A Perfect Arcade Racing Game Ported to PS1! Ridge Racer
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Ridge Racer is one of the best arcade racing game franchises of all time and Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer 2 are some of the best racing games for arcade gaming IMO. It’s retro games royalty and rivals what Sega did with Daytona USA. It’s one of the best arcade games of all time! and you gotta love the Namco System 22 arcade hardware as well. Retro games never looked so good (for a bit)...but Ridge Racer was also a PS1 launch game so we need to talk about that version as well!
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It's high time we talked about the Ridge Racer franchise on the channel, as its basically one of the most successful video game franchises ever made! But this is Video Game Esoterica...so we are going to be talking about this Ridge Racer retrospective a bit differently. From Ridge Racer to R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 to Rave Racer and Rage Racer with stops along the way for the PSP Ridge Racer Games, the Xbox 360 Ridge Racer 6 and of course Ridge Racer 7 on PS3! Plus more!
PS1 was my first 3D console ever and I still fondly remember it as being one of the best pieces of retro gaming hardware around!
Up First: Ridge Racer on the Namco System 22 and Ridge Racer on PS1. Sure the arcades had a ton of awesome racing games and some would even be considered arcade hidden gems but IMO the original Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer 2 are some of the absolutely best racing game around! and you can play it on MiSTer FPGA cores or MiSTer FPGA alternatives too!
Namco had a TON of awesome games on PS1 and had a ton of awesome arcade games in the Ridge Racer franchise but the original Ridge Racer is the most special IMO
Questions? Comments? Just leave them below and I will do my best to answer each and every one of them!
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You hit the nail on the head: “back then we probably didn’t even notice” so many reviews of these older games will harp on how the home port didn’t look as good as the arcade. It’s not like we were dragging a Tv and a console out to the arcade and setting them up side by side. Games like this and tekken 2 were absolutely mind blowing on the PSX.
Exactly. We were happy we had it at all
That's the issue with revisionist reviewers who literally were not born when these games came out and never played them. This was crazy looking when it came out and I'm like wow, and I was an adult working in the industry and I had access to arcade machines at the office.
And then there are games like Ridge Racer V, which I got at launch, was impressed by but today never hooks me in
@@Gorilla_JonesExactly, many ports were already impressive for the SNES and the ones for the PS1 were literally mind blowing back then.
@@VideoGameEsotericadid you know rrv also had an arcade version, ridge racer v arcade battle.
It still feels like yesterday when i first saw the PS1 version running and my jaw dropped. Turns out it was almost THIRTY YEARS AGO!
"Woooo! That was a great corner! You must be one genius of a driver. You gotta teach me!!!"
I can tell you having lived thru this era that at the time it was arcade perfect.
There was no way to do a side by side and by the time you got home it looked identical.
I also remember the arcade attendance going down hard not long after the launch of Saturn and Ps1.
We were just happy to see 3D at home
Namco/Bandi should release Ridge, Rage and Rave as a arcade racer greatest hits for modern consoles.....They must have their heads buried in the sand because arcade racing fans like me have been screaming out for it.
I’d love to see it but I doubt it happens
loved once I found out the entire game loaded into ram so you could take the disc out & put any CD you wanted in for a custom soundtrack, as long as it wasnt a long song/track due to rave length of course
A fun undocumented feature
@@VideoGameEsotericaIt was well known at the time of its release.
So this was a seminal game for me. I was going to law school in LA at the time and loved going to the news stands and picking up Next Generation magazine where I read all about the PlayStation coming out soon. I actually imported one from Japan since LA has the best importers and got one near Japan launch. Playing ridge racer at home was absolutely mind blowing. There was nothing close to that at home. I showed it to my friend who happened to write episodes for the Power Rangers and the next day he called me up and wanted to buy the console from me for a nice markup. Of course I told him no. The graphics seem bad today but running it on a nice Trinitron tv softened all those blocky pixels. To this day I don’t think any game has impressed me as much as that one did at the time. After that I ended up dropping out of law school and got a job programming PlayStation games so it really changed my life lol.
Maybe the first commenter to be a lawyer haha
I bought my launch PS1 for this game, and loved every second of it.
I feel like everyone got this at launch. It was THE GAME to have
I even once played the Ridge Racer full scale arcade. You sit in a Mazda MX 5 in front of a cinema screen. It was ridiculous over the top and mind blowing. Got it later on PS1 and it still holds up as one of my favorite PS1 games. No bells and whistles, just pure arcade fun. Still using the NeGcon controller.
