Gran turismo, if you ask me, is the definition of someone who dedicates their lives to cars. That’s probably why you like the games, unless you genuinely like them just to have fun. Ridge racer type 4 however, is the only game I know that when I play it, I can feel that it has a sex life. The music, the controls, the visuals, like the lead singer of prince once said: ‘I’m gonna party like it’s 1999’ and that’s exactly what I did.

In the Grand Prix mode you have the option to select which racing team you want to be a part of and which manufacturer you want for your car. The racing teams also double up as your difficulty options but that’s not all, they also have story. What I like about type 4 is that it doesn’t try to go for a really immersive story, all it really is is you driving for someone as your hear about their life and almost get closer to them. It almost makes you want to win and support them with everything possible. They’ll either applaud you for doing well in a race or criticise you for not performing up to standards. The different leads all feel full of life and are one of the best aspects of this mode. You also get the choice between drift cars or grip cars which changes the handling of how you drive. The tracks are also very similar throughout with different routes that appear as you return to them later. The Grand Prix mode is the best mode of the entire game and it really shows.

The music is just the chefs kiss of the entire game. Never have I gone into a game and been absolutely blown away by an absolutely stellar techno soundtrack. It was the 90’s so it does make some sense but oh man is it amazing. From the groovy saxophone of ‘Pearl blue soul’ to the more chilled and relaxed ‘move me’ there really is something for everyone in this soundtrack and it all works really well as you’re driving. It almost compliments each other excellently. And even the menu themes are an absolute bop.

There are a few other modes like time attack where you can use cars you’ve unlocked in the gran prix mode and even extra trial where you test your speed against a super fast opponent with any car you unlocked throughout the Grand Prix mode. You can even edit what your car looks like in the garage mode where you can check out the cars you’ve unlocked and play around with the customisation options.

So yes, ridge racer type 4 is my first proper racing game and…I feel it’s gonna be hard to top. There’s a reason I’ve given this game 5 stars and it’s because it was an absolute joy to play and it’s gonna really set my standards for other racing games. I am hoping to try the gran turismo games and maybe give the wipeout games a go if I can, as they are supposed to have a stellar soundtrack. But for now, ridge racer type 4 will probably hold the crown as my favourite racing game of all time.

Bopping soundtrack, excellent gameplay, great Grand Prix modes, stories were wonderful, and the pac-man car

After hours. I am a single line across which all other lines unfold, slick, slipping. Going so fast the strands slide through the cracks of the emulator.

2:00 am. My automobile body funnelled into video-tunnels that stretch without end to the rhythm of nu-jazz beats. A drama that plays on repeat for my Pearl Blue Soul.

Someway, somehow, R4 reminds me of a Hong Sang-soo film.

It's a senseless comparison, played-out across mediums and genres but every time I come back to these tracks it persists, blends-in along the city lights and tire marks in my rear-view mirror.

There's a tension in this philosophy of drift, the joyous longing of century's sunset, that makes me pause for thought at the end of every race. The stories are so simple, the game presented with such expert straightforwardness, as to blur the feeling itself in Camarro-yellows.

Still, where I think this iteration of Ridge Racer joins the cinema of the author is in that insistence to make flows coexist - rub emotion and expression against one another in ways most often hidden - and leave the outbursts at the edges of the screen.

The speed of Ridge Racer is the pace of life itself but for all its glamour breathlessness the moments that truly stir are those near-misses, the curves in a length of road where the vehicle goes slightly out of control and you brush past a rival. The little encounters. The seconds where the heart stops. I wish I could've held-on to your hand a horizon longer.

Type 4s and margaritas, that’s all I want for the summer.

