Ridge Racer DS Review

What does that have anything to do with the computer you might be asking? Well it’s rather simple. The further you get into the GP races, the more and more difficult competing against the computer opposition it will become. How are they cheap? Well let’s see, a lot of the time you won’t end up catching up to the first place car until the very LAST leg of the race, and that is indeed very frustrating. I do believe I participated in one particular race a good 75-100 times just so I could finally win. If you don’t know how to handle your vehicle well and use the drift effectively, you will be redoing a lot of races too many times. Another thing is what happens to you when you may come into physical contact with your opposition. In some bizarre display of physics, whether it’s the hood, back end or sides of a opposition’s car, more often than not when you come into contact with them, you will be literally “launched” backward and slowed down immensely.

This is really where your drift maneuver comes in. It works just like any other racing game this generation that features that gameplay mechanic. It also helps quite a bit at times when you need to get around the opposition to gain position in a race. When you’re at high speeds, you simply let go of the A button for a second or two, and then press the D-Pad in the direction that the turn you’re entering is actually going, and hold A again. This is probably the most vital aspect of controlling your car in the game, and thankfully it’s really not difficult to pull off when you need it to. It is even humorous at times to do it so hardcore than you end up doing a full 360 degree turn with your car, and still maintain present course!

But like stated before, during the middle and last parts of the GP races, the AI just becomes way too cheap and aggressive. Completing the races virtually begins feeling like nothing more than a chore rather than entertainment. Sure you do feel incredibly accomplished when you finally win one of these races, but the level of frustration you’re bound to feel in doing so makes the tediousness almost not worth it.

Thankfully Car Attacks aren’t as difficult as GP races. Each time you win a GP and receive a trophy, the Car Attack mode unlocks three new cars for you to compete against. You face each car in a head-to-head race utilizing the tracks that you raced in the actual Grand Prix that you competed in to unlock them. There are 32 cars in total to unlock, and each has their own varying stats. Top speed, acceleration, grip and handling are the four features that you get to look at when choosing a vehicle, and each are truly diverse and distributed.

Ridge Racer does indeed have its entertaining moments, but they are mainly featured at the beginning of the game. When it comes time to compete in the middle and last parts of the Grand Prix, the frustration levels will continue to climb, and really only dedicated racers may find the motivation to win them. The arcade style elements in the races are really just too much for the most part if you actually want to beat the game, but the beginning GP races and Car Attack competitions are indeed very fun to participate in.

At the end of certain groups of GP races (even though the game doesn’t display it, they are each marked with their expertise level), you get some cool credits. The credits display some sweet looking concept art and such that was made for the development of the game, but it’s nothing entirely special. It can be rather annoying to see the same credits roll after each major sets of GP races, but for the most part they are cool to see because of the graphics displayed in the background.

The replay value of Ridge Racer DS will truly be determined by the player of the game. There are some 20 GP races and 32 featured cars. But whether or not you actually choose to go after them all is really dependent on how you react to the cheapness the gameplay mechanics can display during the tougher parts of the game. For those that will choose to stick it out and try to get through everything, you will have some very good replay value on your hands. But for those of you that will be so fed up with how tough some of the later races can be to win along with the cheapness of the computer opposition, there won’t be much reason to come back to this game after a certain point. It’s really a matter of pure motivation, because if you don’t feel like putting up with the poorly programmed AI, you won’t play it much. But if you really feel the desire to achieve victory in the whole game, you will come back to it!

Ridge Racer DS is truly a unique game, but the fact that it is no more than an upgraded N64 port makes it suffer in overall quality. The overall appeal of this game really depends on the personal feelings of the person playing it, but since this is a review, I have to say something. The graphics are nicely done with the car models and such, but the dull and drab track environments doesn’t make for much excitement. You do have great music and sound effects, but that’s really the best part of this game, which is disappointing. Unfortunately RR DS suffers from some truly annoying arcade style racing gameplay mechanics, and many will most likely find the controlling of it simply not worth the frustration. Sure the game can be fun at the beginning, actually it’s very fun at the beginning. But all too soon, the frustration level picks up as the computer opposition will seem almost inhuman because of how great they can race against you. There’s something about seeing the computer turn perfectly through each bend while you watch yourself crash into the sides of the tracks more often than not that will definitely put a frustrated look on your face.