What are you playing?

[Svejk]

I’ve heard amazing things about Dirt Rally 2. Check it out. Apparently it’s a GOAT. It’s on the list.

Footage looks amazing. Music sounds great too. Thanks for sharing.

What does RR even do better than its competitors? Started as a Daytona rip off. It’s slow like an sim game but lacks the dynamism and realism. But it’s as fast and fun as an arcade racer. Looking back it’s a mid franchise. 5, 6, 7 are who cares status and they raced (lol) each gen to release the games on fresh hardware and therefore were unable to take full advantage of the systems. Ridge Racer peaked with Type 4 which is full of personality and carried by its story, presentation, and amazing music.

Thanks!  I actually have Dirt 2.0 and Dirt 5 (PS+ freebies), just never jumped on them since I haven’t completed Dirt Rally 1 (VR).  Driving in VR is as awesome as it sounds.  Wish they had implemented it in 2 and 5.  I would’ve dropped DR1 to go to those, np.  Heard great things about 2.0 also… The dev, after all, is Codemasters.  They don’t fuck around.  Looks like Dirt 5 is much more arcade vs sim.

RR always felt like the mandatory racer to go with a launch system to showcase, but too safe, with alot of flare, just nothing that felt good to me, when compared to other great racers.

[Himu]

Not Dirt 2.0. Dirt Rally 2.0. If that’s what you meant I apologize.

And yeah my whole is…Ridge Racer deserved to die and frankly doesn’t need to be brought back. It offers nothing to the table like other arcade racers like Daytona or Outrun. It’s got a hot Japanese bitch and good music. That’s it.

[Svejk]

Not Dirt 2.0. Dirt Rally 2.0. If that’s what you meant I apologize.

And yeah my whole is…Ridge Racer deserved to die and frankly doesn’t need to be brought back. It offers nothing to the table like other arcade racers like Daytona or Outrun. It’s got a hot Japanese bitch and good music. That’s it.

Yeah, I meant Dirt Rally 2.0. My bad.  I did download it and gonna try it tonight.  Been watching a bunch of WRC that's going on right now. They just wrapped Croatia.  These drivers have balls of solid rock.

[Himu]

Not Dirt 2.0. Dirt Rally 2.0. If that’s what you meant I apologize.

And yeah my whole is…Ridge Racer deserved to die and frankly doesn’t need to be brought back. It offers nothing to the table like other arcade racers like Daytona or Outrun. It’s got a hot Japanese bitch and good music. That’s it.

Yeah, I meant Dirt Rally 2.0. My bad.  I did download it and gonna try it tonight.  Been watching a bunch of WRC that's going on right now. They just wrapped Croatia.  These drivers have balls of solid rock.

I’ve seen some of their stuff lately and yeah. Also they have like a billion different sheets on their helmets. It’s insane.



 

[bork]

Which would you rather play?

Ridge Racer, but I have found over the years that I'd rather play Daytona or other Sega arcade racers over the Namco ones.  I was never much for Wipeout and speaking of boring, sims are to me.

Gonna be different for everybody.

I used to not like sim racers either. I’m just explaining why Ridge Racer died. Clearly there’s not something for everyone if Ridge Racer died because there would have been audience for it. Instead, it died. Tries to be realistic, but it’s a sim but also isn’t that arcade-y like Wipeout. Plus they milked the shit out of the games and put them on every system at launch. Just a boring racing franchise without its own identity.

All the Japanese arcade racers pretty much died. 

RR never tried to be realistic and is pure arcade.  I don't know what you mean there.  It's identity is that it's Ridge Racer- those games all have a certain look and feel to them.  I can't say I ever liked playing them with the car view, though- gotta play RR games in first-person.

[Himu]

Which would you rather play?

Ridge Racer, but I have found over the years that I'd rather play Daytona or other Sega arcade racers over the Namco ones.  I was never much for Wipeout and speaking of boring, sims are to me.

Gonna be different for everybody.

I used to not like sim racers either. I’m just explaining why Ridge Racer died. Clearly there’s not something for everyone if Ridge Racer died because there would have been audience for it. Instead, it died. Tries to be realistic, but it’s a sim but also isn’t that arcade-y like Wipeout. Plus they milked the shit out of the games and put them on every system at launch. Just a boring racing franchise without its own identity.

All the Japanese arcade racers pretty much died. 

RR never tried to be realistic and is pure arcade.  I don't know what you mean there.  It's identity is that it's Ridge Racer- those games all have a certain look and feel to them.  I can't say I ever liked playing them with the car view, though- gotta play RR games in first-person.

Ridge Racer has no identity.

Gameplay wise it’s not looking for realism. There’s better and more arcadey racers. Drifting is a big emphasis but almost all arcade racers from Outrun 2 to Initial D games to Wangan, Sonic Racing, Mario Kart feature drifting and many of these games do it far better than Ridge Racer. RR’s track design is pedestrian even for arcade racer standards with most tracks being a simple loop with a few S curves and maybe a hairpin. While it’s an arcade racer it’s more on the realistic side of the things than say Daytona or OutRun. So because it’s on the more realistic side it can be fairly compared to games like Gran Turismo and those games stomp RR in every category.