Played through this on a whim. My first game in the series, just saw it mentioned and it seemed neat. Cool game overall, the visuals hold up extremely well and the soundtrack is great, lot of style all around. Pretty severely held back by a lack of content, or a lack of the right type of content. There are only 8 tracks, and you see them all in the grand prix mode. They're mostly good tracks, except the final one which is bafflingly a very simple layout where it seems like the optimal strat is full speed with no drifting, which isn't challenging and doesn't play to the game's strengths. It's also probably the least interesting visually. So, 7 good tracks. I could see replaying them a bit in time trial but that's pretty slim, and replaying grand prix with the different car sponsors doesn't seem all that fun. It seems like way too much of the development budget went into making over 300 cars, which is fucking insane. You play as 4 of them during a grand prix. I'd rather have like 10 cars total and double the tracks or something. The grand prix also has a story between races that's just really fucking weird? It's just one character having a one sided conversation with you and it's really strange, I don't get at all what they were going for. The actual racing feels pretty great, I wish it had analog support, especially being the 4th one on the console by that point, but I guess it's not too unusual for the era and it controls well despite that. Drifting feels really good, and the first person perspective stands out for that time. I had a good time but just wish there was more there.

I'm starting to think this entire series is just style over substance. Although they are getting better with each release.

Considering all the hype around R4, I was expecting this to be a sort of reinvention of the series that introduces a completely new handling model and physics. But no, it essentially still suffers from the same problems as its predecessors, just to a much smaller degree. I would describe the gameplay here as subpar. It's not rage-inducing like the previous entries, but still pretty frustrating. And the amount of content is still miniscule. I could kinda understand that in the previous games, as they were aimed at the Arcade, but this one was intended as a console game, so I don't know why you can still beat it in like an hour.

There's also now this tacked-on story with extremely forced drama. It's all in text boxes, so at least you can just skip it and pretend it's not there.

The presentation is excellent of course. Flawless even. There's not one element that seems out of place or mediocre. Unfortunately, this is a video game, not a music video.

I really wanted to rate this game higher, but I can't. I gave Colin McRae Rally 3/5, and that game had one of the best handling models I've ever seen in a racer, and phenomenal physics for 1998. And its presentation wasn't too shabby either. So if I called R4 a better game, I'd be a liar.

Racing games were never my thing. Unless the game was an entry from the Mario Kart series or was at an arcade, I would rarely find myself willingly sitting down to play a racing game, especially by myself. The amount of praise that I've heard for both the Ridge Racer franchise as a whole and Ridge Racer Type 4 in particular sparked my curiosity, though, and so I was eager to give that game a shot. From the moment I booted the game up for the first time, I was greeted by one of the coolest video game openings of all time, and while it did take months for me to actually have the chance to really sink my teeth into the game, the imagery of Reiko Nagase and those cars being set to the song "Urban Fragments" was burned into my brain. That two minute opening cutscene alone made me know that this game was something special, and now that I've been playing it, I've also been thinking about it constantly.

Among other things, Ridge Racer Type 4 is a game that many people associate with its phenomenal music, and it fully deserves all the praise that it gets. This game's fun, energetic, and optimistic soundtrack is a melting pot of several genres including funk, acid jazz, and D&B, and this eclectic mix not only matched the thrills of the game's high-speed races, but it also worked beautifully alongside the game's stylish UI to evoke a consistent atmosphere of levelheadedness and confidence that I absolutely loved. Speaking of which, the driving in Ridge Racer Type 4 feels great, as its physics and controls were arcade-y enough for you to be able to pick the game up and immediately have a good time with it while still being realistic enough to make refining your skills in drifting and turning feel immensely rewarding. Racing against a friend in two-player mode is already a lot of fun, but I also got a lot of enjoyment out of the time attack and extra trial modes, as it always feels satisfying to shave off even one millisecond from your previous record.

