I quite liked this game it really felt a bit more from the original Ridge racer , the filters you put on are pretty interesting.. If you want to try out a weird little series of racers on the ps1/2 then Choro Q or Penny Racers in the UK are worth a go on, they a bit of getting used to but theres so many different cars and upgrades you can do I played a ton of them back in the day and more recently on my PS1 mini.
OrdosAlpha
9 months ago
Was never a fan or Rage Racer. To this day, it rubs me the wrong way. Type 4 is still the best entry in the franchise, closely followed by RR7 and then RRV.
it’s probably the one i played the most, along with the psp versions, but the skidding IS weird in it. it’s almost as if there’s a breeze block on every corner and you slam into it as you skid. it’s much harder to maintain a decent drift arc than in any of the other games and i’m not particularly sure why. i don’t remember it being that arsey so maybe it’s better once you get into the later cars, but it certainly threw me off when playing it again. i really prefer it with brighter colours, too, but that’s a personal thing.
Jamie Ferns
9 months ago
Is it worth it just bypassing all the ps1 games and playing Ridge Racer 2 on PSP? That features all the original tracks doesn’t it but with more polished graphics?
i’m not sure if it has ALL the courses, i think some are missing but the majority are in there. it’s a good entry in the series. i’m not that mad for the music in the game as it’s more soft/trance sort of stuff but that’s the case with most of the titles anyway with only the original couple of games and ridge racer v having the option for 1 or 2 really pounding tunes but i really think this style of music suits the series more ! it’s definitely worth playing, though, and the drifting and driving is handled extremely well. i think this or ridge racer 7 is probably the most complete package. there are a lot of courses in both, with more of the original courses echoed/updated in the psp version.
Great stuff and well played George! Despite Rage Racer’s grittier overall look, I got used to it in the end. I also really liked the steep hills / verticality that was introduced on the tracks which gave the game a different feel to the previous two instalments. Type 4 changed the feel and presentation again – and that one remains my favourite in the series to this day. Wish Namco would properly resurrect these games 😊
yes mate ! i am going to review type 4 and ridge racer 5 soon. i meant to do it yesterday but was at the dentist i had to pay a massive bill and that took all of our money but then i got told i need to pay the same bill for another tooth as it’s really painful at the moment too but i can’t afford it so it was a day of RAGE and i just felt pretty out of sorts. my chest is playing up again after a calm spell but i am going to try and do a video or two today so that next to no-one can watch them ! i don’t understand but i think people just want to see drama not gameplay or my thoughts on games it is a shame but i suppose humans are more drawn to scandal than the opinions of some shut in on games they’ll never play again :p i suppose in some ways i can understand that but i’ve really enjoyed playing through the ridge racer games again !
with regards to rage racer yes i got used to it too and it seems some people really liked that grittier, darker look, too, but i’ve always preferred the bright and sunny style to the more dour tones used in rage racer. the drifting is harder to get a hang of in this one and it took me a bit to slip back into it. i can still remember beating the game and the last race which was tough and you had to take a perfect line through it. i’d say out of all of them that this one is the most burned into my brain, i definitely gave it the most time. i like the steep hills too, they do bring something different and a sense of verticality to things, and also permit over/under passing bits of the road which wasn’t “a thing” until this one. i like going backwards on the uphill sections so that you can fly down them at high speed. i’m not sure, it may be that i’ve not unlocked the high performance cars yet but i thought rage racer was the first one where you could do flying 360’s and stuff but having played it again i’m not sure it was. then again, maybe i’m just shit at it now. i used to pull shifts playing this game, it was my job for ages :p
i think it might be a case of no-one (in terms of young, modern gamers) remembering these titles so perhaps namco think it’s not worth sinking time and money into the series ? that in itself is a terrible shame. aside from the initial d games there is nothing that gets close to this feel, although initial d is very much its own thing and 99% of the time it’s just a 1 on 1 challenge racer style game. PLUS the last initial d home version came out about 15 years ago so that’s not exactly a going concern, either (aside from in Japanese arcades, where it’s still very popular). namco were working on a ridge racer title for the switch but it was scrapped, which was really annoying to hear.
