You've raced the courses, cringed at the voices and slid in these cars since 1993. So what is there left to do in this five-car, three-track (six if you count the reverse versions) morsel?
Even solo races benefit from online. You must pick a car from four global racing companies, and all your results are then fed into a worldwide vat and totalled to see which is the strongest team. Clever. Race on, say, a train, however, and it just angrily spews error messages whenever if fails to upload info.
The insanely drift-happy racing hasn't changed much, but this time there's less of it than you find on some demos.
Instead, longevity comes from DLC, but with a tentative add-on plan that features free retro music but cars / tracks at a few quid each, Ridge Racer's eye-catching £20 RRP will be a bitter memory once you've paid for and downloaded enough stuff to make this a racer of substance.
Comments
9 comments so far...
Data Ghost on 22 Feb '12 said:
No comments? No defensive Vita fans? Anyone? Helloooooo?
Its like when I picked the PS3 up at midnight from ASDA, me and one other bloke. I asked if they had any PS3's to which he replied "how many do you want?"
hixxy4 on 25 Feb '12 said:
Lol!
Zepf on 26 Feb '12 said:
I bought a Vita yesterday, and was sorely tempted to buy this- but I downloaded the Psp launch version instead. Its got a hell of a lot more tracks(24) and cars, looks better than it ever did on psp with the bilinear filter option set to on. Plays like a dream with the Vita's proper little analog stick. It was only £7.99 too.
I hope this isn't the way Namco want to do business in the future, low functionality games which need more cash to unlock
Cocopander on 27 Feb '12 said:
Aww... that's a shame. I was giving this game some thought when I purchase my Vita.
Paul_27 on 27 Feb '12 said:
thats shocking and dont forget namco have stated that there will be more tracks and cars in the future from paid dlc
LordVonPS3 on 28 Feb '12 said:
It's a **** up.
Mmmmgrolsch on 28 Feb '12 said:
Anyone who buys this needs a serious arse kicking.
jmslovatt on 29 Feb '12 said:
I bought katamari for vita online for £20, opened it up and there was a voucher for £8 off the download of this, making it £7.99. Also, although not made obvious, buying before the end of march gives you the free gold pass to download from the store, which gives you all the dlc for free as it comes out over the next few months.
In the end, probably worth it for £7.99, but only just.
xxx128 on 5 Mar '12 said:
I take quality over quantity any time. A good racer lives on its game play mechanics alone and not how many cars it has or how pretentious the marketing campaign is. Or in other words if they throw stuff at me like "photo realism" i hit the upper right x.