Is the Ridge Racer franchise dead???

I've come at the RR series in a strange order, with Rave Racer in an arcade making me buy R4, which was okay, then moving on to my favourite RRV, which in turn made me buy RR7 on launch, which disappointed me enough that I bought the original RR.

I think the series really suffers nowadays from being essentially too simple. With games like Grid and Forza becoming mainstream, a game where cornering is more about timing your throttle than steering angle or racing lines just doesn't offer enough depth for modern gamers. Just look at the FPS genre, hits of the past like Unreal Tournament where you were a bloke with a gun who just needed faster reactions than the other players have been crushed by killstreak rewards and cover systems and XP and customised weapons and...

Perhaps the key to revitalise RR would be to change who it's pitched to. Reducing the singleplayer focus to make a competitive online racer with tight netcode could market the game to hardcore/oldschool gamers who just want simple, fast action against likeminded players. Add a good livery-painting tool and a R4-sized roster of varying albeit generic cars, and you have sufficient variety to satisfy the customisation aspect of modern online games. Clans / race teams could help structure large games, and the all-important leaderboards would give another aspect of competition. Rather than aiming at Midnight Club or GT, the targets ought to be Team Fortress and Tekken, games more about competing than their genres.

It'd probably also help if it wasn't a launch game, graphically-slated RRV and boring RR6/7 were the first titles on a platform while the critically lauded R4 was the last.

 

6 and up are on the PS3 and 360 correct? I played 6 and thought it was horrible tbh, maybe I should try 7 as many people seem to be positive about it. ;-)

Ha! Get off ASSEMbler graciano, your embarrassing us. Hahaha honestly, I just want you to name the other ones. Let me guess... Castelvania? haha in all seriousness tho, play some DMC and a GOOD RR, and you wont be let down.


And well said pez2k, I agree. RR definitely could use a reboot imo.

 

Far as we can tell. it looks to be based on the iPhone game which is based on the PSP Game. It really looks like it was given to their B team or outsourced.
:banghead:

 

Yeah. I see the Metal Gear game and go because it's beautiful. Then I see RR and it looks like the cars aren't in the same dimension as the track, nor do they seem to be physically connected with the road.

 

I think Ridge Racer is Dead. Namco's probably on something else, and there are many other racing games out there, so...

I Loved RR on the Ps1 though. RR, RR Revolution, RR Type 4.... Those were good racing games for the time.

They screwed up with the PS2, however. Didin't like the PS2 RR.