I’d have loved to have played that
@@VideoGameEsoterica they had it in Londons Trocadero Center which was the Sega World later. I was there on vacation and managed to spend some hours there. It was pure magic. They had so many Arcade Games, a laser tag, dozens of shops on multiple levels. This was peak 90s in my book. Now nothing is left of it.
@Turbotobi79 lucky
Definitely my favorite generation. I didn't get to play the 1st Ridge Racer but got Ridge Racer Revolution and Tekken 2 when I finally got a PS1.
I also got a Saturn around 97 and played the hell out of both consoles.
Both consoles were great. It was a fun time to be a gamer
Another interesting thing that I remember;
In England, newpapers gave millions of praise to this port for the high-speed and frame rate.
A year later, the same publications ripped up F-Zero X for being bland and boring.
Wow. Biased much lol
I remember all the early PS1 reviews gloating over Toshinden which got 9s and 9.5s everywhere while Saturn's Virtua Fighter got 6s and 7s. Ridge Racer for PS1 meanwhile got 8s maybe, while Daytona may have gotten 7s. The delta between these two is far greater though; I agree Ridge Racer was a perfect arcade port, which was the hidden beauty of the Namco arcade scheme. Sega's Model 2 was too powerful for the home market, which was fine for Virtua Fighter 2 when you could reduce backgrounds to 2D sprites, but urban racing games like Daytona couldn't be run.
But compare Daytona with Sega Rally. Daytona was a mess because the Model 2 version was designed to draw all attention in the arcade to it. I remember going to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk arcade in 1994 and seeing Daytona premiere there in the 4-seat deluxe mode with separate monitors so everyone could crowd around and watch. The game was like a roided out Mr. Olympia entering a small town gym and just dominating everything in sight. But that kind of thing just couldn't run on the Saturn. But Sega Rally was made by the Ridge Racer developer Kenji Sasaki, and the home port was completely reworked, and Sasaki produced that port as well though the development was handled overall by a separate team. Without a doubt Sega Rally was the best racer on the Saturn.
The Genesis could run arcade perfect ports of the earlier Sega arcade systems. But overall I think Sega's dominance in the arcade came at a major cost: it couldn't produce the same home ports anymore. As the arcade market died out in the late 90s due to Diablo, C&C, Doom, and other PC games and the expanding power of PC hardware, I wouldn't be surprised if this fissure between arcade and home exacerbated Sega's decline in the hardware market. The Namco-Sony relationship was one of the things that kept making Playstation a great buy till this day.
In retrospect, Toshinden getting better reviews than Saturn Virtua Fighter (even with its flaws) is madness.
There was def some anti Sega sentiment back then
" As the arcade market died out in the late 90s due to Diablo, C&C, Doom, and other PC games and the expanding power of PC hardware"
Nonsense. It was due to consoles becoming more popular and people spending less money on arcade machines.
@@kordelas2514 multifaceted issue man, let's have some nuance here
@@VideoGameEsoterica yeah why?
Exactly when PSX was relesed, i remember reading interview of Shiny's Dave Perry.
He actually said back then that PSX could run Ridge Racer on HI-REZ 60fps, if system would be pushed into maximum performance.
Yeah you had to hit the hardware hard
Ridge racer hispec (even it's only a vs stripped down version) is what the game should have been , high res / 60fps incredible sHowCase of what ps1 was capable of in the latter years
Just was too new of hardware to even get close back then
The 32-bit era was the first time I had conflict about choosing a console. I wanted 2D Capcom fighters but I couldn't help be amazed by Ridge Racer on PlayStation. My finances meant I couldn't have both. I chose Saturn and Capcom took a year to get started... which led me to the Neo CD.
Crash Bandicoot sold me on PS1 the Christmas I had to pick
I remember figuring out once the game loaded you could take the disc out and put a music cd in and it would play the music from whatever disc you put in.
AC/DC Back in Black album was my goto
I’d have put in Van Halen. Panama on repeat
@@VideoGameEsoterica great choice
I played this game so much that acquiring that black lambo was an epic achievement for me. Im really hoping Namco has a big RR special edition for the 30th anniversary next year.
Wild to think it’ll be 30 years
Ridge Racer was an amazing game. Once you learned how to drift it was pure fun. Only Wipeout & Wipeout 2097 was better :)
You misspelled OutRun lol
@@VideoGameEsoterica yes so true ;)
Wipeout XL ;)
@@turrican4d599 yes Wipeout XL :) btw its called Wipeout 2097 in europe.
If I could only have two games released for the PS1 it would be this game and SOTN.
