Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Ridge Racer 3D Review for Nintendo 3DS

Ridge Racer 3D Review for Nintendo 3DS

Still Burning Rubber

I know I’m probably in the extreme minority here, but I’d rather play a new Ridge Racer than a new Gran Turismo. Despite their extreme differences in gameplay approaches (obviously an entirely subjective matter of taste), you can always count on both series to deliver a quality racing experience within its own realm of high-octane design.

Ridge Racer 3D Screenshot

When measured up to the more diverse or agenda-based racers like Burnout or what’s become of Need For Speed, Ridge Racer now almost feels like a throwback to the older days of racing games. However, that doesn’t mean its focus on its particular brand of arcade mechanics, namely the insane powersliding that’s necessary to excel at the game, can’t still be enjoyable. Ridge Racer has never relied heavily on realism, anyway. The Namco-themed automotive sets are based around the company’s classic arcade games and, really, it may be the only racer where you can so noticeably hit a sharp turn going 100-plus miles per hour, scream through it in a wide arc, and come out on the other slide fishtailing so violently your car’s almost done a 180—and still maintain a solid lead.

And yet the series has never been easy, either. Sure, the physics are so ridiculous it’s almost comical to watch. But with just about every game in the series, moving up in the grand prix means you must develop a vigilance to tracks’ increasingly devious combinations of hairpin turns, learn exacting timing when entering and exiting tight spaces and intuitively know just how much nuance to put on a powerslide, whether it’s when to let off the gas or when to punch it. In a lot of ways cornering is Ridge Racer, which is duplicitous enough in its own right. Despite what you may think—how hard can learning to powerslide correctly be, anyway?—series vets know that it can take as much dedication and patience to master Ridge Racer’s subtleties of drifting as gearheads spend fine tuning their performances in Kazunori Yamauchi’s hardcore driving simulations.

Ridge Racer 3D Screenshot

All of this is true in Ridge Racer 3D, so if you’ve played a Ridge Racer game in the past decade you know more or less what you’re getting into. There’s the added depth of 3D effects in full play here, as well, though the core Ridge Racer experience doesn’t stray far from the beaten path long established by the series. There’s several modes to go through, but the game’s main course remains, as it always has, the grand prix mode. Like any good racer, things start out slow here. In fact, if you think you’re playing Ridge Racer at all, really, in the first few hours of play, you’re sadly mistaken. 3D’s grand prix is set up in a non-linear fashion that’s divided up by four-race events, so you can pick and choose the path you want to take or the races you want to run. (Alternately, you can just race every event available before moving on, as well.) Races are tiered to different driving levels, for beginners, intermediate, and expert players, whose cars are separated by speed class.

Ridge Racer 3D Screenshot

The game is a little too lenient at first, perhaps—I didn’t even break a sweat or encounter any resistance in the beginner’s courses. It’s only when you start reaching the higher tiered races that the game comes into its own. Suddenly you can’t half-ass a turn, let alone a race. The AI, which is as annoyingly rubberbanding as always, gets much more aggressive. You have to bring you’re A-game to every track, learning its curves and contours inside and out. If you don’t, you’re probably not going to make the qualifying position. Nitrous, which was introduced to the series back on the 360 in Ridge Racer 6, helps matters, as you can choose how you fill your meter (executing drifts, “perfect charges,” or a combination of the two). If you’re neck-and-neck and jockeying for first in the final seconds of a race, this can make or break matters, though oddly I was rarely aware of rival cars using nitrous themselves. With a fairly lengthy grand prix and its given graphical style, Ridge Racer 3D feels closest to Ridge Racer 4. Tracks have the same 32-bit grit and feel to them that R4 did back on the PS One (sorry fans, 3D has a old-schoolish aesthetic that’s more utilitarian than flash) and while there aren’t as many cars to unlock, the races themselves feel fairly similar, with a smattering of familiar courses and new takes on classic tracks. (There’s even a couple songs from R4 on the soundtrack, I believe.)

Ridge Racer 3D Screenshot

When you need to take a break from the grand prix, 3D has some other racing options well suited for portable play. You can choose a quick tour, which automatically customizes a four-race event based on length and course type preferences. You can also just race on a single track of your choosing or against opponents using the same car as you, in addition to your standard time trial and local multiplayer. 3DS specific features are a nice touch too: by activating Street Pass 3D you will download other players’ ghosts on particularly tracks that you can race against.

And then there’s the 3D itself. There’s nothing revolutionary about Ridge Racer 3D’s 3DS-specific effects, but they work well, and, thankfully the spatial relationship between the foreground and background is actually noticeable. Other than that, 3D is mostly fluff, but it’s still fun: leaves are liable to fly “into” your windshield and water splashes on the camera, and you can expect Namco’s trademark flourishes that were a cool visual bonuses back in the day (a certain helicopter that would fly overhead on one of the city courses comes to mind) to return in full-force, really capitalizing on the 3D. Ridge Racer 3D may not exactly be revolutionary, but if you’re looking for a solid racer at launch, this is the way to go.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.8 Graphics
Ridge Racer 3D often doesn’t look much better than R4 did back on the PS One. It’s still enjoyable, though, and the 3D effects are fun. 4.0 Control
I don’t know how you could screw up the controls on a racing game, and there’s plenty of different schemes to choose from. Perfecting the art of drifting may prove challenging for newcomers. 3.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
My advice: turn the voiceover off. Other than that, the soundtrack is hit-or-miss, but still better than the licensed garbage that usually populates GT. 4.0 Play Value
Ridge Racer hasn’t changed much over the last few years, but if you’re not looking for the next evolution in racing, its arcade drifting will keep you coming back for more. 4.0 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Experience the world of Ridge Racer, now with full 3D effects.
  • Compete against your friends in local multiplayer races.
  • Street Pass downloads other players’ ghosts—beat their times!

  • To top