After a small amount of play however, that map seems rather pointless. The amount of included tracks is quite small and you constantly find yourself racing in the same stages. The only thing alleviating this are the mirrored versions, but even these are used sparingly. There's a strong chance the lack of development time cut down this number.
There are also some strange glitches and there are a few things missing. Hitting an oncoming car simply sends you into a tailspin, but occasionally, you'll get stuck "inside" of another car, preventing you from going anywhere. Since you can't go in reverse, you'll drop a few paces back before getting out. Really strange are the replays, which feature no other vehicles except for your own. It still reacts like something was hit, but there will be nothing there on screen.
Other than that oddball quirk, the game looks fantastic, probably the most impressive of the fully 3-D releases so far. Each stage packs tons of detail along with great looking faux lighting and the cars look really solid. Pop-up is noticeable, but it never obscures your view of the track. Replays show off some nasty pixelization, though you're usually going too fast in-game to notice it. There's little drop out or flicker and the frame rate is stuck at 60 fps. It's a very impressive engine for such a young system.
There's not much to the audio package unfortunately. It doesn't sound bad even though music usually takes a hit to save more power for the graphics in other games. It's just a very derivative mix of techno, rock, and other assorted genres that seems to fit into every racing game. The stereo speakers on the console are used well as cars pass on both sides.
Don't let the unrecognized name fool you. Until something better comes along, this is the premiere racer for the console. "Ridge Racer's" frustrating controls and lackluster (comparatively) graphics are dominated by this original work. This is a solid purchase with a long-standing career mode and some multi-card play adds to the life afterwards.
Article comments