my mind is also split on the whole “turbo” situation, too. while it adds a little boost (literally) to the racing i’m not sure it’s required and while it can shift the balance at the last moment i feel that the pure racing of the older titles also has a charm to it, too, and is disrupted by the addition of boosting. also, all the games featuring boost (and i think ridge racer 5, too, even though it doesn’t have it) include that really fucking annoying voiceover guy who replaced the original one. he just doesn’t fucking shut up during the races and is always babbling on about boost because someone is always setting it off somewhere along the line. i think it’s ridge racer 5, too, where he will go on a monologue during a race saying “if you want to sign up for a race, just contact the ridge city race officials, there are races happening all the time, all across the city !” or something like that but he keeps saying it over and over WHEN YOU ARE IN A FUCKING RACE. it drives me crazy so i would switch him off BUT you can’t actually switch him off completely, you can just put his level at 1/10 or something which seems really odd. i think that’s the case anyway i will get onto that and confirm it once i play the game again !
Hope your on the mend mate, and while we all like a bit of drama and anyone who (quite rightly) calls out the many scumbag retro YouTubers out there, I’m glad your not forgetting those of us who enjoy your other content aswell – be that gameplay, reviews and banter with Simon / geezer etc. keeps me entertained while the missus watches those mind numbing soaps on tv so cheers mate! 😂👌
cheers mate ! yes i like to do gaming content more than anything really as i enjoy to be able to be enthusiastic about 1 thing in my life ! the drama videos need done in many cases as most others wont touch the issues i talk about but at the end of the day they put me in a negative frame of mind a lot of the time and i get annoyed watching wankers spunking money on multiple holidays a year and thousands of games etc when i can’t even afford to eat properly so delving into “career” youtubers is usually a pretty depressing situation for one reason or another for me. but i do need to speak out when these assholes do something outrageous of course !
I can only echo what Bigsky said. Hope you’re on the mend big man. I wonder if you’d consider checking out the R Racing Evolution game. Yeah it’s a spinoff, but it has an interesting aggro mechanic where driving close or aggressively to an AI fills a bar which when full will cause them to spin out. It’s a pretty unique little game. The Ridge Racer DNA shines through the more serious veneer. On the series’ popularity, it’s encouraging that Ridge Racer(s) 2, the PSP game, was released on PlayStation’s PS+ program as a download title for PS5. It’s one of the series best entries and I hope it’ll show Bandai Namco that there’s some love in the franchise. Have you considered doing a retrospective of sorts for the Wipeout games? Equally excellent!
unfortunately mate i am dying of a degenerative lung condition but i am trying to “live my best life” as they say until then and we’ve taken all the measures possible to slow it down but it’s incurable so that’s that as they say ! i have been playing R-Racing and will definitely be covering it. yes, it’s a spinoff but i see it as still a part of the series. it has a lot of the ridge racer DNA and definitely has a place in the canon and i like the way it plays. it’s a lot more serious as a driving game, with no drifting as such and you actually have to slow down heavily for a lot of corners but i do really like the mix of serious driving and ridge racer stylings. i was surprised to see it even has rallying ! clearly this was their attempt to “fit in” with the racing games of the time, particularly gran turismo and the colin mcrae series i suppose. did ridge racer 2 actually get released ? i saw news that it had been spotted in an upcoming download manifest but i didn’t realise it was actually released. that’s good news, anyway, and i hope at least they’ve upscaled it to run at hd (or UHD?) as otherwise it’ll look very dodgy indeed ! with regards to wipeout, i enjoyed the games up until wipeout 3 but after that lost interest. i have the latest one on the ps4, which is just basically a re-do of the previous psp titles i think BUT i don’t really like it. i find the “twist the stick to roll during jumps for extra speed” to be an absolutely shit mechanic, it literally ruins the game for me. it just means any attempts to do things clean and follow a certain line are ruined by this haphazard wangling whenever you get any air. a really shit idea that clearly takes its cues from the mario kart speed boost that was added i think for the n64 version that was also shit. go into a skid and waggle the stick then let go to leave the skid and get a speed boost, again it just removes the chance to take a super perfect line and makes things feel really haphazard. that’s quite possibly “just me” but it’s a mechanic i hated and as the other racers do it it’s hard to consider winning races without it. it’s a big shame they did that with the ps4 version too instead of dropping it as it’s a great looking game.
