Ridge Racer 6 – Review

Where’s the Fun Gone? – I blame Gran Turismo. Since its first appearance on the PS1 it’s focused on the smallest of driving details, which have subsequently become integral components in many racing games. Everything from considered tyre selection to the brake ratio between front and fear wheels, it’s all become a bit, well, sim-like as opposed to fun-based—hasn’t it? Aren’t we, as gamers, supposed to be having ‘fun’ rather than endlessly struggling to shave 0.3 of a second from a lap time with the optimum car set up? What happened to those driving games that allowed you to take corners at stupid unrealistic speeds and not spin-off just because you throttled a little too hard a little too soon? You know, purists aside, some of us just want to drive really fast cars really fast! Is that too much to ask? Namco doesn’t think so…

Kudos? Shmoodos!
Ridge Racer 6 is actually the 7th game of the series—if you count the Sony PSP incarnation known as Ridge Racers. Ridge Racer 6 (RR6) shares many of the gameplay elements seen in Ridge Racers but embellishes them a little for the sake of the Xbox 360’s next-gen label. Unlike certain other racing titles—cough—ProjectGothamRacing3—cough—RR6 focuses on the sheer thrill of speed and offers an arcade approach to the handling of its cars, i.e. it’s about as realistic as the average plotline in a daytime soap opera. But that’s not a bad thing, as RR6 adds a big dollop of fun that makes the game an absolute joy to play—providing that you persevere with it from the off.

“Stay on the road!”*
Like its predecessors, Ridge Racer 6 forces the player to stay on the road, yet with scant regard for the much-lauded precise racing line that other titles obsess over. RR6 lets the player hurl the car around corners with adrenaline-infused abandon while exuding little need for the use of such things as brakes. Indeed, many people say that if you’re using the brake in a Ridge Racer game then you’re not playing it right. RR6 takes this premise even further by introducing a nitrous boost reward to those who manage to drift through corners at top speed. The more the car drifts, the more the nitrous boost bar fills. The rate of this filling varies depending on how fast your car hits the corner, and it doubles when a drift is performed whilst hitting nitrous boost.

To boost, or not to boost? That is the question**
The implementation of a nitrous boost system is hardly a new thing in racing games, but it is for the Ridge Racer series. First introduced in the PSP version, nitrous boosting allows the player to make significant headway in a race thanks to a massive, yet short lived, speed boost. This adds a certain dimension of strategy to the experience, as the question of when to boost is always in the back of player’s mind. Should you fire it off as soon as possible, use it to build a lead, catch up if lagging, or perhaps store it until the final few corners to stylishly blast past the competition on the finish line? Boosts on the PSP release were limited to one-shot affairs, whereas RR6 on the 360 has multi-charge boosts that allow players to simultaneously fire off two or even all three nitrous cylinders to provide significant and prolonged speed injections. This way of using nitrous benefits those who like to store it up as a last resort action as opposed to a key component of their racing style.

Horrid Case of Deja vu
For those who haven’t played a Ridge Racer game (yes, I’m talking to both of you) the core of the game is to unlock tracks and cars by competing in a series of championships. Each championship is split into a series of races, all of which you must win in order to progress to the next round. Interestingly enough, this is a slight departure from previous Ridge Racer games, as RR6 requires you to finish first in ‘all’ races whereas in previous titles you normally had to finish at least 3rd to progress. It’s not clear why Namco went this way, but I suspect it may have something to do with people saying that Ridge Racer (as a series) was a tad too easy so they subsequently upped the ante.

Anyway, the game’s races are set within fictional Ridge City and the tracks are laid out within different city sections, which vary from downtown cityscapes to bay-side beach fronts. This means that whilst driving in one race you’ll often see sections of a track you’ve previously raced on, which has always been a nice touch for the series and has remained intact for Ridge Racer 6.

The key change in RR6 is the introduction of the ‘World Xplorer [sic]’ system. This allows players to select a route through which they can complete races and unlock sections of the game. This is represented by a network of cells that are all linked and progress from left to right—with each succeeding race becoming more difficult as you move ever-further into the network.

