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Dom Robinson reviews
for Sony Playstation 2
Sony
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1-2
Get your motor running, get out on the highway, looking for adventure, or whatever comes your way,or so sang Steppenwolf in the seventies. You’d be hard-pushed to findsome adventure though in the fifth game of this bafflingly-successful series.For those who haven’t played before, you are the lucky ones for reasons thatwill become clear during this review.
Ridge City is the place to be as you bomb around the track in your sexy, souped-up sports cars againstthe clock and other drivers who will have you eating their dust given half the chance. Upon startingthe game, for which the initial selections available are a practice run or a Grand Prix, there are moresub-game options than you can shake a stick at including difficulty selection, team and driver nameentries, team colour, music radio station, a choice of car, its colour, engine and transmission(automatic or manual gearbox).
At any time off the race track you can visit the garage to check outyour trophy and medal collection, but from powering up your PS2, it feels likeforever before you actually get behind the wheel and a chance to make pole position.
The first class in which you will enter is the Frontal GP.
Zoom round thetrack – making at least fourth position over four tracks – and you’ll qualifyfor the next round where the competition is more fierce, but rewards come interms of extra performance for your vehicle of choice, such as the ability togo “Drafting” – i.e. move behind an opponent’s car and you’ll get a powerboost by avoiding turbulence.
Perhaps Damon Hill could explain that one to me…
Where Ridge Racer 5 fails and the tedium begins to set in is that once you’vedone the first four tracks – which just provide variations along the samehighway – and you’re set to move onto the next classes (Heroic, Blast, Knightand Throne), you need new roads to race on and that’s something you simplydon’t get. It’s just the same old thing again and again and again and that’swhat put me off any other Ridge Racer game I’ve played in the series, hence ifyou’ve never played one before then there will be an air of originality forat least a short spell of time.
A two-player option is available, but the split-screen leaves two flat,horizontal screens with player one on top and player two below, with therestrictive height doing nothing to aid the game play.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
0
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.