Ridge Racer Drift mobile
Name and version: Ridge Racer Drift 1.0.0
Genre: arcade racing
Platform: mobile / J2ME
Release: 2010
Developer/Publisher: Namco Bandai
Reviewed on: Sony Ericsson K850i
First appearing in its arcade form back in 1993, Ridge Racer quickly became a staple of the racing genre and a signature title for Namco. Ridge Racer struck fame again as a launch title for the original Sony Playstation, and has since covered many major systems. Now it has arrived to handsets to speed up the time spent away from big screen.
The core gameplay hasn’t changed too much from the series’ past, but it has evolved over the years. For example, drifting is more important than ever. Drifting is the act of sliding around corners by over steering or otherwise making the car loose its traction. It first became popular in Japan, but recently it has begun to spread to other countries. The same can be said about the racing video game industry, where drifting has been appearing in more titles than ever. In Ridge Racer, drifting plays a very critical and important role. New to the series this time around is the addition of Nitrous. The addition of Nitrous oxide (N2O), popular in pro street races, makes for a fairly exciting balance.
In a strange but fun twist, drifting somehow manages to recharge your N2O. How it does this is anybody’s guess, but Ridge Racer has always been about the arcade aspect of the race rather than the simulation. If you’re looking to tweak out your car, win prize money, or upgrade parts, I’ll warn you that this is not that type of game. Ridge Racer is all about the arcade experience.
Controlling the car is smooth and easy, just as one should expect from a racing game that focuses on the race itself, but if you make a mistake (and this happens even with best of us), it can have rather major influence on the race outcome; cars tend to get stuck in walls, and getting them out may take a couple of seconds… crucial seconds. Also, though realistic physics modeling is not expected (if not unwelcome), the feature of car collisions having no effect at all is still a doubtful point, especially with AI being stubborn enough for collisions to happen often. Rivaling racers grow in level significantly, presenting a rather off-balance, but still entertaining curve of easy-to beat class 3 cars, a little harder, but still no problem 2 class and challenging enough to excite 1 class.
One real significant thing about the game is graphics. It is of course far from ideal, but not when it comes to java games. Car models are good, one could even easily distinct car types if not for the need to keep eyes on the track… and latter has been done well enough to understand in which direction to turn next time without having to look at the map. Landscapes are not what I would call picturesque, but nice sky makes up enough for that.
Multiplayer options are scarce, in fact, only one – via Facebook Ridge Racer Drift application. Although competing with friends by beating their highscores could be exciting, adding bluetooth multiplayer mode would not hurt. Another weak point of the game is sound – music tracks are distinctly looped, short beats. Good thing they are dull enough not to distract from driving. Sound effects (two of them, to be precise) differ greatly in quality – screeching of tires sounds as delicious as phone speaker can afford it to, but collisions (either with other cards or walls) sound more like pea in a tin can..
However, despite these few setbacks, Ridge Racer Drift is a game that is likely to be played again – whenever you get the mood to play something light, easy and not very much distracting on your handset.
Categories: Reviews