![]() ![]() In many of their locations players could actually see a walkway that followed the edge of the track. It was often the little details that were overlooked in other racing games that Namco capitalized on It was like a trade secret for the studio. My Cambodian and Vietnamese friends would comment on how familiar the sights looked, including the foliage and rural villages as I raced around the courses. Visually it was another stunner but every element incorporated into the track was inspired by actual locations and even road technology. Part of the course would run through caves and rice patties and part or the road was tethered to pylons and floating above the tide on pontoon bridges. Cars would drift between several different eras in the Southeast Asian-themed tracks during each lap. In the Mist Falls and Lost Ruins courses Namco developers connected portions of an ancient road with a modern expressway. Certainly a track could exist near some ancient ruins but it would never desecrate the history of that region by putting a winding course through a temple. Namco made up for the lack of spectacle with realism. The elements featured in those tracks never pushed the envelope as far as Sega did. The studio had a record of using storytelling elements in several of their games, including the Ace Driver, Cyber Cycles and Final Lap. Namco actually came close to topping Sega's best work in several courses. The new Ridge Racer experience had improved in several ways, not the least of which were track designs. Again the bar had been raised, this time in full HD and with online gameplay that would have been a dream a decade earlier. In 2006 the Playstation 3 received a superior version of the game labeled Ridge Racer 7. The developers were refining the cars, locations, tracks and animations over the course of that calendar year. What audiences did not know was what the studio was secretly working on. Reiko Nagase had even returned in the opening animation and all seemed right with the world. Ridge City and the surrounding communities looked as vivid as any real world location that had been featured in a rival AAA title. For the first time the studio could claim to have photorealistic visuals for their long-running franchise. The new hardware was capable of creating cars and tracks which were amazing. ![]() The visuals had jumped exponentially over the previous game. ![]() It was an Xbox 360 exclusive much to the surprise of Sony fans. Console players however were hoping that Namco would return to their roots. The story elements from Ridge Racer Type 4 were fleshed out with a defined hero named Rena Hayami and a villain with the corporate sponsors G.V.I. ![]() The game still had the classic racing experience but featured actual manufacturers instead of fictional ones. It was not a radical shift as in Ridge Racer Unbounded. R: Racing Evolution (RRE) was an attempt at redefining the franchise. In 2003 Namco tried their boldest experiment yet. Ridge Racer V gave audiences a taste of the classic arcade experience but with enhanced graphics and many more secrets to unlock. When technology improved so did the franchise. Namco gave racing fans a reason to go through multiple replays. That doesn't sound very impressive but the 321 cars that could also be unlocked certainly was. There were four manufacturers, four teams and eight tracks for players to choose from. No arcade to console series would ever match the numbers in that game. Ridge Racer Type 4 set the bar impossibly high. They expected to get the greatest possible experience for their dollar as they could. Console players never had to worry about running out of money or time. If the arcade title was meant to last 5 or 10 minutes then it was usually very difficult, and required players to continuously add credits to the machine. Longer, more drawn out stories and adventures were rarely presented. An arcade game is meant to be enjoyed in a few short bursts. The most important of these game design elements being time. Namco made a solid effort to ensure that every iteration of Ridge Racer offered experiences that could not be matched in the arcade. Console, PC and mobile gaming had completely eclipsed the out-of-home experience. Namco knew that the US would not support the arcade market as they once had through the late '70s and '80s. Ridge Racer V, released in 2000 was an extremely rare game that saw success on both the Playstation 2 as well as the arcade. The steady decline of arcade gaming in the US over the late '90s meant that more and more developers began to take their franchises to home consoles. ![]()
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