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Updated as often as I can manage |
Monday, December 13, 2004
I finally have a game for my PSP: Ridge Racers! I know I had one reserved with the guys who had my PSP, but I told them I'd take my chances and snag one in local stores (since the games aren't being marked up -- just the consoles). I called one of the stores earlier and they said that they did indeed get PSP games. I rushed out there and... they had no games. Not only did they have no games, they had never seen a PSP either, so I whipped mine out to general squeals of amusement. They told me to come back at 9, so I did... and I got my Ridge Racers.
Now that I've finally seen a game running on it: The screen really truly rocks. John Davison talked about how the screen is just so damned big that it totally sucks you into the action, and it's absolutely true. The widescreen format also works really well for racers.
One last hardware note before I talk about the game... the analog nub is both awesome and awful. It is indeed an awesome control device (it feels GREAT sliding it around to wrestle control of your car), but it's just so poorly placed. I'm holding the PSP with my pointer fingers resting right on the triggers, and it really aches the left pointer to keep it on the L trigger while the thumb uses the analog nub. Thankfully you don't really need the L trigger in Ridge Racers (it's the Change View button), but I imagine other games will need both fingers on triggers...
Right, now the game. It's basically old-school Ridge Racer... which is fine by me, really. On the one hand, it's not exactly Burnout 3 -- there's no insane sense of speed here (not initially, anyway) and no twist like Takedowns -- but on the other hand, the legendary Ridge Racer drifting is back in full force and it lacks Burnout's rubberband AI. That's about it really: It's Ridge Racer, but it is the ultimate version of Ridge Racer.
I have to quickly touch upon the graphics here. Ridge Racer has some odd ghosting/blurring effect going on here (it's intentional, not a screen defect) on the cars and textures that do a good job of disguising that it is indeed sub-PS2 in quality. I don't consider this a knock against the PSP -- that it's pushing anywhere near that level is in my opinion amazing to begin with -- but don't believe the "better than PS2!" PR you see every now and then. It looks damned good to be sure, but if you look carefully at some of the textures or geometry it's fairly clear that it's not up to PS2 par... though again, that we're comparing a handheld to the current generation of consoles tells you just how damned powerful the PSP is.
The two twists in this version are the tracks and nitro. The 24 tracks in this game have been culled from all the Ridge Racers that have come before (I've seen tracks from Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer Revolution, Rave Racer, Rage Racer, R4 and Ridge Racer V), which makes for a nice dose of nostalgia sliding through the streets of Rage Racer's Union Hill. And as you slide, you charge up one of three nitro bars. Hit R and you go faster (and yeah, the CPUs use Nitro too). It doesn't add any huge dose of strategy to the game yet, but it's a welcome addition and does feel like a natural one.
Other than that... again, it's Ridge Racer. This is no bad thing, because Ridge Racer is fun and the game is really damned fun. My only gripes are that I reckon Ridge Racer has been surpassed, and some depth or some twist (again I point at Burnout 3) would be nice, as well as a more cohesive World Tour mode than just a bunch of "finish 1st!" races, but it's a fairly minor quibble -- right now I'm just having fun picking it up and speeding through the tracks.
Also, odd note about powering off the PSP: Hitting the Power button in a game seems to put it to sleep or just stop the game where you are. I haven't tried it actually in a race, but if you power it off at a certain menu the PSP will restart right from that menu right in the middle of the game -- convenient!
Posted at 5:10 AM
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