This looks a lot different from the original Ridge Racer, doesn't it? That classic kicked off the PlayStation generation, and to my mind, would be left in the dust by Gran Turismo and it's sequel. In fact, my memory of racing games on the PlayStation is so dominated by Gran Turismo that I could not for the life of me have told you that there were three sequels to Ridge Racer before the PlayStation 2 would come along.
Four Ridge Racer titles and the second one of those worthy enough of an entry on the 1001 list was R4: Ridge Racer Type 4.
It's said to be quite the looker, which is blasphemy to the ears of a GT fan, but we'll rev our engines and see how much rubber we can melt to the track to find out.
Fun Times
Gran Turismo has had some adrenaline pumping intro movies in its time, and R4 has one that could top the lot. True to its arcade roots, it follows the morning of Reiko Nagase, someone I clearly have to Google in order to find out her significance, as she strolls through the city, breaks her shoe and hopes for a lift from the one and only car she sees all day. That car happens to be tearing through the place in some kind of street race, drifting around corners and getting up close and personal to the competition.
I've no idea who drives it. They're not as important as 'race queen' and 'one of the girls holding cards before the start of each race' Reiko Nagase. See, I do my research.
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R4's main feature is the Real Racing Roots '99 Grand Prix, a series of 8 races that task you with getting better and better finishes or else you're a failure. It's an arcade game, it challenges you across a number of races... what more could you ask for?
Well, if you wanted to choose which team to race for and which car to drive, R4 has got you covered to the tune of 320 different variations of vehicle, once you've unlocked them all/counted the possibilities. Let's just see what we start with, though.
Each of the four teams appears to have their own thing going on, and tempting though it may be to join the Americans, I think I'll play it safe and have Pac-Man plastered across my car. Whatever that car may be.
I couldn't find a way to back out of this French car, so I guess I'm driving this monstrosity around the track.
The menus are quite nice to look at, kinda reminds me of the more modern Wipeout titles. The tracks are shown off before the race, and finally, we're ready to see if R4 can challenge my entire childhood.
A few clips of the track set the scene before you're on the grid, HUD clear as day, race ready to begin.
The controls are as you'd expect for a racer, with two views to choose from - floating behind your car or bolted to the front bumper. I'd usually go for the camera closest to the steering wheel, then to the one closest to the road, but seeing as neither views are good for screenshots (especially when one of those views doesn't exist in R4), the exterior camera shall show off this game.
And show it off it does. There were genuinely brief instances when I thought the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 had blurred together. If you told me they released R4 on the PS2, as well as a lesser version on the PS1, I might well have believed you, and then wondered just how it was considered a lesser version.
Obviously, it's not pushing the prettiest of pictures out, and you can find instances of awful graphics if you want, but I'm impressed with what I see.
I do have a job to do, though. A third-place finish or better, within two laps of a track I've never seen nor driven until this moment right now. It's doable. It's just a racing game. Point and drive.
I lost the third place for half a lap and only clawed it back on the final straight, but it's fine. It counts. The boss is happy and the Grand Prix can continue.
Onto the second race then.
Frustrations
Which is where it all fell apart, and I saw R4 for what it really is - an arcade racer you have to get good at in order to get anywhere.
It's hard to make out, I'll grant you, but that's me crashing into yet another wall after messing up yet another corner. You'd think that I'd be used be used to cornering by now, having done so in countless games for the last twenty or so years, but that's evidently not the case.
R4 splits its cars into two types, Drift and Grip. If this were any racer ever, I'd pick Grip, no contest. I can't drift for shit. It's appalling. I don't know how I passed that part of the GT Sport license (or its equivalent - it has been so long since I've played even that), but luckily I did because drifting can bugger right off.
Unfortunately for me, I'm driving a car that is the Drift type, and the Grip type in R4 is just another kind of drifting, so I'm out of luck on that front as well.
What appears to be the case is that you drive into a corner, brake, turn where you need, gracefully slide through and then accelerate out the other side. I managed that maybe once, and it wasn't graceful.
Every other time I either didn't turn or braked far too early and turned into a wall. Every time. For an arcade racer, this really does punish you for driving in a manner it doesn't like. When I think 'arcade', I think fast and loose and above all else, fun. Massive drifts and powerslides look cool, and even if I can't pull them off, I at least appreciate the aesthetic and admire what a game is going for.
But R4, in my hands, was an utter slog. I was doing 180km/h, flat out, maxed, and it was slow. Then I crashed into yet another wall to slow me down even further.
No matter how good it looked (in places), R4 was getting to me in just its second race. Again, I was a lap in with places to make up. Again, it was the home straight where I needed to make my move. Again, I just manage to sneak into thi- oh, no, wait, I didn't.
Final Word
I left R4 there, certainly for the time being. Because it is nice to look at, sometimes, I think it's done enough for me to have a race or two in another mode, but I'll have to go into those races sort of undoing everything I've learnt about racing in video games.
Obviously, each game is different in their approach to handling, control, realism, yada yada yada, but Ridge Racer Type 4 was particularly alien to me that it was a let down of sorts. A let down of my own making, sure, but it wasn't the kind of handling I expected from an arcade racer.
On the other hand, it wasn't the kind of game I expected to see on the PlayStation. I'm still trying to think of games that look as good, if not better than R4. I think it's smoother than Gran Turismo 2 but also blander if that's the right word. It's like it's missing something, yet what it has is still worth looking at.
If you take to the controls like a duck to water, you've got yourself a great game. I ought to try it again sometime, but right now I need to confirm whether I still know how to go around a video game track in a video game car in a video game I'm more familiar with, just to remind myself that yes, I can do this.
Then I'll be back. But not in a French car covered in Pac-Man. God no.
Fun Facts
This title was released alongside the Jogcon controller, a PlayStation controller with a 'steering wheel' lumped into the middle. It sounds more impressive than it looks, and I shouldn't joke about it until trying one out. But I don't know when that'll be, so I'm stuck in some kind of limbo here.
R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, developed by Namco, first released in 1998.
Version played: PlayStation, 1999, via emulation.