This review opened with a note about perseverance and how the game is initially somewhat hard to get into—and believe me it is. It’s dull. The races are much too easy, to the point where you can finish them with your eyes closed. But, after the first few hours of gameplay, things do begin to open up and, suddenly, it becomes challenging. You’ll need to use the nitrous boost at just the right moment to achieve best effect; you’ll be racing the A.I. cars right down to the wire to get your bumper over the finish line first. And, when this all happens, Ridge Racer 6 really impresses as a fun and exhilarating racing experience.

Fanciful Cars with Fictional Handling
RR6 boasts a large number of cars, none of which you’re ever likely to see driving down your local high street any time soon. They come in 3 varieties of ‘drifting’ type, and are as follows:

Standard: For those players not especially familiar with flinging cars around corners at 3 million mph without spinning wildly out of control. These cars are more forgiving to the player but not as fast when drifting.

Dynamic: The complete opposite of standard, and it duly expects a lot from the driver as it allows direction change during a drift but they’re harder to pull out from, which causes slow down.

Mild: For the player who just can’t tolerate drifting. Cars that have ‘mild’ drift actually tend not to as they snap out of corners very quickly, allowing the player to accelerate away.

This selection of car types allows players to choose whether or not to exploit the nitrous boost or call upon it sporadically, although, in my experience, players who choose not to utilise the boost system don’t do very well during races—particularly as A.I. opposition use it a great deal.

Multiplayer
RR6 is the first Ridge Racer game to support online play—yes, you read that correctly—it is possible to play RR6 online via Xbox Live. There are a variety of game types including standard races using ‘Online Battle’ mode, through to timed-laps in ‘Global Time Attack’, which allows Xbox Live members to upload their lap times onto a database to compare with others.

The maximum number of players that can compete against one another online is…wait for it, 14. Yes, FOURTEEN! Mind-boggling, I know, and a number Namco should certainly be boasting about. Online play works amazingly well with little to no lag in evidence.

Graphics
Ridge Racer 6 is a lush game from top to bottom, with beautiful scenery and complementary lighting effects. The cars models are excellently rendered down to the smallest of details, and atmospherics such as smoke effects and impact sparks after camber humps are also extremely impressive. With all this to showcase its abilities, RR6 is easily the best-looking game of the series. Yet, having said that, and despite its graphical achievements, when comparing it to the likes of Project Gotham Racing 3 or even Need for Speed: Most Wanted it doesn’t fare that well.

Sound
The soundtrack is largely irrelevant as you can play your own tracks with the 360 by integrating music through the HDD or by streaming it direct from your PC. Effects are impressive and through efficient use of directional sound they certainly do a good job of providing the player with a sensation of where other cars are in relation to their own positioning. The downside in the sound department is the irritating radio DJ race announcer who can, mercifully, be turned off.

Deaf Gamer Perspective
Difficult one, this; the game does provide a good selection of visual clues as to what’s going on during a race, everything from placement, speed, and the amount of available nitrous is all displayed. What is a problem, however, is that without sound it’s often difficult when driving in first-person view to discern where other cars are. Directional sound—or lack thereof—plays a key part in the gameplay here, as the ominous rumble of engines tells the player they are close to another car.

Female perspective
Excluding the bleating of the annoying male radio DJ who yells “You’re the man!” when you take a corner at breakneck speed, the game is pretty much gender neutral.

Summary
Fun. Ridge Racer 6 brings fun back to the racing genre. There is no need to fret—much—over approach speed and over steer, just slam the pedal to the metal (or right thumb-stick forward if you prefer) and race like a mad man/woman/person/thing. The inclusion of drift mode and the excellent online play all adds up to a rewarding game, provided you put enough time in. Just don’t snub your nose up at Ridge Racer 6 simply because it’s deemed an ‘arcade racer’, for there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. RR6 is a good, fun game, provided you can get past the initial dull single-player opening, and it deserves more attention than it will likely get outside of Japan. More fool you, I say, should you choose to pass. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some fantastically fun and fast races to compete in.

* Quote taken from ‘An American Werewolf in London’
** ThumbBandits would duly like to apologize to Mr. William Shakespeare (deceased) for the dreadful misappropriation of this quote from Hamlet. Sorry. We really are. Honest.

Review by Chris ‘Kropotkin’