And never mind wipeout – every same gamer knows that space racers start and end with the sublime F-Zero series! F-Zero GX has still never been bettered! 😊😉👌
now that’s a game i’d like to review wasn’t that a great one ! i am not sure on the state of gamecube emulation it’s literally years since i checked, i would imagine it’s a lot better now (as is my pc too). probably will run well so i’ll take a look !
Also another observation: Rage Racer is the only entry in the franchise (I’m 99.9999% certain) that breaks standard racing game conventions and doesn’t feature a minimap showing the track, essentially forcing the player to become familiar with it through repetition and dedication. It also forces the track designers to create bespoke variants of what is essentially one map and make certain areas identifiable and recognizable so as the player can learn what kind of approach to make. It’s an incredibly rewarding game.
Good to see Rage Racer! Not personally a fan of the shaders and post processing effects used, but that’s okay. I always liked the more gritty and grungy look and feel of the game, especially when contrasted with the summer vibes of Ridge Racer and Revolution. The European (and almost medieval) look of the game really set it apart from what came before and after. The first time the series focused on a home console release and offered significantly more in terms of feature set and customization.
I remember saying on another comment it’s my second favorite in the franchise (behind RR4) but I do keep coming back to this one a fair bit. Something about it just encapsulates that mid 90s charm. The incredible drum n bass music helps a lot too. It’s got that “coming back to your flat at 3am with a kebab after a night out on the pull with the lads” vibe to it all that I love.
It’s only real major flaw for me is the hit collision boxes are so large (especially when using the first person camera) and it slows you down so much if you make contact, and unfortunately the exterior camera is too rigid and is hard to judge speed and corners. Outside of that, it’s one of the best arcade racers of the generation IMO – and one that would sadly be overshadowed by its successor and largely considered the black sheep of the franchise.
I quite liked this game it really felt a bit more from the original Ridge racer , the filters you put on are pretty interesting.. If you want to try out a weird little series of racers on the ps1/2 then Choro Q or Penny Racers in the UK are worth a go on, they a bit of getting used to but theres so many different cars and upgrades you can do I played a ton of them back in the day and more recently on my PS1 mini.
Was never a fan or Rage Racer. To this day, it rubs me the wrong way. Type 4 is still the best entry in the franchise, closely followed by RR7 and then RRV.
it’s probably the one i played the most, along with the psp versions, but the skidding IS weird in it. it’s almost as if there’s a breeze block on every corner and you slam into it as you skid. it’s much harder to maintain a decent drift arc than in any of the other games and i’m not particularly sure why. i don’t remember it being that arsey so maybe it’s better once you get into the later cars, but it certainly threw me off when playing it again. i really prefer it with brighter colours, too, but that’s a personal thing.
Is it worth it just bypassing all the ps1 games and playing Ridge Racer 2 on PSP? That features all the original tracks doesn’t it but with more polished graphics?
i’m not sure if it has ALL the courses, i think some are missing but the majority are in there. it’s a good entry in the series. i’m not that mad for the music in the game as it’s more soft/trance sort of stuff but that’s the case with most of the titles anyway with only the original couple of games and ridge racer v having the option for 1 or 2 really pounding tunes but i really think this style of music suits the series more ! it’s definitely worth playing, though, and the drifting and driving is handled extremely well. i think this or ridge racer 7 is probably the most complete package. there are a lot of courses in both, with more of the original courses echoed/updated in the psp version.