For me Crash and SotN
I loved this Arcade game. Nailing the brakes and drifting around corners with a force feedback wheel blew my mind.
The drifting and car physics were great
Still as much fun as it ever was. I would never play it at the original resolution again though.
No def a game that benefits from Duckstation
RRR is still my favourite in the series, looks incredibly on the PS1 natively - prefer it over the duck station cleanup! R4 is also excellent of course but the vibes are unmatched in this one.
RRR will be showing up on the channel soon :)
Love this game so much, hated how Sony never put it on the PlayStation store over the years, despite it being the 1st PS1 game and was shown running on PSP "Ridge Racer! Remember that one?"
It’s a classic but I’m not surprised it’s gone a bit dormant
The music and gameplay is the perfect combo. I can't imagine either without the other.
Also everytime I think about the first game I just remember Kaz Hirai on stage saying "IT'S RIDGE RACER! Remember that one?!?"
Oh I def remember lol
See, when I emulate PSX I love to keep native res and all its lovely polygon warping. It's how I remember the system and part of its personality. The upscaling is admittedly amazing, but for me all its flaws are what make it unique and memorable.
Totally fair. Options for all :)
Still have the japanese version plus the ne G con controller...
This and RR Revoloution are till now one of the best arcade racer to me....
The NegCon was such an interesting idea
@@VideoGameEsoterica The only alternative to a real steering wheel with a super precise mechanic. Mine still works perfect. No drift nothing
I have one in my storage bins somewhere
At firts I had the PAL version. Was blown away two months later bei the japanese NTSC 60hz release.
The first Ridge Racer track is the E1M1 of racing games.
Haha we’ve only seen them use it like 10 times
I listen to the Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution, soundtracks to this day. Mainly while I'm mowing 🤣
Probably drifting the mower
@@VideoGameEsoterica 🤣 if only!
Gotta swap the engine out
This was the first PS1 game i saw and I will never forget seeing the PS1 boot sequence followed by this game. Absolutely blew my mind! Even seeing the Playstation controller or the CDs was mind blowing to me. I'm not much of a racing genre aficionado
, but this will always be a top 5 racing game for me.
It def hit when it released. We’d never seen something like it at home
Was just replaying this game about a month ago, and it's still great! I was ridging and race'n like a cheese-stuffed madman!
It def holds up so well
There was a story bandied around among devs at the time that there were no development libraries available when RR was being made so namco used the HW directly then everyone else had to go through the slower Sony libraries. Could be nonsense, but some games from Japan did use undocumented (at the time) GPU commands or DMA modes unavailable to us.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they just wrote for the bare metal
Problem with Ridge Racer arcade version is no 3rd person view and the horrible judder when turning. Ridge Racer Turbo is also a higher resolution at 480i which is impressive. Shame it has slowdown on the PSX Core.
I haven’t noticed the slowdown?
It was such an iconic game in the arcades at that point and the ability to play it at home seemed just mind-blowingly cool. I know, when I saw RR playing on a Playstation on a TV in a local electronics store, I immediately thought that I want one. Well, I didn't buy one then, bc by that time I had already had a PC for a year and it would have been difficult to justify getting a gaming console to my parents. 😂 But I did buy one in 1999 when I had my own money. Anyway, Ridge Racer was kinda a perfect game for a perfect first impression of the PS1. You saw it and you thought: "Wow, Sony means business with this thing! It's not like CD-i, this is the real deal". 🙂 Later Ridge Racers were better, but the first one was the most impactful.
That was really the thing. We suddenly had 3D…at home!
I was so stoked for this game before the PlayStation came out and had my 299$ ready for launch day. But then the 15 year old me obtained another 100$ so I got a Saturn instead. I loved my Saturn but I still missed this along with many other PlayStation exclusives.
Saturn was still a good time all things considered
love Ridge Racer on PSX, what a conversion! On duckstation, i like to go 2x res and put 4xSSAA in the advanced settings.. keeps it crunchy but easier to see whats going on. nice crt filter can do a lot too
It was just wildly impressive at launch. We’d never seen something that good
I could never figure out the drifting in this game.
It takes a minute to get used to
my gaming community thinks that I am crazy for saying that this is video game music.
th-cam.com/video/209cuIXtsbo/w-d-xo.html
Please don't let the vidoepgraphy misguide you.
Please tell that you hear the Ridge Racer Type 4 & Rage Racer influences in this track
And that I am not crazy.
Those quick piano riffs, those sudden b;lowing up drum and bass bass explosions.
Could also be used in Sega or Capcom arcade games like Street Fighter III.
