![]() ![]() The environments are also rather nice looking and are well animated, and have some solid draw distance, and the frame rate is consistently smooth with no slowdown. The cars themselves are higher resolution than something you’d expect to see on the DS, and look like they’re about on par with something the PSP would generate, as they show off reflections well and look nice in motion, but have some pixilated stickers and emblems on them here and there. This being a first generation title, it’s hard to have a basis of comparison for Ridge Racer 3D‘s visuals, but all in all, they’re rather solid. If you don’t have any local friends with the game, though, you’ll still find that there’s enough variety to the game’s single player modes to make it worth playing, but if you’re looking for multiplayer options you might be a little let down. If you have friends available locally to play against you can have some fun with the versus play, but the game does not offer an online play option, unfortunately, so you won’t be able to challenge anyone who isn’t available in your local area. ![]() You can also take on up to three other players in local versus play, check out your records, watch replays as you listen to various tunes in the game, and check out your available cars and upgrades in the Garage. You can just jump into a normal race, a One-Make Race where every racer uses the same machine, a Time Attack race where you race against the clock and/or a previous ghost, or a StreetPass Duel, where you can race against a Duel Ghost earned through picking up information from the StreetPass system on the 3DS. The game offers you a fairly robust amount of single player options, from a lengthy Grand Prix mode where you can compete in various tiered races for cash prizes and new cars and options, to a Quick Tour mode that allows you to customize a series of races based on how long you want to race and what kinds of courses you want to take on, to multiple single race varieties. Racing games in general aren’t particularly known for their gripping narratives, and Ridge Racer 3D is no exception, so let’s talk about the game modes instead. As an arcade racing experience, Ridge Racer 3D shows that Namco Bandai knows how to put together a fun and fast paced product, but as a part of the series, it also shows that Namco Bandai doesn’t have too many ideas left in the tank. Like its predecessors, Ridge Racer 3D is focused on arcade racing action over anything else, but it also comes with some tweaks and modifications from its predecessors, along with the added benefit of 3D visuals, courtesy of the handheld console in question. In the meantime, they’re following the standard trend with Ridge Racer 3D, launching the game alongside the newly released Nintendo 3DS. Namco Bandai looks to be trying to reinvigorate the franchise, with the recently announced Ridge Racer Unbounded, featuring an all new development team and a multi-platform launch. After Rage Racer and Ridge Racer Type 4, Namco basically abandoned the path of trying to massively evolve the franchise and instead focused on offering pretty visuals and lots of cars, and their few attempts to try something different have been met with indifference ( R: Racing Evolution and Ridge Racer 7). It’s not that the more modern games are bad so much as it is that they’ve basically become lazy. The Ridge Racer franchise has transitioned from being one of the most notable arcade racing franchises on the market to being a franchise that helps launch new consoles, with the unfortunate caveat being that this is most likely the only reason anyone would buy the games since nothing else is available. ![]()
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