Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Arcade Style Fun, December 3, 2005
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Ridge Racer is a classic racing game that gives you fake cars, fake tracks, and fun arcade style racing.
We've played both Project Gotham Racing and Need for Speed. All 3 games feature really well done car models with incredible reflections and details. In all 3 cases, the high definiton tracks and details really shine. All 3 games really take advantage of the XBox 360's high level of graphics.
In Ridge Racer, you're dealing with fake track layouts - so you don't get to see the cool streets of New York, Las Vegas, or other locations. On the other hand, the locations done are all modelled on cool locations - you see bridges, streets and locations that seem quite familiar.
The same is true with the cars. They don't have real models here - you get the Derota and other cars that are similar to real styles but not quite there. This probably saves them some money on licensing costs, but I have to admit that it's not nearly as cool to be driving a Derota as to drive say a Porshe.
But really, Ridge Racer isn't about authenticity. It's about pure arcade fun. When you smash into walls, your car isn't even damaged. You don't get hurt at all when you play bumper-car games with your competitors. Really, this is about fast-blasting fun with an emphasis on sliding and nitro. When you skid around corners, you build up your nitro boost power. Build up enough power, and you can blast past your enemies with a WHOOSH of speed.
It's really cool looking at the 'world view' of all the races, laid out as hexagons with interconnecting paths. You can choose a variety of routes to get to new races, unlocking new cars and colors as you go. There are over 100 different races to run, each with different twists and turns. That makes for great replayability on your own, never mind going up against friends to see who can corner the best.
It's definitely a fun racer, and even if you have the other racing games, I'd suggest you at least rent it to try it out. Sometimes it's fun to have a game that you can just blast and slide away at without having to put serious though into strategy and turn speed dynamics. It does exactly what it's meant to do - provide hours of fun!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grrrrrrrreat racer, December 9, 2005
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
YES, as far as RACERS go I gave this a FIVE...I remember playing one of the first Ridge Racers on the Playstion 2 or something like that (i'm not a "gamer")...
Since then i've gotten ALL of the Grand Turismo games and this game, as with some of it's predecessors, is wondrful.
The handles of the cars are easy, which leads to enjoyable game-play, but more so, the simple controls make the races more of RACES as apposed to endurance tests...
The speed factor mixed with the awesome concept of the underground fascination with drifting is wondrful...you slide in and out of corners seemlessly and the only shortcoming come with your own inability to drift the car... Find a car you're comfortable with and ROCK OUT...this coupled with retarded graphics makes this game playable any day of the week...
The races, obviously, increase with difficulty as you progress, but as you progress your skills improve...this is a wonderful racer for those who don't have the fortitude to sit through insanely difficult games like grand turismo. You can actually move through and get to new tracks without sacrificing a day of your life. That and the handling and racing challenge is right up to par with the same insanely difficult tasks of other racing games.
If you're looking for a racer that is both easy to control, challenging to PLAY and great to look at, this is the one...fun is the whole point after all right?
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good game, December 6, 2005
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
When the Ridge Racer series emerged on home consoles, it established itself as the one of the leading arcade-styled racers. Fast forward a couple generations, and unfortunately it's changed so little over the years that other hot rods have long since caught up. Launch titles usually don't squeeze all of the hardware juice out of a console--but Ridge Racer 6 looks can almost pass as a regular Xbox game. Building textures look noticeably low-res even at blurringly fast speeds, and the cars themselves fall short of models seen in Forza. Borrowing levels from previous games, the game's stages fail to excite you. Game mechanics seem trapped in the previous gen, too. Building up nitrous gauges is a take back to the PSP version, and the addition of the Ultimate Charge does little to approach a Burnout level of intensity. And isn't next-gen a perfect time to make damage modeling standard? Not in this conservatively status quo racer. The computer controlled cars seem clueless of their surroundings, make each course a mind-numbingly repetitive ordeal. Namco typically delivers satisfying electronica tracks, but the cobbled-together score innocuously bumbles in the background in RR6, helping to fill out the otherwise devoid experience. Of course, all else is overshadowed when you hear the Ebonics-spouting announcer--the only phrase missing from his crass stereotypical banter is "word to your mother." Race long enough and you'll even have the pleasure of hearing him use the leet-speak hot phrase, "own." It's not a bad game when you break it down, but there's no sense in dropping 60 bucks on a next-gen title when there are plenty of other previous gen games that'd get your heart racing faster. Hold out for the inevitable next-gen Burnout.
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