Ridge Racer review

Another PSOne game I will review is Ridge Racer. This is one of my favorite racing games because it is very, very simple. For starters, when you first begin the game, on the loading screen, there is a minigame that resembles Galaga that you can actually play. If you are fast enough and defeat all enemies on the loading screen, you will have more cars at your disposal than the four you originally start off with. The original four cars have their own strengths and weaknesses so it's up to you to decide what car works for you. For a PSOne game, the graphics are ok to average. You have 8 tracks. 4 tracks are forward and the same 4 tracks will be mirrored when you beat the game the first time. The racing in this game is very arcade-like. For games of similar comparison, look at San Francisco Rush or Daytona USA in your arcade or store and look at how it plays. If you've played these games, Ridge Racer is almost the same. The main key to winning in Ridge Racer is drifting. You can drift and attempt to maintain your speed through hard turns. If you oversteer, you will stay on the road but your speed will be greatly diminished and you can lose valuable time. If you understeer, you may hit the wall and lose even more speed. The mirrored tracks tend to be harder to beat, so practice on these is recommended. Yes the game is short, but for a racing game that's short, this wasn't that bad. There are a couple of things I don't like about this game though. One thing is that if you do get the extra cars and then turn off the game, the cars won't save and you have to require them again and it may take a long time to do again. The second thing about the game is that anytime you hit a car or a wall, you lose so much speed. You lose it so much that if done a couple times during a race, you may lose the race and have to start over. Other than those grips, I liked the game overall. If you like arcade games, then you will like this one. Riiddggee Raacceerr!