Ridge Racer Message Board

Namco Bandai announced that the next entry in its long-running Ridge Racer series will premiere for iOS and Android platforms later this month with 20 playable tracks and a wide variety of customization options in tow.

Ridge Racer Slipstream features 12 vehicles that can be outfitted with over 300 customization items unlocked during gameplay. Slipstream follows up on the recent free-to-play Ridge Racer Driftopia on PC, and is the second game in the series to hit iOS since 2009's release of Ridge Racer Accelerated.

Ridge Racer Slipstream will launch on December 19.

Since 1994, every major Sony console has launched with an installment of Namco Bandai's (in)famous arcade racing franchise. There were Ridge Racer games at the launch of the Nintendo DS, 3DS and Microsoft's Xbox 360 as well. This generation? Nothing. Meanwhile, on iOS and Android...Read more...

Ridge Racer is drifting into the free-to-play lane this week with the launch of Ridge Racer Driftopia's PC beta. Cars, repair kits and XP can be purchased by players looking for an immediate advantage over their competition. You can sign up for the beta here.

Ridge Racer usually breaks ground by being a launch game on ... pretty much every platform ever. Now it's innovating by adopting a new model, free-to-play, and bringing it to a new level of silly nomenclature by calling it "free-2-drift."

Ridge Racer Driftopia, developed by Ridge Racer Unbounded's Bugbear Entertainment, is a racing game in which you can buy cars, "repair kits," and XP packs. Namco previously experimented with a similar business model with Ridge Racer for Vita, which shipped with a small number of cars and courses, and sold the rest as DLC. Of course, that game had a $30 MSRP. So this is progress! It's due out this year, Namco says.

Hey, remember this track?

The best thing you can say about Ridge Racer on the Vita is that if you buy it digitally, it's $25. But even at that lower-than-average price, Namco's latest feels like a con. It has a criminally low number of courses that have all appeared in previous Ridge Racer games, no interesting career structure whatsoever, a new car customizing feature that somehow manages to make the "machines" feel less unique, and a bunch of music that also appeared in the old games. You'd have to be extremely hard up for any form of ridge racing for this to add up to something worth purchasing.

OK, very quickly, let's go over what Ridge Racer is for people that might not have played it before. It's a driving game with an emphasis on drifting around sharp corners, but it has a handling model that automatically takes over most of the steering when you drift, so as long as your tires are squealing, the game will automatically whip you around corners with little input from the player. Much of the game, then, turns into properly timing the release of the accelerator, which causes you to lose traction and start a drift. Then you must attempt to correct your course as soon as possible once the turn is complete, so you can regain traction and start properly accelerating. It feels nothing like real driving and it's a system that probably made a lot of sense when the franchise debuted in arcades back around 1993. These days, with racing games becoming both more realistic and more nuanced, whether they're attempting to simulate real driving or not, Namco's franchise feels like a relic. That's not inherently good or bad--I actually quite like Ridge Racer's core tenets of "Always Be Drifting" and "If You Have To Hit The Brakes, You're Doing It Wrong." But you should know that it's a very specific flavor of driving that will probably baffle newer players.

On the Vita, Ridge Racer doesn't stray far from its past. In fact, an overwhelming majority of the available content is ripped right out of previous Ridge Racer games, from the PSP and PS3 releases. The tracks are old, most of the music came out of a previous Ridge Racer game, and the car design is, well, directly in line with what you'd expect from previous games in the series. It's one thing to evoke a sense of Ridge Racer's past, but much like many of the recent Ridge Racer releases, this Vita version simply lifts things from the other games and dumps them on you again. So even at its relatively low price, this doesn't feel like a good deal. It's worth noting that the US version of the game comes with a "gold pass" for a limited time that gives you access to a handful of DLC add-ons for free, but these extra tracks are also old, and the additional music and vehicles you can acquire this way don't really add much to the overall package.

How about this one?

It's a shame that the content is totally lacking, because there's a trim, but effective set of options in the game that show that at least someone on the development is thinking about the future of Ridge Racer. Rather than dragging you into a huge list of single-player events that form some sort of career mode, Ridge Racer gives you access to everything right away. You can set up spot races that pit you against the traditional collection of AI racers, but the main bit of Ridge Racer is the ability to download ghosts of other human racers and attempt to beat their times. If you do, you can upload your ghost back to the server, letting other players take you on. There's also an interesting, but sort of half-baked team system that has you pick one of four teams when you first start. A daily mission system lets you know which of the other teams are your direct enemies on that specific day, giving you an incentive to seek out ghosts from those opposing teams. The game also has direct online play, allowing up to eight players to unite over the Internet and race on the same anemic selection of tracks again and again. This is another way to gain victories over the opposing teams. But those victories don't reliably funnel into more funds for upgrades or anything, so it doesn't feel like there's enough of a payoff for jumping through the hoops and fighting the right players.

