Lead, Follow, or Get Outta My Way!

Now, I may be a tad biased here, but Ridge Racer was one of my favorite franchises on the original PS. With good graphics, excellent gameplay, and a consistently good soundtrack, they've always been great.

And once again, not to my surprise, Namco has one-upped themselves with yet another excellent installment of this series. Ridge Racer V (RR5), released at launch with the Playstation 2 game console, has no plot. There are no characters to interact with. It's you, your car of choice, and 13 competitors to duke it out on one of several tracks in Ridge City, a fictional town built around a race track.

As the case has been throughout the entire series, all the tracks essentially are one. In order to make different courses, you run on different sections and detours of the same track, which can stretch anywhere from just under 2 miles, to over 5 miles in length, and can span a difficulty level from almost laughably easy to insanely technical. The tracks look great as you scream past the scenery at 100 plus miles an hour, sliding through the turns and leaving your opposition to inhale your exhaust.

Everything in this game is beautiful. The cars are well-designed, looking appropriately nasty, and all have that fresh-out-of-the-detail-shop look, and shine brilliantly from multiple light sources. Depending on the camera angle and light source, you'll either get a breathtaking reflection, or see right through the windows to see the instruments on the car's dashboard at night. Everything from the trees on the side of the road, to the sparks that fly when you land a jump, look amazing.

But you better not spend too much time looking at the scenery, or you'll be left in the dust. The opponents are tough, make no mistake, and will do whatever they can to keep you from getting around. At times, they get downright ruthless, and will resort to using more than a little English to get you out of their way. Of course, there is no damage modeling in this game, so feel free to return the gesture in kind. The learning curve of the game is just about right. It starts off relatively easy, and progressively gets harder and harder, but never so hard that a perfect race is needed to win. Most times, you can still botch up a little and make it up.

The controls for RR5 are the same as they've always been. As mentioned before in another review of mine, controls on a Playstation racer are practically the same from one to the next. That's not to say they all handle the same, however. RR5 is definitely an arcade-style racer. You'll have your foot to the floor almost the entire time, only using the brakes on particularly nasty hairpin turns, as well as to avoid rear-ending an opponent. Even in the "Grip" style cars, mastering the powerslide is your key to victory. Your ability to hang the tail out in a turn is directly proportional to how well you'll place. This is easier to do in some cars than others, so you'll have to do some experimenting to see what car works best for your style.

As much as I've raved about this game, you're probably expecting me to give it a five-star rating. Well, I'm not. It isn't perfect, but it's pretty close. My first and biggest gripe is with the announcer. Not only can the man not speak English properly, but he seems to say the same half-dozen things over and over again. Would it have been so difficult to give him more to say? Or to find a better guy to do it? At least let us turn him off, please?

The only other gripe I had with the game have to do with the car's headlights. While they go on and off at the right times, they're only for show. That's right, the headlights do abso-bloomin'-lutely NOTHING at night. I'm sure it wouldn't have pushed the PS2's processing power too much to get headlights that functioned. Obviously, this makes the night courses disproportionately difficult.

These are the only real problems I have with this game. It's still an outright blast to play, and is a great way to start this system off. So put the pedal to the metal and kick some asphalt!