If someone were to describe a Ridge Racer game, one might say that it’s fast, smooth, good looking and ‘arcadey’. Naturally, Ridge Racer 6 will still have all of these fun elements, only this time around they will be tweaked to the upper limit. But, one thing that is not normal to the Ridge Racer series, this time, is that it’s being brought to a non-Sony platform. Imagine that.
Take one look at Ridge Racer 6, or any Xbox 360 game, and your jaw drops. Hardcore fans of Ridge Racer may drool, so be careful and have a napkin ready. Though the graphics don’t top those of Project Gotham Racing 3, they are very impressive and make the game enjoyable to look at. You can actually see far away parts of the track in the distance much sooner than you reach them . . . much, much sooner. For example, you can see city skyscrapers, large bridges, mountains, etc. with much clarity. Airplanes and helicopters fly over head, like they do in other Ridge Racer games, and then they fly far into the distance.
The Ridge Racer series isn’t to be compared with Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport. Ridge Racer is different. It’s 100% arcade. It is all about going insanely fast speeds, using nitro (and yes the nitro is back), swinging around corners and screeching your tires. The nitro can be charged by power sliding and filling up three boost bars. Even if there was no boost or nitro, the rush of speed you get while playing would still be perceptible. The Namco dubbed racing cars still look beautiful and are reminiscent of real life cars. The bright red “Mitsurugi Meltfire” resembles a Dodge Viper, smoothly speeding through the track.
That reminds me of how smooth this game is. Ridge Racer 6 is being identified as the smoothest playing Xbox 360 game to date. Look at a video of the game in motion and you will soon realize how true this is. When a game plays this smooth, a lot of time and effort was put into making it that way. And who can deny that time and effort makes a game good? We’ll have more on Ridge Racer 6 as we receive more information. Expect a full review in November.