plays like the earlier ridge racers and not like the more modern boosty ridge racers so purists rejoice with this one. The soundtrack is kinda meh though. Def a good PS2 arcade racer despite its age.

Where Ridge Racer 4 felt buttery smooth and gorgeous in every way, V tests your limits with some truly unforgiving AI and harsh penalties for the smallest mistakes. The mood is darker to match this, the story is completely absent again and the soundtrack has shifted gears; DRFTDVL and Fogbound are excellent. The handling is precise to a fault and never feels off, and the return to arcade-like 60fps helps massively. I see this and R4 as complimentary to each other, though the full package isnt quite as smoothed off. I wish I could turn the announcer off, there is very little track variety, the resolution feels less crisp than it's PS1 predecessor thanks to poor software-level interlacing.
Still, this is just as worthy as Ridge Racer 4. An excellent sequel that treads new ground without forgetting what made it so great. Unbelievable that a game launched the same day as the PS2 can play this well.

"You're tuned to seventy-six point five on your radio dial, Ridge City FM."

The sun setting on the horizon paints the city and its streets a golden yellow hue. DJ Ken Ayugai tells me over the radio that we've got the perfect weather conditions for a grand prix today. I can't say I disagree.

I take the wheel and speed my gorgeously rendered Fiera through the futuristic Japanese city streets, along looping expressways and down its winding coastal clifftops overlooking the sea, all at a lightning fast 60fps. Welcome to the age of PS2, baby.

The sound of roaring engines and rubber tires burning on asphalt fills the cool evening air.

Narrowly avoiding collision against the extremely aggressive and punishing AI, I carefully manoeuvre my way through the pack one by one towards my ridge racing destiny.

On the radio, "Paris" (Nobuyoshi Sano) begins to play, its ethereal techno sounds punctuated with cool, emotionally charged piano runs.

Chills tingle down my spine. I'm in the zone now.

I can almost feel the cool evening air in my face as I take the final stretch of road, my palms sweaty but mind razor focused.

The wise words of DJ Ken reverberate inside my head-

"Those drivers face danger at every turn of the track. You've got to give them crazy daredevils some respect for that."

Damn right you do.

The culmination of hours of practise and hard work, I ease off the accelerator, executing an inch perfect drift as I turn into the final corner, soaring past my stunned rival and putting me firmly into first place.

DJ Ken says "That's some wicked steering! Check him out!"

Thanks DJ Ken.

I can taste victory now. Those countless hours learning every inch of every track is finally paying off. This is my time.

Heart racing, I leave my opponent behind me in a trail of dust and roll over the finish line, triumphant.

"There goes the winner! What an incredible race!"

I cheered. I shouted. I fist pumped the air. Nothing prepares you for this.

I win. I am the Ridge Racer.

And just like that, I am snapped back to reality by my girlfriend, looking distinctly unimpressed…

"I'll be impressed when you stop playing on easy mode, bitch"

Went petrol go-karting yesterday and managed to hit a few pretty solid drifts on a hairpin by applying the exact principles learned in games like OutRun 2 and Type 4, which felt very, very sweet. (I also gave myself pretty severe whiplash by spinning out on a downhill, but we'll ignore that) Having never so much as attempted a handbrake turn in all my fifteen years of holding a driving licence, finally getting to experience the rush of throwing my backside out caused me to zoom home, exorcise my disc and compare notes with the virtual worlds that taught me all I know about how to drive good (and bad).

Glad I've persevered with this one - I wanted to give it up early on, but the volume of comments suggesting that this was a beautiful gourmet lobster that needs to be cracked open in order to access its meaty innards is a positive example of how reading Backloggd opinions can enrich your gaming life. As everyone says, it is brutal in its opening hours, with punishing S-corners and AI drivers that work so hard to block your every opening to no real detriment of their own. Worth it, though, when you get a handle on how the handling here subtly differs from Type 4: the beginner car is more beginner-friendly than it first seems, essentially allowing you to "correct" a turn you've already started accelerating into in order to turn it into a drift, even when the corner's almost done - a life-saver, especially when your rival has plans for how to run you off the road. The other cars aren't so easily mastered, though, and the rest is up to you - trying to explain their mechanical ins and outs would be like describing how to ride a bike, essentially useless in comparison to just feeling it out for yourself.

Seven tracks (half of which intersect with each other) seems like hardly any at all, but when multiplied with the number of cars on offer and how wildly they differ, you realise you're essentially being offered a series of puzzles that involve working out when each car should turn or shift through gear - a smart game designer's way of maximising value from what was very likely a limited development time. The heroic, master, etc. GPs are less refined measures of improving the game's longevity by just bumping pure numbers up, but are nonetheless welcome because they let you go insanely fast with no real additional risk. Does drafting belong in Ridge Racer? Sound off in the comments below.

