Ridge Racer

 Let's talk a little bit about launch titles.

It kind of feels like launch titles have been de-emphasized in recent years. In this era of streaming subscription services, digital downloads and backwards compatibility, having a strong list of games available at launch just isn't as critical as it used to be. Because back in the day, launch lineups were incredibly important. Any time a new console was announced, people would immediately start speculating on what would be available at launch. Remember, you couldn't just go download a digital copy of whatever you wanted. You also didn't know when the next round of games was going to come out unless you subscribed to a gaming mag. Because of this, a system's launch titles were very important and often used as a selling point. However, these titles also always seemed to have a certain feel to them. Most launch lineups included one game from a major franchise, a bunch of second-rate titles in whatever genre was popular at the time, a sports game or two and a handful of games that were essentially glorified tech demos. I believe this week's game fits squarely into the latter.

Originally released in arcades in 1993, Namco's Ridge Racer was ported to the PlayStation for its launch in 1995. As you might have discerned from the title, it's a racing title that focuses on more realistic action. It was the first arcade game to use 3D texture mapped graphics and was noted for use of something called Gouraud Shading. I'm in no way qualified to explain what that is, but it was kind of interesting so you may want to look it up. Anyway, that's all well and good, but graphics aren't everything. I'm just going to come out and say it, Ridge Racer may be the single most content-light game I have ever played. What's there is very well done, but there is so little there that it's hard to find too much to really talk about.

How content-light are we talking? There are only four cars. Just four. And as for tracks? Just one. There are slight alterations to the track for easy, medium and hard, but at its core it's the same exact track. There are no multiplayer modes, just a standard race with 12 cars and a time trial. Beating the tracks on each difficulty will unlock a reverse version of the course but again, it's the same exact course. You can also unlock the other cars that you race against...by beating the game of Galaxian on the loading screen. You know what? That's awesome. More games should do that. When Final Fantasy XVI comes out, you should be able to gain additional EXP if you can successfully throw a touchdown pass in Madden after each battle. You should be able to unlock all the characters in Street Fighter VI by successfully beating your opponents at a race in Gran Turismo. Maybe you could unlock new levels in God of War by finding a hidden item in The Legend of Zelda? I promise, I'll stop now. At the end of the day, there just isn't very much here and it's hard to have much to say about it. That was common in an arcade, you were only playing for a few minutes on a machine with a steering wheel, but it wasn't enough for a home release. Usually developers added additional content to games like this, but it didn't happen here.

That being said, what's there is absolutely top quality. As previously noted, this was one of the first games to use 3D texture mapping and it shows, Ridge Racer looks great. It really did show off the power of potential of the original PlayStation and provided a great demonstration of the jump between the 4th and 5th generations. The sound is similarly great, there are only a few tracks, but they all perfectly fit the theme of the game. Again, the new technology was highlighted here as the move to CDs allowed for better quality sound. The controls are tight and perfect, the steering is very responsive and the braking is spot on. The physics are pretty good too, you can spin out opponents by bumping them and you bounce off other cars and surfaces in a way that makes sense. It really offers a great sense of speed, I really felt like I was going fast as I sped down straightaways and drifted around turns. Everything about it is top quality, Ridge Racer may not have much to do but it looks, sounds and even plays great. As I alluded to previously, it almost feels more like a demo to show off what the PS1 could do as opposed to a game you are supposed to play.

I guess since there isn't all that much to say about Ridge Racer, I guess I will talk a little bit more about launch titles in general. I've really only been around for five generations of launches, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. The 4th gen consoles were the dominate systems of the time when I started gaming, but I was a little bit too young for their launches. I have played plenty of launch titles of the 4th gen consoles, I've reviewed Super Mario World for the SNES and Super Thunder Blade and Altered Beast for the Genesis. That was an easy win for Nintendo, but I actually think the Genesis had the better launch lineup. I'll take Alex Kidd, Columns and Golden Axe over Pilotwings, Sim City and F-Zero any day. But those console launches were relatively similar, even if you include more obscure consoles of the day like the Turbografx-16, many of the 4th gen consoles had similar lineups.

That wasn't so much the case for the 5th generation, where the big three consoles had very different launches. The Sega Saturn's US launch was a tad underwhelming, with Panzer Dragoon and Daytona USA probably its strongest offerings. The bad news about the N64's launch lineup was that there were only two games, and the console wouldn't get another one for months. The good news was that one of those games was Super Mario 64, one of the all-time greats. The other was Pilotwings 64, a game that fits into the whole "glorified tech demo" category that I just can't bring myself to like. The PlayStation launch lineup was a little more standard. Fighting games were popular at the time and you had two here, Battle Arena Toshinden and (sighs) Street Fighter: The Movie. You had the requisite sports games in ESPN Xtreme Games, NBA Jam Tournament Edition and Power Serve Tennis. You had some familiar titles with the Raiden Project and Rayman. I am pretty sure Kileak: The DNA Imperative is an early FPS, I've never played it, so I guess it's time to go digging. And then, you had Ridge Racer.

Look, I can't bash the game too hard because while there isn't much to do, Ridge Racer is so well made. It was a good, fun distraction for 40 minutes and that is more than I can say for a lot of stuff I've reviewed. I couldn't possibly recommend you go back and play it today, though if you find it in an arcade I might still pop in a few quarters. However, it made enough of an impression that I want to go and check out some of the other titles in the series. I'm not a huge racing game fan, so that is really saying something. This score may not be that high, but that is more an issue with a lack of content than a lack of quality.

5.5/10