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Ridge Racer V (PlayStation 2 Import)

The first thing that would strike anyone about Ridge Racer V is the graphics. Face it, this was a PlayStation2 release title, and it was easily the best looking one out there. Indeed, the graphics are nothing short of absolutely breath-taking. How do the other aspects of Ridge Racer fair up? Surprisingly, RR5 can hold its own in gameplay and Artificial Intelligence. If you are to buy one PlayStation2 release title, it should be Ridge Racer V.

Graphics

The graphics in Ridge Racer are definitely the selling point of the game. The eye candy within the game is crazy: the environmental mapping on the cars, the lens effects around the headlights, the flicker of the sun as it passes through the trees, the blur of taillights as a lead car cuts in front of you, the dashboard lights turn on when you enter a tunnel, you can even see your brake pads glow red through your wheels if you drift heavily around a corner. I am not someone that enjoys watching replays, but RR5 replays are something to look at in awe.

Enough teasing, check these out:

The cars are all modelled superbly. While the cars are not real cars, they are obviously inspired by various models and manufactuers. The cars must have a huge polygon count, and are completely modelled including working "frog-eye headlights". The car textures are impeccably detailed - but the real treat is the environmental mapping. For example, when a car passes into a tunnel, you can see the reflection of the tunnel lights streaming across the body of the cars.

The tracks and the track textures are also beautifully done. The tracks seem to have working pedestrian and traffic lights (not that I pay any attention to them!), a nice range of heights, decent architecture and a good mix of easy and hard turns. Unlike most games, trees and other track-side details do not take on any 2-dimensional form, adding to the overall beauty of the game.

RR5 is not without graphical trouble. The game is incredibly aliased - straight lines look really jagged. I found it much more pleasurable to play the game on a smaller TV to cut down on the aliasing effect. This has been a consistent problem with the PlayStation2 release titles - with such high resolutions, yet no native PS2 support for anti-aliasing.

Gameplay

The gameplay is a little mixed. While two-player games are a great experience, since the "loser boost" seems to be perfectly balanced to make races very close and nerve racking, the single player game does not seem to have the same kind of balance. The grand prix is organized into four rounds - there is no point-based system, instead each race has a qualifying position, which lies anything between fourth and first position. But get this, you cannot save in between races, so it is an all or nothing deal. If you start a grand prix, you must be willing to race until you get to a saving point, which is at least 4 races ahead. I found this unacceptable.

The game takes on a few different forms of races. As you progress through the grand prix stages, you qualify for higher powered cars (although they are always just suped up versions of the car you originally chose). Then there is the time attack mode that allows you to receive additional "duel" cars. These cars are all really neat, having amazing speed, acceleration or handling. The single player game though is relatively short, providing a good racer perhaps a week or ten days of gameplay. Luckily, the two-player game gives Ridge Racer some great long-term playability.

Like I have mentioned, the maps are well made and nicely designed, but something I didn't mention is that they get rather repetitive. Ridge Racer is based around Ridge City, a fictitious city that is basically built for racing. The tracks are all different sections of various roads - so, while all the tracks are different, many track segments are repeated. There are also three times of day: day, evening and night. I found day and evening acceptable to race in, but night was close to impossible in split-screen mode (on a small TV).

A weird quirk was that each track could only be played at certain times: not all tracks could be played at day, evening or night. Not all tracks could be played backwards, and not all tracks could be played in Versus GP mode (2 player mode with additional computer controlled cars). This lack of flexibility was a little annoying, but didn't kill the game. Something I would have liked was a completely open track - the entire of Ridge City open to drive around.

Artificial Intelligence

The AI in RR5 is relatively good as racing games come. The cars can whip around the tracks relatively well, although they often drift around the corners when they don't have to, making overtaking on turns pretty easy. Some of the cars seem to be incredibly aggressive, smashing you into walls and pushing you out of their way, which makes racing a little more fun. The driving AI seemed a little too perfect though, since computer cars nearly always finished in the same order, and cars never seemed to make mistakes even after a collision with another car.

The duel cars and their drivers definitely have their own driving style to match their cars. Some taking advantage of their speed and acceleration, while others rely on their handling to catch up. This makes each duel battle different.

I would like to have seen a little more awareness of other cars in the AI, since you could overtake opponents on a straight - something I never allow people to do! Nevertheless, the game does not warrant highly complex AI, and the AI it does offer is perfectly adequate.

Conclusion

As release titles go, Ridge Racer V is a solid title. With graphics surpassing any other games out there, reasonable gameplay and adequate artificial intelligence, RR5 should keep people stuck in front of their TVs for hours. Hopefully, Namco will work on fixing the aliasing trouble and some of the gameplay quirks.

Cover 8.4

Platform: PlayStation 2

Liked: The graphics, fun two player mode, decent AI, good maps.

Disliked: Save feature bad, weird GP gameplay, unrealistic physics.

.: Buy at Amazon.com :. .: Buy at Amazon.co.uk :.

Last Updated: 23/11/2000

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