Great stuff and well played George! Despite Rage Racer’s grittier overall look, I got used to it in the end. I also really liked the steep hills / verticality that was introduced on the tracks which gave the game a different feel to the previous two instalments. Type 4 changed the feel and presentation again – and that one remains my favourite in the series to this day. Wish Namco would properly resurrect these games 😊
yes mate ! i am going to review type 4 and ridge racer 5 soon. i meant to do it yesterday but was at the dentist i had to pay a massive bill and that took all of our money but then i got told i need to pay the same bill for another tooth as it’s really painful at the moment too but i can’t afford it so it was a day of RAGE and i just felt pretty out of sorts. my chest is playing up again after a calm spell but i am going to try and do a video or two today so that next to no-one can watch them ! i don’t understand but i think people just want to see drama not gameplay or my thoughts on games it is a shame but i suppose humans are more drawn to scandal than the opinions of some shut in on games they’ll never play again :p i suppose in some ways i can understand that but i’ve really enjoyed playing through the ridge racer games again !
with regards to rage racer yes i got used to it too and it seems some people really liked that grittier, darker look, too, but i’ve always preferred the bright and sunny style to the more dour tones used in rage racer. the drifting is harder to get a hang of in this one and it took me a bit to slip back into it. i can still remember beating the game and the last race which was tough and you had to take a perfect line through it. i’d say out of all of them that this one is the most burned into my brain, i definitely gave it the most time. i like the steep hills too, they do bring something different and a sense of verticality to things, and also permit over/under passing bits of the road which wasn’t “a thing” until this one. i like going backwards on the uphill sections so that you can fly down them at high speed. i’m not sure, it may be that i’ve not unlocked the high performance cars yet but i thought rage racer was the first one where you could do flying 360’s and stuff but having played it again i’m not sure it was. then again, maybe i’m just shit at it now. i used to pull shifts playing this game, it was my job for ages :p
i think it might be a case of no-one (in terms of young, modern gamers) remembering these titles so perhaps namco think it’s not worth sinking time and money into the series ? that in itself is a terrible shame. aside from the initial d games there is nothing that gets close to this feel, although initial d is very much its own thing and 99% of the time it’s just a 1 on 1 challenge racer style game. PLUS the last initial d home version came out about 15 years ago so that’s not exactly a going concern, either (aside from in Japanese arcades, where it’s still very popular). namco were working on a ridge racer title for the switch but it was scrapped, which was really annoying to hear.
my mind is also split on the whole “turbo” situation, too. while it adds a little boost (literally) to the racing i’m not sure it’s required and while it can shift the balance at the last moment i feel that the pure racing of the older titles also has a charm to it, too, and is disrupted by the addition of boosting. also, all the games featuring boost (and i think ridge racer 5, too, even though it doesn’t have it) include that really fucking annoying voiceover guy who replaced the original one. he just doesn’t fucking shut up during the races and is always babbling on about boost because someone is always setting it off somewhere along the line. i think it’s ridge racer 5, too, where he will go on a monologue during a race saying “if you want to sign up for a race, just contact the ridge city race officials, there are races happening all the time, all across the city !” or something like that but he keeps saying it over and over WHEN YOU ARE IN A FUCKING RACE. it drives me crazy so i would switch him off BUT you can’t actually switch him off completely, you can just put his level at 1/10 or something which seems really odd. i think that’s the case anyway i will get onto that and confirm it once i play the game again !
Hope your on the mend mate, and while we all like a bit of drama and anyone who (quite rightly) calls out the many scumbag retro YouTubers out there, I’m glad your not forgetting those of us who enjoy your other content aswell – be that gameplay, reviews and banter with Simon / geezer etc. keeps me entertained while the missus watches those mind numbing soaps on tv so cheers mate! 😂👌
cheers mate ! yes i like to do gaming content more than anything really as i enjoy to be able to be enthusiastic about 1 thing in my life ! the drama videos need done in many cases as most others wont touch the issues i talk about but at the end of the day they put me in a negative frame of mind a lot of the time and i get annoyed watching wankers spunking money on multiple holidays a year and thousands of games etc when i can’t even afford to eat properly so delving into “career” youtubers is usually a pretty depressing situation for one reason or another for me. but i do need to speak out when these assholes do something outrageous of course !
