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Product summary
Ridge Racer DS's awkward driving and collision models feel very dated by today's standards.
Specifications: ESRB: Everyone; Genre: Driving; Elements: Simulation - car racing; See full specs
Price range: $16.99 - $18.99
Gamespot editors' review
- Reviewed on: 12/01/2004
- Updated on:12/07/2004
- Released on: 12/07/2004
The Ridge Racer series is most often associated with Sony's PlayStation, but the series made a trek onto the Nintendo 64 back in the year 2000. That trek combined tracks from previous Ridge Racer games and tossed them onto the N64 with some slightly altered handling. At the time, it was the best thing on the N64, as far as racing games were concerned. Now, Nintendo and Namco have reteamed to deliver the same game--with a few minor updates--to the new Nintendo DS. While it's certainly a competent racing game, Ridge Racer DS's awkward driving and collision models feel very dated by today's standards.
Ridge Racer is an arcade-style racing game with a heavy focus on drifting. The game is broken up into four different components. The main mode is the grand prix mode, where you'll take on the game's tracks one at a time. When you finish a series of tracks, you open up another stage in the game's car attack mode. Here, you'll race on the same tracks from grand prix mode, but you'll only face one opponent instead of 11. Winning here unlocks another car. Time attack mode lets you try to beat your best lap and race times. Finally, multiplayer lets up to six players race at the same time and only requires you to have one game card, though your course and car selection is limited unless everyone has their own copy of the game.
Regardless of your mode choice, the game plays roughly the same. Your goal is to finish first. Racing games live and die by how well they handle and, really, how fun it is to actually drive the cars. Here, Ridge Racer DS is a little muddy. The game's extreme, over-the-top driving physics are good for a few laughs, but at the same time, they're a little too crazy. Drifting around corners is the key to easy victory, but the way the game handles these controlled losses of traction is a little too insane. When going around a sharp turn, you can let off the accelerator to start sliding. At that point, the car control is practically turned over to the CPU, which puts your car on a line that slides you all the way through the turn (or turns) without any input from you. Your job is to make sure that your car is pointing in the right direction when the skid ends, so that you don't regain traction and bounce into a wall or end up facing the wrong direction. The "on-a-rail" mentality to the skids means that you can basically do 360s around any sharp corner and still come out just fine. For those familiar with the N64 game, this is the Ridge Racer 64 method for drift control. While the original game had options for this, as well as drift styles from the first two PlayStation games, this one locks you into this new, ridiculous style. It's sort of stylish, funny, and cool all at the same time, but the lack of actual control around turns means that you really don't have to think much to play this game well.
The other crazy physics display in Ridge Racer DS is its collisions. Wrecking into other cars is about as unsatisfying as it could possibly be. You never cause the opposing car to deviate from its set line through the course, yet you're always left at a disadvantage. Even more annoying is that if you managed to get clipped in the rear quarter panel by another car, that car will usually just warp right up in front of you. This is also the new collision system that was introduced for Ridge Racer 64, though unlike that game, you don't have the option of turning on the old style. To be fair, though, the other collision style certainly wasn't perfect, either. The collision detection in Ridge Racer DS can also be a bit of a mess, as it lets you drive through about two-thirds of a car before it registers a hit and knocks you back.
Control in Ridge Racer DS defaults to the D pad and buttons, something the game calls "easy" control. If you so desire, you can get analog control by using two different touch-screen modes, one designed for use with the stylus, and another designed for use with the thumb pad that's attached to the system's strap. The only real difference between the two touch-screen schemes, though, is that the D pad is set up to handle acceleration and braking in stylus mode, but it's disabled in thumb strap mode, making stylus mode friendly to both left- and right-handed players. For some weird reason, the X button is used for gas and the B for brake in these modes, which is totally unintuitive and makes for some difficult transitions from one pedal to the other.
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Where to buy
Ridge Racer DS (DS):
$16.99 - $18.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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$18.99 | No |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$16.99 | Yes |
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