thirdworldgamer

Ridge Racer 6 is the best arcade racing game I’ve ever played. It’s very accessible and easy to learn, and once you figure out how to drive in the game, finding out the nuances of the gameplay (the little details that will determine whether or not you will win or lose) is actually quite a challenge. Masked underneath the simplicity of the gameplay (wherein you hardly even use the brakes!) lies a layer of depth that can only be found by people who really spend time with the game. The depth lies in the drifting and nitrous system that Namco implemented in the gameplay. Ridge Racer 6 should probably be called ‘drift racing’ somewhere in the title, because drifting is a huge part of what you’ll be doing when you’re playing this game. Forget the need for perfect braking accuracy and racing lines, like in Forza Motorsport or in Gran Turismo. The drift is the beginning and the end of everything in this game. Easy to learn, hard to master—that must have been the motivating factor behind the ga...

Just recently I've finished the Special route on Ridge Racer 6. Afterwards, i went on to check my in-game stats. Apparently, I've been playing this ONE game for over 68 hours and counting. And I still haven't beaten the game. Unbelievable. Playing RR6 so extensively for the past month or so made me realize how different Japanese game developers approach game design, as opposed to the western game developers. Western game developers seem to be so obssessed with cramming every bit of detail into their game's graphics, while Japanese developers opt for simpler graphical effects and less detailed textures. The reason for this seems to be that Japanese developers want to leave enough computational power and memory space for other elements in the game, such as A.I. and gameplay quality. In RR6 it looked like they opted for simpler effects and textures simply to keep the framerate at a constant 60 FPS even when so many cars are on track at one time. The constant framerate real...