I can only echo what Bigsky said. Hope you’re on the mend big man. I wonder if you’d consider checking out the R Racing Evolution game. Yeah it’s a spinoff, but it has an interesting aggro mechanic where driving close or aggressively to an AI fills a bar which when full will cause them to spin out. It’s a pretty unique little game. The Ridge Racer DNA shines through the more serious veneer. On the series’ popularity, it’s encouraging that Ridge Racer(s) 2, the PSP game, was released on PlayStation’s PS+ program as a download title for PS5. It’s one of the series best entries and I hope it’ll show Bandai Namco that there’s some love in the franchise. Have you considered doing a retrospective of sorts for the Wipeout games? Equally excellent!
unfortunately mate i am dying of a degenerative lung condition but i am trying to “live my best life” as they say until then and we’ve taken all the measures possible to slow it down but it’s incurable so that’s that as they say ! i have been playing R-Racing and will definitely be covering it. yes, it’s a spinoff but i see it as still a part of the series. it has a lot of the ridge racer DNA and definitely has a place in the canon and i like the way it plays. it’s a lot more serious as a driving game, with no drifting as such and you actually have to slow down heavily for a lot of corners but i do really like the mix of serious driving and ridge racer stylings. i was surprised to see it even has rallying ! clearly this was their attempt to “fit in” with the racing games of the time, particularly gran turismo and the colin mcrae series i suppose. did ridge racer 2 actually get released ? i saw news that it had been spotted in an upcoming download manifest but i didn’t realise it was actually released. that’s good news, anyway, and i hope at least they’ve upscaled it to run at hd (or UHD?) as otherwise it’ll look very dodgy indeed ! with regards to wipeout, i enjoyed the games up until wipeout 3 but after that lost interest. i have the latest one on the ps4, which is just basically a re-do of the previous psp titles i think BUT i don’t really like it. i find the “twist the stick to roll during jumps for extra speed” to be an absolutely shit mechanic, it literally ruins the game for me. it just means any attempts to do things clean and follow a certain line are ruined by this haphazard wangling whenever you get any air. a really shit idea that clearly takes its cues from the mario kart speed boost that was added i think for the n64 version that was also shit. go into a skid and waggle the stick then let go to leave the skid and get a speed boost, again it just removes the chance to take a super perfect line and makes things feel really haphazard. that’s quite possibly “just me” but it’s a mechanic i hated and as the other racers do it it’s hard to consider winning races without it. it’s a big shame they did that with the ps4 version too instead of dropping it as it’s a great looking game.
And never mind wipeout – every same gamer knows that space racers start and end with the sublime F-Zero series! F-Zero GX has still never been bettered! 😊😉👌
now that’s a game i’d like to review wasn’t that a great one ! i am not sure on the state of gamecube emulation it’s literally years since i checked, i would imagine it’s a lot better now (as is my pc too). probably will run well so i’ll take a look !
Also another observation: Rage Racer is the only entry in the franchise (I’m 99.9999% certain) that breaks standard racing game conventions and doesn’t feature a minimap showing the track, essentially forcing the player to become familiar with it through repetition and dedication. It also forces the track designers to create bespoke variants of what is essentially one map and make certain areas identifiable and recognizable so as the player can learn what kind of approach to make. It’s an incredibly rewarding game.
Good to see Rage Racer! Not personally a fan of the shaders and post processing effects used, but that’s okay. I always liked the more gritty and grungy look and feel of the game, especially when contrasted with the summer vibes of Ridge Racer and Revolution. The European (and almost medieval) look of the game really set it apart from what came before and after. The first time the series focused on a home console release and offered significantly more in terms of feature set and customization.
I remember saying on another comment it’s my second favorite in the franchise (behind RR4) but I do keep coming back to this one a fair bit. Something about it just encapsulates that mid 90s charm. The incredible drum n bass music helps a lot too. It’s got that “coming back to your flat at 3am with a kebab after a night out on the pull with the lads” vibe to it all that I love.
It’s only real major flaw for me is the hit collision boxes are so large (especially when using the first person camera) and it slows you down so much if you make contact, and unfortunately the exterior camera is too rigid and is hard to judge speed and corners. Outside of that, it’s one of the best arcade racers of the generation IMO – and one that would sadly be overshadowed by its successor and largely considered the black sheep of the franchise.
Loving this mini retrospective series George lad!