I have a good friend who is doing a bunch of articles about racing video games right now. But there’s only one problem. You see, he’s doing all these writeups, and then he told me he’s NOT going to an article about Ridge Racer! How dare he! I should just…just…well, do what he told me to do! Write my own blog about Ridge Racer! And that’s what I’m going to do! Only problem is that my Ridge Racer blog won’t be near as insightful as it would be if he wrote it! It’s just going to be silly stuff floating around in my head as usual. But hey, he’s not going to write about Ridge Racer so you’ll just have to settle for me!

Ridge Racer first started out in arcades when 3-D was becoming big in the early to mid 90’s. As an arcade racer, RR is pretty pick up and play, gameplay wise. But the other thing that RR games are known for is the heavy use of drifting, where you let up on the gas to slide through turns without losing speed. I’m not sure if RR was the first arcade racer to do this. I bet some Sega racer did that before. As much as I love Namco, they do tend to copy Sega a lot in the arcade, and always have. But then, Sega copies Namco sometimes, too. As arcade competitors, they’ve always wanted a piece of the action of whatever popular arcade trend was out at the time. The tracks in RR games are also fun to race on and drift through turns. Why do you think they keep using the same original arcade track in other sequels? Because it’s fun to race and drift on, that’s why! Ridge Racer games are also known for their soundtracks, which feature a lot of high energy techno music. You can hear this music in other Namco games, too, like Taiko Drum Master, We Ski, and We Ski and Snowboard.

Another thing I associate Ridge Racer with is more personal, but I always associate that game with my dad. Back in the early 80’s, my dad and I played a lot of games together, and so I associate old games like Centipede, Pole Position, and Arkanoid with him, because those were his favorites. But as I got older and required less adult supervision at places like arcades, we played less games together. Later on, though, we were in the mall or somewhere together and stumbled upon an arcade and there were two new 3-D games that he really got into that I also associate my dad with: Air Combat (also by Namco), and Ridge Racer. My dad liked Ridge Racer so much, that years and years later when I was playing a home console version, he recognized the track right away and asked if that was Ridge Racer! I was impressed he remembered that!

Reiko Nagase
Can’t talk about Ridge Racer without at least mentioning Reiko. I usually just call her the Ridge Racer Lady because that’s easier for me to spell, but yeah, sadly, I do know she has a name. I try to keep my Namco fandom in check most of the time, but sometimes you folks just bring it out of me. It’s all your fault. Anyway, she’s the mascot of the Ridge Racer games and I imagine she was created because Japan car races have a tradition of having a race queen. I’m not sure why that is, I should probably research that and learn more about it, but I don’t feel like it right now. I imagine that Namco also created her in hopes of selling more copies of the RR games to teenage boys. But I don’t know.

One thing I’ve heard from a few sources is that she was modeled after one of the designers of the game and characters. Which is usually followed by a lot of “OMG, she’s really a guy!” While I haven’t really found any solid evidence of this, it really wouldn’t be too farfetched. I mean, animators and cartoonists oftentimes have a mirror next to them to look at and make facial expressions in. So a lot of characters are modeled after the creators. If that’s the case in this instance, all I have to say is I feel sorry for the creator of the Ridge Racer lady! He must be one feminine looking dude!

Despite all this, I still think the Ridge Racer lady is kind of cool. But I don’t really have any good reason why that is. She doesn’t really DO anything in the games. I do like some of the CG intros with her because they’re usually kind of goofy and silly. At least I think so. Another thing is that one time I read a bio of her from Namco and it said that she likes Pac-Man. WELL! Anyone who likes Pac-Man, be they real or fictional, is OK in my book! (I bet all Namco characters are forced to like Pac-Man, though) In Soul Calibur 4’s character creation mode, I made a Ridge Racer Lady fighter, and that was pretty neat. Reiko can be found in a few other games as well. I hear she’s a secret character in one of Namco’s Smash Court Tennis games, but since I suck at tennis I doubt I’ll see her there. She’s also a playable character in Pac-Man Fever, a Mario Party styled game with Namco characters (that game could’ve been a LOT better if I were in charge). She looked pretty silly with a big head, but not as silly as some of the other characters in that game, like Asteroth and Heiachi!