The upgrade system is a flowchart of annoying boxes that let you change the way nitrous works on your car at first, but eventually you can get slipstream add-ons and other abilities. This is where the now-standard Ridge Racer systems like Flex Nitrous and Ultimate Charge come into play. You can equip three upgrades at once, but each upgrade is tagged to one of three groups, and you can only equip one from each group. This, presumably, is how the developers hope to maintain some sort of balance in the system. It's fine, but the upgrade tree is saddled with lame hints that must be paid for and unlocked before you can advance along the tree and get actual upgrades for your vehicles. Also, with the upgrade system and a slider that lets you make any car a "mild" or "dynamic" drifting car, the differences between vehicles are essentially nonexistent. Given the past of unlocking various special cars with unique abilities, this manages to make all the cars feel a little plain.

Visually, the game looks decent, with a frame rate that's smooth enough to convey a solid sense of speed. There's also a nice depth-of-field effect in place that makes distant objects appropriately blurry. But that's still not enough to make this feel like a worthwhile package. As a fan of Ridge Racer, the way the past few games have just rehashed existing track designs is borderline offensive. Packing up an even smaller list of old content and selling it at a "discount" price doesn't make this Vita version any better. I suppose there's a case to be made that lapsed Ridge Racer fans who haven't seen these tracks a million times already might find the Vita release to be more appealing, but... that's a pretty narrow group.

My fellow Ridge Racing elite, how are you? Those of you that have been following along on the PlayStation Blog know that we at NAMCO BANDAI Games have been very active here with updates on our titles for the PlayStation Vita, including Touch My Katamari and Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen. But, as many of you have been asking me, what’s up with RIDGE RACER? It’s out in Japan, and my friends in Europe are already racing… but when are we finally going to get behind the wheel, and when exactly in the ‘Launch Window’ are we going to hit the road with Reiko again? WHAT’S THE DEAL!?

We know, we know. Launch days and RIDGE RACER usually are one and the same, and while our friends abroad are already racing, the teams have been taking every ounce of feedback into consideration for a full-throttle launch in North America. Thankfully, today we can confirm that the game will officially become available in on March 13th for $29.99 at retail and $24.99 for digital download from the PlayStation Store.

As a token of appreciation for our most dedicated fans of RIDGE RACER’s classic beauty and blistering speed, NAMCO BANDAI Games America has decided to offer a free DLC pack for everyone picking up the game at launch and while supplies last. Fans who buy the retail version of RIDGE RACER for PS Vita will find a code inside the box for a free ‘RIDGE RACER Gold Pass’ which unlocks a wealth of extra DLC content completely for free. The same Gold Pass is also available for free to all fans who purchase the digital version of the game on PlayStation Network no later than April 30, 2012.

What exactly is in this pack? How about five free additional machines, three courses, and extra pieces of pumping background music to take you across the finish line?

• Five additional machines: PROMESSA, ELENIE, DIGNISTAR, FATALITA and MELTFIRE
• Three additional courses: Old Central, Sunset Heights and Lost Ruins
• Two music tracks: NEW SONGS PACK 01
• One new extended music mix: LONG MIX BGM 01

On top of this, fans worldwide should be happy to hear that upon the North American launch date, RIDGE RACER will be updated with an improved frame rate and crisper graphics for an even faster racing experience than ever before.

That won’t be the end of the expanding world of content on PS Vita for RIDGE RACER either. In April, we’ll be releasing more content in our ‘RIDGE RACER Silver Pass’ which will allow fans to access even more cars and courses at one low price. Stay tuned to this page on our website for details on the dates when all of this content will become available.

Sound easy enough? It is. Landing a boost around a hairpin turn while racing against seven other players from across the globe from a Wi-Fi ready flight headed from London to Las Vegas? Not so easy… but now it’s entirely possible now thanks to the handy work of the team of veterans at Cellius and Namco Bandai Games Inc, along with the power of the PlayStation Vita.

The teams at NAMCO BANDAI Games can’t thank the fans enough for their patience and their feedback, and we look forward to going head to head with all of you on March 13th. We’ll see you on the road on launch day, and I challenge you all to take me down during launch week. Look for me online PSN ID: FilthieRich, and I DARE YOU to take me down. See you on the courses!