I do not consider this house music or rap music. It really is video game music.
Sounds like it came from Japan.
7:57 we would love a 60fps rage racer
_RIIIIIDDDGEEEE RAAACEEEEEEEER_
The legend!
PlayStation brand was pretty much the NAMCO PlayStation until PS3, that was the PS Golden Era I would say ;-)
Definitely they were tied together through PS3
@@VideoGameEsotericathe Push by Sony to keep NAMCO stuff mostly PS regards arcade exclusives secured their dominance.
Imagine a proper upgraded Dreamcast RR port like they did with Soul Calibur.
Once Tekken and Ridge Racer went multi format Sony seemed to lose a lot of traction. 🎮
I was impressed when I saw it at a kid
Everyone was I think. They def should have been
"pixel peeping"
It’s a thing
The arcade version is only slightly better looking than the PSX version it's not that big of a difference. They should have given the game more tracks since it was on cd-rom. I rented this game but never bought it because I got bored with it quickly. My fav games at launch window were Assault Rigs and ESPN Extreme Games. I ended up buying a PSX in Spring 96 with Need For Speed and Resident Evil. I didn't have enough money to get a memory card also so I played the first part of RE a lot for a few months.
Yes it was def a bit thin content wise
Uhhh stop using high res mode for the internal renderer, it looks so wrong
Just depends on what mood I’m in when I capture
RIIIIIIIIIIIDGER RAAAAAAAAAAACER!
An iconic quote
I do think there's something endearing about that early 32-BIT 3D, despite my friend maintaining it was an ugly period in gaming.
Personally, I welcomed the jump from 2D to 3D, even though it was still very raw and in its infancy.
Admittedly, I wasn't that impressed with PSX1 when it dropped, I got the Saturn with Fighters Megamix and then later got Sega Rally, which was a brilliant port for what it was.
Racing games were not ugly, the hardware was strong enough. But every other gerne looked ugly i this era.
1:49 while ridge racer wasn’t as popular as Daytona in the arcades the home ports of ridge racer to Daytona this is what made ridge racer popular
Helped it was one of the few PS1 games to exist
@@VideoGameEsoterica I think it was the first ps1 USA game. But that release of ps1 had a nice lineup. Rr rayman tekken jumping flash. The the fall mk3 wipeout.
Yes it was a launch day title
How is the input lag on Duckstation? (assume the display is about 10ms) - last time I dived into emulation (admittedly 10 years ago at this point) input lag was a problem and I went back to original hardware. However, I really like perspective correction and resolution increases. Do you have a video on pc emulation input lag reduction or measurements? Thanks for your videos!
PSX-REARMED back in the day (and probably even now) had atrocious latency / slowdown in Ridge Racer. I thought I was the only person that noticed it! - But yes, Duckstation / SwanStation have sorted this issue. 😺
I’ll have a video in the future :)
Yes latency really isn’t a factor
Duckstation is THE WAY to play this game ❤
OLED Vita disagrees 😊
Why not both? Lol
Def makes it better
@@bombjack1984 PC is still better because you can emulate NeGcon controller (analogue controls) and use OLED screens for this game. Vita only offers digital controls for it.
I'll be honest: I didn'T drive the PS1 version in the same way I did at the Arcade. I dindn't drift at all, the bets lap times were achieved with pedal to the metal and at the same time one or two ultrashort taps on the brake button at the same time.
It’s def a slightly diff Strat
If you are new to this game and cant seem to handle and drift well make sure you are in first person mode!
First person def helps
VGE is having as always. 8^)
You know it
This game was a glorified tech demo on PS1. I was so disappointed when I purchased it at release to realize it only had ONE track. Returned it for Rayman, which was a way more substantial game. R4 kicks ass, though.
Oh absolutely it was a tech demo. Same as the first arcade game
@@VideoGameEsoterica yes, which is totally appropriate for a game that is meant to only be played for a short amount of time (and a short amount of money) at a venue. But for $60 in 1995 money, I expected more!
That’s just launch day for you
You guys remember that you could remove the CD and keep playing the whole game until you closed the hardware ??? I did this when I rented it 😂😂😂😊
Also you could replace the cd with your own music cd 😅
Haha yep. Fit in ram
You know, considering this running on MUCH weaker hardware than the Namco System 22. I say this is a REALLY good port. While sure it's not as polished as the original. I say this is really close considering what they had to work with. Kudos to Namco for making a really close port back when the PS1 first came out.
Def a great port. It gets the concept across on brand new hardware
🎮