Arcade Ridge Racer
Anyway, Ridge Racer first got its start in arcades around 1993 or 1994 or so. I hear there was also a version of Ridge Racer where you actually sat in a real car! There were also sequels like Ridge Racer 2 and Rave Racer. The last arcade RR game came out about the same time as RRV did on the PS2. It was called Ridge Racer V: Arcade Battle, and it was based on the PS2 game with a focus on two player races. I’ve seen all these games quite a bit in arcades and auctions, but never played them much because they usually cost 75 cents to a dollar to play, and that’s pretty expensive. Back in the day, arcade games only cost a quarter and we liked it that way. Now where my rocking chair and cane? And you kids get off my lawn!

Ridge Racer (Console)
I’m actually more familiar with Ridge Racer on the home consoles. But not so much the first few games because I didn’t get a PlayStation until a couple of years after it had already been out. Ridge Racer was a launch title on the PSOne, and made a big splash from what I hear. Actually, in my opinion, I think Namco pretty much carried Sony’s console in the same fashion that Rare kind of carried the N64 for a while. So anyway, aside from that, I don’t have much to say about the first game. As a classic Namco fan, I do think it was neat that you could play a short game of Galaga while waiting for the screen to load. Speaking of classic Namco, another thing I like about the Ridge Racer games is that all the logos on the cars are references to past Namco games and characters. It’s fun to spot them all!

Ridge Racer Revolution
This came out a year later on the PSOne, and was pretty much the same game with a few new courses and cars. I never bought it either.

Rage Racer
By the time this came out, I did have a PlayStation. But I didn’t buy Rage Racer until many years later when I decided that I liked Ridge Racer enough that I wanted to have all the games in the series. So I actually only bought it like, 3 or 4 years ago. The tracks are more varied, with bigger hills and more scenery. It almost has a European vibe to it, but it’s hard to explain.

Ridge Racer Type 4
R4 as it’s known for short was actually the first Ridge Racer game that got me really into the home console RR games. When it came out, I was a poor college student and didn’t buy it right away. After I graduated and had a little more money, I found it new and sealed at a flea market for only 5 bucks! It had WAY more content than any past RR game, twice as many tracks and more than 200 cars to unlock. And the graphics are some of the best on the PSOne. R4 is actually my favorite RR game ever.

I kind of regret not buying it right away, though, because at the time of its release, Namco also came out with a special analog controller on the PSOne that you could use with it called the JogCon. I would’ve liked to have tried a Namco made controller. R4 was also compatible with the PocketStation, a little memory card with a LCD screen that was a lot like the Dreaamcast memory cards. It never made it out of Japan, which is a shame because using the PocketStation made it a heck of a lot easier to unlock all the cars, supposedly. R4 also came with a special 60 fps version of the original Ridge Racer, so I didn’t have to worry about buying the first game.

Classic Namco fans can spot lots of references in R4. One of the tracks is called Phantomile, from Klonoa (the track is actually a mile long, the shortest in the game). There’s a giant Pac-Man and Pooka (Dig Dug) in the background of that track, too. Speaking of Pac-Man, if you unlocked all the other cars (easier said than done), you got a special Pac-Man shaped car!

Even though the Ridge Racer lady first appears in Rage Racer, she was more prominently featured in R4. Did anyone else notice that her dress in R4 looks almost like the White Mage cloak design from Final Fantasy? Maybe that’s why the RR cars don’t get dents: she casts Cure on them all! Ha ha! I like the CG intro she’s in because it’s kind of silly. She wakes up and walks to work in high heel shoes. But then her shoe breaks (oh no!) so she hitches a ride with one of the racers. I wanted to yell out, “Don’t get in that car, lady! He wasn’t going the speed limit. I don’t trust that guy!” But video game characters never listen to me for some reason. Stupid Ridge Racer Lady!

Follow this link to YouTube to watch the R4 intro.

Ridge Racer 64
This wasn’t even made by Namco, but by a US team working for Nintendo. It had all the tracks from Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution, plus an exclusive course made just for the N64. It’s actually a pretty solid racer and I highly recommend it for N64 fans.

Ridge Racer V
Just as the PSOne launched with Ridge Racer, the PS2 launched with RRV. It’s been kind of a tradition for Namco to launch a new system with a new RR game I guess. I didn’t like this one as much as R4, but it kind of grew on me and I ended up enjoying it a lot. I didn’t get a PS2 at launch, but I got one early the next year and this game, too.

I love the classic Namco references in this one, mainly the unlockable Pac-Man race. You drive as Pac-Man in a tiny cartoon Porsche and you race against the four ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde) in scooters. Long time Pac-Man fans know that the ghosts have different ‘personalities’ and move around the maze differently, and they do the same in the race. Blinky is the fastest and darts out ahead. If you pass him, you have a good chance of winning. Pinky, who would head you off at the pass in the maze, will pull out in front of you and stop in the race. “Bashful” Inky isn’t much of a threat, but he hangs around Pinky a lot. Slow “Pokey” Clyde’s scooter breaks down at the start of the race and spits out black smoke. But he’s a threat too because you’ll lap him several times and must be careful not to bump into him. I also like the remixed Pac-Man techno tune that plays in the background as you race.

