No matter how far the franchise has come on in those ten years, we find ourselves in a bit of a dilemma over what to say about this latest version of a once-treasured game. Is it a tired old franchise in need of its own nitrous boost? Or is it classic arcade fantasy driving action updated for the HD era? The bottom line, after extensive playtesting, is that we really do want to like it more than our brains will logically allow us to. And, being strong northern blokes, we just cannot let our better judgement be clouded by sentiment and nostalgia. Lager and drugs however. They always do the trick.
This is the first time that the Ridge Racer series has been developed for a Microsoft console, and our first impressions are that the Ridge Racer we once knew and loved is back with a vengeance, in High Definition Xbox 360 glory. The basic ingredients are all here – the lurid, dreamscape arcade-fantasyland racetracks, the choons, the kerrrrrazy non-stop DJ wittering on and on and on.
However, its only in comparing Ridge Racer 6 to the number of frankly better driving titles already available at launch for the 360 – such as Project Gotham Racing 3, for example – that you realise how much things have changed over the last ten years. Seasoned gamers demand so much more of a driving game nowadays. We want more licensed vehicles, more realistic car physics and photo-realistic cityscapes and locations we recognise around which to drive our dream cars. We want crashes so frighteningly intense that our cerebral cortex almost explodes in joy on impact! In this context Ridge Racer 6 is somewhat of an anomaly. Dare we say it, even perhaps a bit old hat?
Is this surfeit of reality in driving games actually what today’s gamers want or is it just a temporary trend? Maybe soon we can all get back to happily going sideways around fantasylands like the massive grown-up children we really are or that we want to now and then return to being. This is what videogames are about, after all. There is part of SPOnG that wants to reject this dull obsession with re-creating reality in videogames, and instead get back to just celebrating having some good, old fashioned fun. Ridge Racer 6 appeals to us on this level, so of course we want to like it, before we’ve even torn the shrinkwrapped plastic off the box.
Firstly, in its defence, Ridge Racer 6 is an almost flawless arcade racer, and will not disappoint Ridge Racer fans or indeed fans of quick-fix, no-nonsense arcade driving/drifting thrills. The sheer simplicity of the experience is a joy, in these times of anal-retentive modding-obsessed titles and the above-mentioned and quite tedious petrolhead obsession with real-world physics. SPOnG’s memories of real-world physics involve sitting at the back of the class, listening to some teacher drone on about some pointless equations about gravity and mass and stuff. That was the opposite of fun.
With a slight nod to UK Resistance’s recent ‘Blue Skies in Games’ campaign, we have to admit that the impossi-physics of Ridge Racer combined with the sometimes quite ludicrous and over-the-top landscapes do often combine to give a gaming experience of sheer unadulterated pleasure. Who cares if the Naviway Fiera is not a real car and all the physics are all wrong, when you are powerdrifting round a hairpin mountainside bend at 340kph, whilst appreciating the view of cows grazing under the biggest and most awe-inspiring waterfall you’ve ever seen in your life. Who cares if it’s not an authentic real-world location? Just look at that waterfall! Look at those cows! Listen to the life-affirming old-school techno kicking in and the hopped-up DJ screaming ‘ooooooh sweet nitrous!!’ as you come sliding out of that bend straight into a NOS burst of pure screen-blurring acceleration and into pole position. And do all that without smiling. Impossible.