The main bulk of this game's single player content can be found in its Grand Prix mode, and I was really surprised to see how even that was filled with tons of charm and personality. The tournaments themselves have a great sense of progression to them, as being able to earn the trust of your team partners while also unlocking new cars depending on your performance made me want to do better for more reason than to just win. Not only was it interesting to see what racing meant to each of the team's characters, but the mix-&-match element to the Grand Prix's difficulty and car manufacturers made for some great replay value. Ridge Racer Type 4 is also one of the best looking games on the original PlayStation, and while that is kind of a given due to how this game was released towards the end of the console's lifespan, the detailed car models and backgrounds still dazzled me while also retaining a bit of the PS1's charming blockiness. I was really surprised by just how much I loved Ridge Racer Type 4, and not only am I excited to keep playing it, but I also want to broaden my horizons with the racing game genre, with the Burnout, Midnight Club, and Need for Speed franchises looking especially intriguing.

Something about this year that I just wanted to dive into whichever genre of games outside of my comfort zone from dungeon crawlers, shmups, rail shooters, flight simulation and finally to racing games which I've never been a fan of from the start, it has been such a blast trying out all these games from genres I've never really thought about playing before and Ridge Racer Type 4 just cemented the big change I'm experiencing right now for my outlook on games in general, it's an extremely charming game and is brimming with so much soul and passion in every aspect of it. I'm truly grateful to it and how it made me realize my increased love and passion for this medium.

I'm naming my son/daughter R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 Direct Audio idc you can't just compose Urban Fragments, Lucid Rhythms, Your Vibe, Movin' in Circles, FUCKING MOVE ME, On Your Way, Naked Glow, The Ride, etc etc and not have me name my child after it

"... Our team's performance has been, shall we say, less than stellar in recent years. In fact, people call us the "Dig Your Own Grave" team."

Brother, I don't know how to tell you this, but I never learned how to drift. I am going to skid off every wall I see and bankrupt this team.

Ridge Racer Type 4 seemed like an easy pick for my 2023 Summah Games series. Heat radiating off the pavement, the buzz of revving engines beatings against my eardrums, air thick with the smell of oil... Not that I've experienced this in real life, but my mental image of a street race fills me with this weighty, sticky sort of heavy heat that is characteristic of long Summer nights. It's 110 degrees out currently and the temperature drops to about 80 at night, it is so hot that my little retro corner - which is situated next to an exterior-facing wall - gets uncomfortably warm even at 10pm. This is the perfect time for Summah gaming. I drop a couple ice cubes in a glass of whiskey, put on my favorite tank top and a pair of shorts, and let the AC and heat converge in front of the CRT. While this setup may serve as a pale imitation of my street racing fantasies, sometimes when I close my eyes I feel like I'm there.

Shit, a wall! OH NO!!!

Alright, closing your eyes while racing is a bad idea. I failed the first "heat," and Enki Gilbert is berating me about how I've disgraced Italy from the foot of my hospital bed. Lesson learned. I'll do better next time, Enki, I swear!

Several more second place finishes and Enki is no more pleased with me than he was after I ate shit at Wonderhill, but that racing spirit has infected me, and no amount of dressing down will dilute my confidence as I enter into the last stretch of the GP. Ridge Racer Type 4 is such a stylistic game for 1998, and over two decades later I can't think of another arcade racer that comes close to matching its mood. The vibrant yellows, the blocky menus, and incredible soundtrack create such a unique identity, it's hard not to get sucked in. The Grand Prix - R4's main single-player mode - is an experience in of itself, from witnessing the personal and professional growth of your team managers, to the dopamine hit of unlocking a new car or the simple joys of navigating the pre-race menus, every piece comes together to form this immaculate whole.

R4's quality extends well beyond vibes. The actual feel of racing through tracks like Shuttleloop Highway and Phantomile is so remarkably smooth for a PlayStation racing game that I'm hard pressed to cite anything else that's held up quite so well. The framerate is nice and steady, and the draw distance - which is vital for making 3D racing tracks readable - is impressive. Though I ran into walls both metaphorical and literal, I never felt like the game was impeding me so much as I needed to learn the ins and outs of my cars, whereas weaker racing games might breed frustration by leaving me ill-prepared for sharp turns or unable to see what's coming down the track.