RRV also had a new Ridge Racer Lady, and yes I know her name, too, sadly (Ai Fukiami). She didn’t dress appropriately and pardon my language, but she was also a bit skanky so I didn’t like her. I call her the Evil Ridge Racer Lady. If they ever made a Ridge Racer cartoon, I think it should be about the Ridge Racer Lady battling the Evil RR Lady, and they would, um, throw cars at each other or something. Aren’t you glad I’m not making cartoons? The Evil Ridge Racer Lady looks like she’s about to get run over by the cars in the RRV intro. That’s what you get for standing out in the middle of the road! Stupid Evil Ridge Racer Lady.

Ridge Racer DS
When the DS first came out, quite a few games were just ports of N64 titles, and none of them worked very well (even favorites like Mario 64 and Diddy Kong Racing). But the worst N64 port had to be RR DS. The D-pad made controls really awful. You could use the touch screen ‘steering wheel’ but that was even worse. They were really lazy with the box art, too. Instead of using the Ridge Racer Lady, they used one of the characters from R: Racing Evolution. Avoid RR DS if you can.

R: Racing Evolution
OK, it’s not even a Ridge Racer game, Namco even stresses this. But you can see the influence. It’s not a very good game. They tried to combine arcade racing with simulation racing and I don’t think the results work. Plus the graphics are so grainy and bland that it makes it hard to see the tracks. R: Racing Evolution had a story mode where you race as a female character who kind of looks like the Ridge Racer Lady. The only reason why I bought R: Racing Evolution is that, at the time, if you bought certain Namco-made GameCube games, you’d get Pac-Man Vs. for free. And I already had the other two games in the offer (Pac-Man World 2 or I-Ninja). So R: Racing Evolution it is.

Ridge Racer (PSP) and sequel
This also launched with the PSP. It’s pretty impressive for a handheld racer. They also introduced (finally) a new feature in this one: nitro boosts you earn by drifting. I like the classic Namco references in this one, too. You can play Rally-X while the game loads, and you can unlock a blocky Rally-X car to use in the races as well (complete with smokescreen). You can also unlock a hovercar driven by Pac-Man, but I didn’t like this new car as much because the propellers on the car block your view as you race. There was a PSP sequel in Japan in Europe. I saw imports of it at Fry’s for a while and kind of wanted to pick it up, but I hear it’s just an upgrade from the original game, with a few more cars and tracks and that’s it.

Good ol’ Reiko is back in this PSP game with another goofy intro. A car is racing around the track, but she’s taking a nap on the hood of a car. When it comes close, she wakes up and jumps off the car. She’s barefoot, so I imagine if the pavement she landed on was hot, she’d be going “YEOWTCH!” She’s supposed to be timing the car with a stopwatch, but she forgets to hit the stopper button when the car passes by. This is when you need the ‘waaa, waaa, waaaaaaaahhhh” sound effect. Stupid Ridge Racer Lady!

Follow this like to YouTube to watch the RR PSP intro

Ridge Racer 6 and 7
RR6 released at the Xbox 360’s launch, keeping with tradition. When I got a 360 a couple of years later, this was the first game I got for it. You can unlock some pretty weird vehicles in this one, including hover cars! Classic Namco references include playing Pac-Man at the loading screen, a Taiko airplane at the airport track, and an unlockable Pac-Man in a UFO racer! The Ridge Racer Lady’s CG intro isn’t as silly, she just plays with a little toy RR car (I want a toy RR car). She does send you messages when you play online and unlock cars, though.

Ridge Racer 7 launched with the PS3 but I hear it’s not much different from the 360 version. Not a true sequel by any means. I hear the Pac-Man UFO car is now Pac-Man driving the Xevious boss mothership, so that’s kind of cool. One year at Sony’s press conference at E3, they touted that you’d be able to play original Ridge Racer on your PS3, to lukewarm reception. “Riiiidge Raaaaceeeerrr” because a pretty big Internet joke at the time, and I bet Namco wasn’t happy about that either because it was bad press for them as well as Sony.

And that’s all I feel like talking about Ridge Racer right now. Do you like Ridge Racer games? Which ones are your favorites? –Cary

Tags: Misc