Ridge Racer (series)

"Ridge Racer" is a series of arcade racing games developed and published by Namco for both the arcade and various consoles.

"Ridge Racer" uses tracks which take place in the fictional city of Ridge City. Ridge City contains varied landscapes such as cities, beaches, woods, and mountains. In some of the earlier games, all of the tracks share the same starting line and finish line, but open or close off different parts of the track to yield a different course. The soundtrack predominantly features fairly up-beat techno music composed by Namco in-house artists. Most of the games use Reiko Nagase as a mascot, and many feature Full Motion Video sequences by Kei Yoshimizu from Keica inc.

Games

Arcade games

*"Ridge Racer" (7 October 1993), for Namco System 22
*"Ridge Racer Full Scale" (1994), for Namco System 22, controlled by a real automobile
*"Ridge Racer 2" (16 June 1994), for Namco System 22, an update to the original arcade game with multiplayer support, remixed soundtrack, and a rear view mirror
*"Rave Racer" (16 July 1995), for Namco System 22
*"Pocket Racer" (1996), for Namco System 11
*"" (2000), for Namco System 246

Console games

*"Ridge Racer" (1994 - Japan, 1995 - USA/EU), for PlayStation, similar to the arcade with an optional 3rd person view (Launch Game). Début of 13th Racing ("Devil" car).
*"Ridge Racer Revolution" (1995 - Japan, 1996 - USA/EU), for PlayStation. 13th Racing Kid and White Angel made their grand début in this game, challenging you in the game's Time Trial mode. Soundtrack was taken from the "Ridge Racer 2" arcade game.
*"Rage Racer" (1996 - Japan, 1997 - USA/EU), for PlayStation. This game marked the début of the retries rule and customization aspects.
*"" (1998 - Japan, 1999 - USA/EU), for PlayStation, following the "Rage Racer" formula, but instead of customization, there are four racing teams to choose from.
*"Ridge Racer Turbo" (1998 - Japan, 1999 - USA/EU), for PlayStation. A new version of the original game which featured a reduced number of game modes but ran at 60fps and featured gouraud shading which had been absent from the original. Was given away as a bonus with R4: Ridge Racer Type 4.
*"Ridge Racer V" (2000), for PlayStation 2 allows slight customisation, R4-style Grand Prix races are present rather than the original's free-form structure.
*"Ridge Racer 64" (2000), for Nintendo 64, features tracks from Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer 2 and its very own set of "desert" tracks exclusive to the N64.
*"Ridge Racer DS" (2004 - USA), for Nintendo DS, a port of "Ridge Racer 64" with the additional feature of being able to steer by using the touch screen
*"Ridge Racers" (2004 - Japan, 2005 - USA/EU), for PlayStation Portable, mixed new vehicles with tracks from the previous games.
*"Ridge Racer 6" (2005), for Xbox 360 (Launch Game)
*"Ridge Racers 2" (2006), for PlayStation Portable followed the same formula as its predecessor with tracks featured in previous games of the series.
*"Ridge Racer 7" (2006), for PlayStation 3 (Launch Game) - Allowed complete customisation of vehicles from body kits to engine parts and paint jobs.

External links

* [http://www.namcogames.com/game_detail.php?gid=42 Namco Games] Official Namco site for the cell phone game
*moby game|id=-group/ridge-racer-series|name="Ridge Racer" series

References