Outside of relatively minor mechanical quibbles and course semantics, all that really divides most Ridge Racer games is their vibes. In this regard, I feel like *V lags a few seconds behind 4. I get it - the potential of a new millennium is far more alluring than actually living in it, and there was no way a PlayStation 2 launch title could compare to a generational capstone... but the aesthetic sensibilities here don't feel as confident or coherent. Type 4's soundtrack plays out like a cohesive album by a single artist, whereas V is more like a compilation CD of electric dance tracks with no specific theme, a gamble of tone that doesn't always pay off. I hit [RANDOM PLAY] in Type 4 and I'll always be happy; in V, certain tracks have me considering whether it's worth just hitting the crash barrier and starting again - that's no good! Relationally, this is in many ways the Tekken 4 to Type 4's Tekken 3. Despite all that, this is, of course, you know it, still leagues and miles better than the vibeless drudgery of Gran Turismo*, which I also played yesterday. You WILL have a good time here, if you stick with it. Guaranteed!

After playing the previous 4 entries and seeing continuous improvement, I was hoping this would be the best game in the series. The cover art is certainly the prettiest. But it's like the devs went insane and decided that the handling in R4 was starting to get too normal, and this just isn't the Ridge Racer way. So naturally this game controls like ass. As long as you're holding down the acceleration button, the steering is too tight, but as soon as you release it, it sends the car spinning. If you don't try to fight it, the slightest attempt at steering without acceleration will literally turn your car 180 degrees around. This must be one of the worst-controlling racing games I've ever played.

Ridge Racer Type 4 represented racing towards the future. The platonic form of driving represented by crossing the finish line and becoming the champion of real racing roots '99 at the exact turn of the millennium. In contrast, Ridge Racer V is racing in the future, as imagined in the Y2K era of the early Playstation 2.

Ridge Racer V is, compared to the soft, silky, jazzy vibes of Type 4, a much more aggressive game in terms of visuals, music and gameplay. This lead me to not like it as much as its predecessor first, but after playing more and learning the feel of the new tracks and cars, I came to appreciate the art of drifting through ridge city. Drifting is absolutely the name of the game here, it's much easier to enter a powerslide compared to previous games in the series, and even the grip cars will be powersliding around most corners. This results in early moments of frustration as you will regularly lose control of your car, but once you learn to tame these beasts, the game becomes very satisfying, the first time you win a GP against the brutally aggressive AI will be a moment to remember.

The music is still full of bangers like Type 4, but there's less direction in the soundtrack. You can tell that in Type 4 each song is designed to perfectly complement the race tracks - the bass solo in Naked Glow is just as much a part of Wonderhill as the environments and corners themselves, but while songs like Euphoria and Samurai Rocket are still great, they don't have the same kind of bond with the race tracks themselves, and frankly I found a few of the songs in this game to be forgettable.

Ridge Racer V takes a less narratively-driven approach. This time you manage your own team (which is mostly done behind the scenes), and participation in the ridge city race events is very much an individual affair. This leads to a more "console racer" and open ended feeling to the game, for better and for worse, but it does mean that this game has way more content and longevity than previous Ridge Racer games. I especially love how time attack is incentivised and contextualised within the game. Most tracks have a rival time that you can attempt to beat, if you beat all of a given rival's times, they will be available to 1v1 duel, and if you beat them in that duel, you unlock their special car that represents the extremes of Ridge Racer V's car design and variety. It's awesome stuff and I really wish more racing games did this kind of thing.

If you can take the time to learn this game it's an extremely rewarding experience, and one I appreciate in helping me get back into the racing game genre. You can tell that Namco were well and truly at the top of their game in this era, and Ridge Racer V definitely deserves its reputation as a standout early PS2 title. It doesn't quite reach the heights of Type 4, but it's close enough in almost all respects.

Also, Ai Fukami > Reiko Nagase. :^)

much has already been said by writers (or racers) more skilled than i on this site, but i felt the need to stress how aesthetically and mechanically mesmerizing the R4 and R5 combo is for me. their epoch stands as one of the most unique representations of the shift in era at the time. R4’s sharply stylized mellow post-90s tones have now been smoothened out in favor of industrial Y2K aggressiveness in R5. bubbly synths with deep pulsating electronic baselines hang over photorealistic cityscapes - genuinely still starstruck by how well this holds up visually as well.
R4 recognizes that racers are frequently perceived as limbs for their team manager’s goals while R5 displays individuality in racers as promoted by the lack of direct narrative: the announcer is never shy in enlightening us that all racers on the track deserve our respect. furthermore he’ll happily declare our tight corning as wicked or crazy. the steeper difficulty curve is also indicative of the millennial shift as racing has become more commercialized and widespread; making it to the top requires more perseverance than ever. races are broadcast over the radio due to their popularity and thus require enhanced narration layered on from the announcer.
would undoubtedly assert R5 as one of the most important games during its release. as far as ps2 launch titles go, this, the bouncer, & evergrace are some of the best in communicating 2000 as a year towards greater things in gaming.