Most races start with you overtaking about half of your competitors on the first lap, but each car thereafter is a genuine rival that must be skillfully outmaneuvered to claim victory. First place finishes carry a sense of accomplishment, at least in the first two heats, though the game does become bizarrely easy during the final half. Normally, I'd dislike such uneven difficulty balancing, but R4's Grand Prix is all about growth, and the inversed difficulty goes a long way towards supporting its themes.

My copy also came with a bonus disc containing a 60fps demo of the original Ridge Racer, which serves as a great means to chart how far the series had come since its 1994 PlayStation debut. That's not to say the original PSX version of Ridge Racer is so antiquated as to be unplayable, but it is definitely lacking in a certain level of refinement, both stylistic and mechanical. You can also do a neat little side-by-side with Ridge Racer itself as a 30fps demo is also included, letting you really appreciate how much of a difference the extra 30 frames make.

This bonus disc includes demos for Klonoa and Tekken 3 as well as previews for some light gun games and Namco Museum Vol.1 and 3, so it's altogether a neat little package. Of course, I am deeply nostalgic for the bygone era of demo discs and have begun collecting them (with the intent of reviewing them soon, PlayStation Underground in particular), so maybe this is all appealing on a very personal level. I don't know how much excitement someone is going to get looking at blurry footage of Point Blank 2.

BUT IS IT A SUMMAH GAME?

Rubber burning on asphalt made molten by the Summah sun, the intense heat bearing down on you from the improperly covered stadium seating as you shove whole peanuts into your mouth, salt contributing to your dehydration... Racing is a perfect Summah event and that alone should qualify Ridge Racer Type 4, but we have scientific standards to uphold here, and vibes alone cannot certify this as a Summah game.

I subjected R4 to a series of excruciating tests. Hooked up a car battery to it, submerged it in motor oil, and placed it into the seat of my Toyota Avalon with a cinder block on the gas to see what speeds it could attain. Ridge Racer Type 4 sped away with an impressive 9.8 on the Summah Index Scale, though it did careen into oncoming traffic and took out a moped. The ensuing collision with a nuclear armament truck did wipe away any and all evidence of my involvement, but I am now out one copy of Ridge Racer Type 4.

The amount of praises I've seen people sing about this game had led me to believe that I was being played a fool, and a bunch of video game intellectuals™ with writing capabilities far better than mine had gotten around on a round table and decided "Hm yes this is the new niche PlayStation 1 video game we will be gassing up on Backloggd dot com this week."

After playing it through myself, yeah it's pretty good. I still don't get most of the praise but not like it should really matter. People like what they like and I like this game. I'm sorry Josh_The_Fourth.

The most aesthetically solid racer I've ever played.

Track variety is a little disappointing, and the AI racer systems are underwhelming.

But - when the car is sideways and I'm blasting through a corner, the sheer momentum of the handling model pushes me to death-grip the controller as if I'm trying not to fly out the window from G-force.

R4 lives up to the hype, and is worth returning to a quarter-century later.

There's something oddly comforting about Ridge Racer Type 4. It's a title I missed for many years because I owned a Nintendo 64 as a kid rather than a Playstation. Racing titles also never really caught on for me growing up outside of spending insane hours on my dad's psp playing his copy of Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition, and also Sonic Rivals 2 which is a story for another day. Of course it's different nowadays since I've gotten into many phenomenal titles and series over the past decade or so like F-Zero and Wipeout, but I do regret not taking advantage of these games in their heyday whereas arcade racers have almost dropped off the map in the current landscape for more simulated, grounded ones, which can be pretty fun too but they just do not compare to many 5th and 6th gen entries. My PS Vita's been sitting here collecting dust, so I might as well make it useful and get creative with playing all the games the industry doesn't seem too into bringing back.

