![]() While, fellow South African gamers may be eagre to blame our terrible infrastructure, for once we can take pride that a specific game’s netcode is indeed terrible – everywhere. The online mode does allow for the creation and search of lobbies, but the netcode is ridiculously unstable. There is the ubiquitous ghost battle mode, an ad-hoc race mode (if you have real friends) and an online mode. There aren’t that many multiplayer modes to begin with and the selection is spartan. ![]() However, even this aspect will leave gamers, pulling their hair in frustration. Fortunately, Japanese gamers have voted with their wallets, and all indications are that Namco will probably shelf the idea… at least for now.Īpparently, Ridge Racer was intended to be an undeniable tour de force amongst multiplayer-orientated PS Vita games. It seems that Ridge Racer exists purely as an experiment to see whether gamers will allow themselves to be gouged. However, if you’re one of the many South African gamers who only use internet at school, varsity, work, or who find themselves somewhere in the middle of nowhere (like a small dusty Karoo town), your only recourse will be to become intimately and painfully acquainted with those three meagre tracks. To their defence, the game does ship with a free DLC code, which shoots your meagre collection of tracks and vehicles up to six and ten respectively. You see, Ridge Racer is Namco’s grand DLC (downloadable content) experiment. But, that’s not all you only have five cars and three race tracks. It’s only a short time later that you realise, “there is no single-player career mode”. As you flick through the menu, you realise there are only three options: Time Attack, Spot Race and World Race (multiplayer). The Ridge Racer menu makes full use of the Vita’s touchscreen, but sadly it’s all a ruse. The lack of content hits you firmly in the jaw, especially after being mesmerised by the gorgeous and futuristic menu screen. In fact, the core game has been stripped and laid barren, which means there’s barely a skeleton of a functional game left. It personifies everything that’s wrong with the industry today. The irrefutable and shocking truth is that Ridge Racer is that one game that’ll leave you in a foetal position, rocking side-to-side, while softly murmuring the theme tune to Isidingo. In truth, while suffering through the mess that is Ridge Racer, a part of me couldn’t shake the image of Geoff and Gav donning derby hats, monocles and laughing maniacally. Perhaps, it was subtle payback for the years of trolling and elitist commentary. It’s therefore poetic justice (served with a touch of karma) that I was tasked to review the latest Ridge Racer title for the PS Vita. I ooze gaming from literally every orifice ( and while you’re desperately trying scrub that sobering image from your brains) the simple fact remains that if I was a superhero, I’d probably be Captain Gamer. ![]() Those who have stomached my rants on over the last few years know that I’m a passionate gamer. It wasn’t going to blow your mind, but at least the arcade racer would help pass the time (while you saved up for a few decent games). In fact, there were two things that you could bank on if you were a Sony gamer.įirstly, you knew that your new hardware was going to be reliable (or at least more so than the nearest competitor), and secondly, you couldn’t go wrong with a Ridge Racer title. ![]() After almost two decades, the Ridge Racer games have become synonymous with the release of new Sony hardware, but more importantly, they were always a safe bet. There was a time when the words “Ridge Racer” would invoke an almost Pavlovian response from a specific gamer demographic.
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