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.