#culturesmash One Sunday about a month ago, I was driving my family to Himeji. It was a drizzly early morning on the Chugoku Expressway, and I just cleared Kobe. To my right, a trio of Lancia Delta Integrales came whizzing by. More »

#ridgeracer Thought it was stupid and awful that Namco Bandai was releasing Ridge Racer with only three tracks? Wait until you hear what the DLC is. More »

#vita I like Ridge Racer. It's a guilty pleasure. And I was actually thinking of getting the next game. That is, until I heard what madness Namco Bandai is pulling. More »

#kenkutaragi We got Nintendogs + Cats, Pilotwings Resort and a few more for the launch of the Nintendo 3DS> earlier this year. We got Lumines, an Ape Escape and more in 2005 for the launch of the PlayStation Portable. More »

#ridgeracer Back in December 2004, I bought two things. One was a PSP. The other was Ridge Racer. More »

Jeff finds out what Bugbear has in store for the Ridge Racer franchise.

#boost Cue the Riiiiiidge Raaaaacer jokes! Namco's racing series is bound for the upcoming PS Vita. Details are scant, but Namco did release a single image in an official statement. More »

Soon, you'll have the ability to download original PlayStation games on a Sony-branded tablet. No, I'm not sure anyone was asking for complicated controller-based games to be mapped to a touch screen, but my own snark aside, Sony revealed the first PlayStation Certified tablet at an event in Japan tonight.

Ridge Racer advocate and PlayStation lead executive Kaz Hirai was on-hand to help unveil Sony's devices. There are actually two tablets coming from Sony sometime in fall 2011, S1 and S2. Both have tentative codenames, with the former designed for home use ("rich media entertainment," says the press release), the other meant for on-the-go experiences ("mobile communication and entertainment"). 

 The current look of the two tablets. It's not common for tablets to have split-screens.
The press release doesn't provide any indication of the lineup of original PlayStation games, only mentioning consumers will have access to "high quality first generation PlayStation titles," but games like Crash Bandicoot have already launched on other PlayStation Certified phones featuring Android.

Based on Google's Android 3.0 operating system, Sony's S1 features a 9.4-inch display, while the S2 sports two 5.5-inch displays. Both can grab onto local Wi-Fi points and access 3G and 4G networks.    

UPDATE: I've dropped an image of Crash Bandicoot running on the tablet, courtesy of Engadget.

Soon, you'll have the ability to download original PlayStation games on a Sony-branded tablet. No, I'm not sure anyone was asking for complicated controller-based games to be mapped to a touch screen, but my own snark aside, Sony revealed the first PlayStation Certified tablet at an event in Japan tonight.

Ridge Racer advocate and PlayStation lead executive Kaz Hirai was on-hand to help unveil Sony's devices. There are actually two tablets coming from Sony sometime in fall 2011, S1 and S2. Both have tentative codenames, with the former designed for home use ("rich media entertainment," says the press release), the other meant for on-the-go experiences ("mobile communication and entertainment"). 

 The current look of the two tablets. It's not common for tablets to have split-screens.
The press release doesn't provide any indication of the lineup of original PlayStation games, only mentioning consumers will have access to "high quality first generation PlayStation titles," but games like Crash Bandicoot have already launched on other PlayStation Certified phones featuring Android.

Based on Google's Android 3.0 operating system, Sony's S1 features a 9.4-inch display, while the S2 sports two 5.5-inch displays. Both can grab onto local Wi-Fi points and access 3G and 4G networks.   

No pricing information is available yet for either tablet.

I'm still trying to figure out how original PlayStation games would be any fun with touch, though.  

#preview It is hard to show you the 3D graphics of the Nintendo 3DS. It is nearly impossible. So please trust me when I say that the ordinary graphics of Ridge Racer 3D look extraordinary when the Nintendo 3DS slider is activated. I can't show you in the video here, though I try hard to explain it to you. More »

Namco Bandai Games VP of marketing, Carlson Choi, describes Ridge Racer Unbounded as "very different from the Ridge Racer you've come to know." if you've ever bought a game console at launch, you've probably come to know Ridge Racer very well, and you'll easily recognize the face of Reiko, the franchise's seemingly immortal mascot.

Her behavior in the Unbounded trailer, however, has become less demure and a little more deranged. Crashing her expensive car through a busy intersection, she highlights a more dangerous and careless approach to racing. Another clue: It's being developed by Bugbear Entertainment, creator of chaotic arcade racer FlatOut.

Ridge Racer Unbounded is set to arrive on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC sometime in 2012.

Take a spin with the franchise's new title on Nintendo's 3DS.