Ridge Racer 7

Overall score:

Ridge Racer 7 for the PlayStation 3 was one of the first racing games to be introduced with the new platform.  It's a “next-gen” racing game, which for those non racing gamers means that it is focused on street racing.  This is a fun game, especially if you enjoy racing games; and even if you don't, Ridge Racer is user friendly and the controls are easy to learn.

Ridge Racer 7 takes full advantage of the PlayStation’s high definition feed.  You will notice the pristine graphics as soon as the title screen comes up, showing a wheel that looks surprisingly real. Once you start a race you will see the true amount of time and care that is put into every track. You have 22 tracks to choose from and each one is excellent. On one race you are set in an airport loop and you drive through the hangers and runway.  If you watch the background in this track you will see that there are planes periodically taking off the runway that you are racing next to. This is all made more stunning by the high definition. 

The sound is also phenomenal if you have surround sound. As I raced my first race with the surround sound I noticed that I could hear the cars behind me approach and try to pass me. Also, the tire squealing can be heard as you drift a corner, making the experience more real. The music in the game may be the sound's only drawback. At the start of each race you are allowed to pick a song from the global music sampler. This is fine, yet for me I quickly grew tired of the pounding techno rhythms. I was excited when I saw that on the playstation network you could purchase new songs, but was very disappointed when each cost a dollar and were still only techno songs. 

This game also has an online option that has allows you to play with up to 13 other people. You can receive a world rank as you progress through the game. The online portion has an interesting premise, yet it's flawed: the online is dominated by the top 1000 players, and anyone who doesn’t spend all of their time playing has no chance against them.  I, for example, can dominate every race that the computer can throw at me, yet in an online battle I will be dominated time after time. 

This is a wonderful game and is fun for anyone. Serious racers will enjoy the online action, while your average gamer will still enjoy the offline regular races.  It doesn’t have any real replay ability; yet with all the online action you can still have a good time even after you have beaten the game.  

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Written by Michael Schmidt on December 26th, 2007