Unsurprisingly, Type 4 kicks ass. It would still be legendary based on the intro alone, but the gameplay itself is exhilarating and tight as hell too. It's the standard racing format of the time, but the way the game controls and feels just ripping and sliding around the courses just feels unparalleled. The Grand Prix set up is so simple yet genius in its progression of first settling into one of the vast array of vehicles available and then ramping up even further in difficulty to ask you to meet the standard of a Grand Prix winner. Despite being kinda ass at times with my cornering, I got so much enjoyment out of this mode and loved the mini stories in the background revolving around your success in the race and the interactions with the coach. There's a surprising amount of human drama here that added much to the experience and made winning feel even more at stake and necessary, which I can't say I feel too often in many titles.

The aesthetics of Type 4 are to die for. On top of the incredible FMV setting the optimistic and sublime tone effectively, the main menu oozes with so much personality and neon style. This game is loud, full of wonder, carefree, and dreamlike that I end up losing myself in its 90s feel despite never really growing up with this game or the context surrounding it. The soundtrack bangs and the sound design is downright magical, ripping and screeching wheels on the pavement with a racing heartbeat in ear and tearing up the roads just nearly crossing the finish line first in a photo finish. No racing game has hit as hard as this game for me outside of F-Zero GX.

Ridge Racer Type 4 is an adoring and loving letter to this beautiful genre that I can't believe I missed all these years, but it will definitely remain with me for many late afternoon and evening runs to come now. Masterpiece, they don't make them like they used to.

This is the only racing game I know of that has incorporated a theme, in this case the idea of a “turning point” and implementing it into all these different aspects to create a unified and beautifully made game. The gameplay is centered around drifting around corners and turns; the managers you meet are in what can be called turning points in their lives and as the Prix progresses move on from the past and towards the future; the final race of the Grand Prix takes place on the last day of 1999, the literal turning point between two millenniums; and of course this being the last Ridge Racer on the PS1, serving as a turning point for the series. The fact that this game released with a 60 FPS version of Ridge Racer 1 to show how far the series has come on the same platform really ties everything together as well. Overall a phenomenal title and my favorite racer. also has good music.

From the CG intro to the bright yellow menus to Kohta Takahashi's outstanding OST, this is a time capsule of the aesthetics of 1998. The racing is classic arcade-style and, in my opinion, that makes manual transmission the only option. Courses and events are varied, for what's here, and the GP story frames are fun. The downsides are the small number of tracks and events. With the exception of some story, players will have seen most of what there is to see after a single trip through GP mode. Then again, what's here can be replayed endlessly. This game is so polished, and its presentation is so pleasant, that I know I'll keep coming back.

People rate this game on vibes alone. I won't lie the vibes are strong with this one, but it's overall marred by the corniest and most cringely executed story in a racing game ever, nonsensical replay value structure, and the fact that, as a Ridge Racer title, this one is pretty mid. The game omits out the upgrade system of Rage Racer or really any freedom to choose what to do next, you're simply dragged from race to race w some dialogue scenes sprinkled in, until it's over. The game is extremely short so, as if to compensate for this, four story arcs are included, but you're taken on the exact same courses each time. You're essentially tricked into playing through the game four times. There's little sense of speed and the drifting also seems to be worse, feels.. stuttery somehow. Honestly it felt like the drifting became slightly worse with each PS1 installment, I didn't mind this in Rage Racer since I felt I was getting something in exchange, but not so with "R4."

Another thing I was hung up on was that the courses weren't connected, which to me was like, it defeats the point of calling it a Ridge Racer title! It's too much just like any other racing game at that point. Granted, this would go on to become the norm for Ridge Racer games (Ridge Racer V would be the last one to do it) but that feels like Namco retconning this game to seem less bad by making future games unremarkable.

I always felt as though there should one day be a remake of this game that addresses the issues, and a better story. But it's admittedly futile seeing as everyone likes this game already, and a game already exists called R Racing Evolution which I've only played briefly but is uncomfortably close to being a spiritual remake of R4, but with even more Ridge Racer elements removed, and still cringey. Any future effort is unlikely to fare better.