Sony console launches go hand in hand with new releases of Ridge Racer. Although the series jumped platform a while ago and appeared on the 360 it is now back on its native turf, ready to drive the Playstation 3 into next-gen. And no, this is not the Riiiiiidge Racer Playstation’s father Ken Kutaragi was so enthusiastic about, which is definitely good in this case (for those of you who are unfamiliar with the incident, Kaz Hirai displayed an unprecedented level of enthusiasm when the original Ridge Racer was shown running on the PSP).

If you fail to make a good first impression

It might be just me, but Ridge Racer games never managed to make a good first impression. Sure, each and every single one of them had great graphics and the sense of speed was there. But the on-rails driving model left a lot to be desired. Things are no different this time around.

Starting the game up we are greeted with a 2D eighties style shoot them up mini-game, which is fairly typical for RR games. Since nobody wants to play a prehistoric game instead of the actual game purchased I’m not sure why they force this mini-game on us every single time the game is started, but a quick button press is all that is needed to advance to the actual game. If we ignore this minor annoyance the first impression one gets from the menus is actually very positive. The slick interface full of options, stat tracking from the get-go and a nice video playing the background don’t leave many things to be desired. The choices in the main menu are the classic RR Grand Prix, Online play, Global Time attack (time attack against real players), Arcade racing (all tracks and non-customized cars available) and special Events. The last are special races that can be downloaded from the PSN store every once in a while and offer the winners the ability to give interviews which can then be admired by other players for the rest of eternity.

The meat of the game is the Grand Prix though. When starting out the player has access to exactly zero cars and must compete in the manufacturer trials first, hoping to get sponsored. Since this is only the beginning of the game, the task is a fairly trivial and doesn’t present a real challenge. After unlocking your first car you can then try and unlock the rest of the starting lineup, or start competing in the various races. Every race you win with a certain car earns you respect from the manufacturer of the car, which is important for when you will need to switch to faster cars. There is little to no variety to the types of races, as you only have regular races where you race against a predetermined number of AI controlled cars or overtake races, where you start the race at the end of the line and have only three laps to overtake the competition.

Where Ridge Racer fails to impress newcomers is the actual races. It takes only a few seconds to realize that the cars behave as if they were on rails of sorts. The very pathetic way the game handles crashes doesn’t help either – regardless of your speed all that happens when you collide with something is a slight bump and if you hit the object at an angle a slight change of direction. No sparks, no damage, no nothing. Hitting the competition is the same. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll get slowed down and your opponent will gain a small boost because of you. When cornering, the cars literally can’t lose grip unless you want them to. And even then they remain fairly easy to control, staying on track even if the car is facing 90° or more off. All in all the game leaves a pretty sour after-taste.

Giving it a second chance

If one manages to look past these initial issues all Ridge Racer games have a lot to offer. Ridge Racer 7 being the finest representative of the brand is no different. After spending some time racing around you realize that the game requires considerable skills later on. The lackluster collision detection is also intentional (either that or the authors don’t know how to make a good one) and allows players to focus on racing more. Drifting which is considerably easier to control than in any other game becomes the main tool for achieving low times and trying to drive through a corner following the ideal line requires a lot of practice.

Higher car classes are noticeably harder to control and not just because of higher speeds. Drifting becomes more important and because of the increased speeds also a lot more difficult to pull off successfully. The other racers become more aggressive as well, so it will take a lot of work to win some of the races (it’s not impossible, but it requires near-perfect driving). Slipstreaming also plays a bigger role later on – trailing an opponent allows you to achieve higher speeds due to the decreased air friction behind him.

Borrowing from the PSP Ridge Racer the game awards nitro for long drifts. It takes roughly 5-10 seconds of pure drifting to fill up one of the three nitro bars. In time trials as well as in some of the more difficult races nitro boosts play a crucial role and timing them right can be the difference between winning and losing. You don’t have to use a boost the moment you fill the bar up though. In fact, if you fill up all three bars you can start a longer and more powerful boost that is especially useful on some of the long ravines found around the tracks.

After getting used to the whole concept of drift-boost-drift, racing becomes very enjoyable - almost a work of art. Timing your boosts so that they end just before a corner which you than use to replenish your nitrous bar is easy on paper, but very hard in practice. Some of the Pros spend unbelievable amounts of time studying the tracks, trying to find a flaw in their style that would allow them to increase their record by another second or two.

Sterile

Ridge Racer is a next-gen title; there is no doubt about that. The extremely well modeled cars look lifelike, even though they are entirely fictional. The tracks are full of detail as well, and most of the texturing is unbelievably good. I’m not exaggerating when I say that no other racing game has textures that are so high-res. Thanks to the high framerate the racing feels fast, especially later on with the faster cars. Considering that the game runs at 1080p the high framerate is even more impressive.

Regardless of all that the games appearance is not perfect. The biggest issue I had with the graphics in this game is that they feel very lifeless and artificial. It might be the countless hours I spent in Motorstorm, but most of the tracks in the game felt computer generated.

If you like electronic music you probably know that Ridge Racer games are filled to the brink with electric beats. While I normally wouldn’t be able to stand listening to such music, it fits very well into the whole futuristic theme of the game and makes racing quite enjoyable. Sound effects get their job done, but I highly doubt that such powerful racing cars would have engines as tame-sounding as the ones in this game.

Multiplayer

Sony decided to give game developers free reign over the multiplayer features, unlike Microsoft with their Live! service. Judging by RR7 this was a smart choice, as Namco Bandai did a fabulous job of integrating the multiplayer aspect of the game in with the rest. Stat tracking is done completely via their online servers and you have access to worldwide scores from virtually anywhere in the game. The netcode is top notch as well and I had no issues racing against Japanese people (which left me behind, eating their dust after about 5 seconds into the race). The whole implementation is one of the best I have ever seen, and even Live! falls short in some aspects.

Conclusion

In the review I haven’t mentioned the fact that you can customize the cars beyond recognition, both in terms of appearance and driving characteristics. The authors claim that there are several tens of thousands available combinations and judging by the sheer amount of options in the menu they are probably not exaggerating. These customization options are a first in the franchise and just like the multiplayer they were realized flawlessly.

Who to recommend the game to? If you require your racing games to have crashes stay away from this one. Those looking for a realistic experience should also keep their distance. Perfectionists and people who like every corner to count might want to give the game a try though. Just be sure to play enough to be able to look past the lackluster physics and sterile feel the game has. You won’t regret it.