Ridge Racer is a master of none franchise and it’s mid. It deserved to die unless the multitude of arcade racers. A casualty of absolute mediocrity. It’s also why I think despite Namco bringing back Ace Combat it hasn’t done the same with Ridge Racer.

There’s a reason Type R is the one RR people talk about and it’s because it’s the one that’s not fucking boring. It’s creative, unique, has a memorable story mode in a genre that’s infamous for not having story at all. It has replay value out the ass despite whether flaws it has and besides the original it’s the only Ridge really worth caring about. And then they ditched that story mode and aesthetic nearly immediately.

[Polident Hive]

Think Ridge Racer died because of a series of bad release models.

PSP game was a successful revival. Just called Ridge Racer in most countries. Followed up with Ridge Racer 6 on Xbox 360. Then basically an expansion pack for PSP came out as Ridge Racer 2. That was followed by a PS3 expansion port of Ridge Racer 6 called Ridge Racer 7. That’s about when I checked out. I didn’t hear much about the 3DS game. Vita release was some DLC model. Also, like often that generation, a western team made an entry with thin similarities to the rest of the series.

[Himu]

Right. Not only was it a mid franchise they also milked it

[bork]

I think what Polident said is probably right since for whatever reason, Namco decided that ridge racer always needed to be a launch game and following ridge racer 6, it started to seem lazy with what they were doing. The Vita version was absolutely awful with its DLC practices and bad frame rates.

I think the best game that came out post ridge racer 6 is ridge racer 2 on PSP. It's just a remix game but it was done really well. You can get it on PS5 now. I'm not sure about PS4.

But no identity?  Nah.  Ridge Racer definitely stands out as one of the best arcade racers of its time. The first four to five games were really good. I was not big on ridge racer 5 on PS2 and imo it started declining from there, with the PSP games being the bright spots following this.  RR6 and RR7 are just variations of the PSP games from a gameplay standpoint.

[Nintex]

They were developing a Ridge Racer game for Switch at Namco Bandai Singapore, which was basically the former Star Wars 1313 studio that was also co-developing Metroid Prime 4.
Both games got canned(?)

[Himu]

I think what Polident said is probably right since for whatever reason, Namco decided that ridge racer always needed to be a launch game and following ridge racer 6, it started to seem lazy with what they were doing. The Vita version was absolutely awful with its DLC practices and bad frame rates.

I think the best game that came out post ridge racer 6 is ridge racer 2 on PSP. It's just a remix game but it was done really well. You can get it on PS5 now. I'm not sure about PS4.

But no identity?  Nah.  Ridge Racer definitely stands out as one of the best arcade racers of its time. The first four to five games were really good. I was not big on ridge racer 5 on PS2 and imo it started declining from there, with the PSP games being the bright spots following this.  RR6 and RR7 are just variations of the PSP games from a gameplay standpoint.

I said as much last page before Polident so I already agree.

Looking back it’s a mid franchise.5, 6, 7 are who cares status and they raced (lol) each gen to release the games on fresh hardware and therefore were unable to take full advantage of the systems.

It’s a combination of being lazy launch games with nothing to say or offer to the racing game world on top of being boring compared to the competitors. Combined with the fact that gen was already hard on arcade racers and it was a wrap.

What is Ridge Racer’s identity, Bork? When you think of Burnout you think of crashes. NFS? Street cars. Gran Turismo? Racing simulator. Twisted Metal? Weapons and mayhem. Wipeout? Speed. When I think of Ridge Racer the first thing I think of is drifting and drifting isn’t unique to Ridgr racer. Every racer has drifting. GT has drifting in rally tracks and there’s drift challenges. Then there’s other races that do drifting better than Ridge Racer. Mario Kart, Initial D games. Almost all arcade racers are about drifting as a main conceit. So what its famous for it’s not even the best at. It’s just a mid franchise that rested on its laurels, put out mediocre games, didn’t stand out from the pack, and got lazy to be defined as launch game fodder.

[Bebpo]

Himu, sure I can't tempt you for some SaGa Emerald Beyond?

[Bebpo]

Just finished my 4th of the 5 characters in the game. Was really good. The game is so obscure it's tough to really gauge some of the scenarios that feel unfinished as people haven't found the unlocks to trigger their potentially more full scenario.

But at least one character, Siugnas the Vampire Lord has a full good 20+ hour scenario that would feel at home in something like SaGa Frontier 1. Very fun run, great MC, good amount of story, good length to build up a party with mechanics unique to his scenario. Just overall very quality.

My opinion of Emerald SaGa basically went like this:

1st character clear - 8/10
2nd character clear - 8/10
3rd character clear - seeing the flaws in the game, getting kind of repetitive, feeling maybe more like a 7/10 rpg
4th character clear - damn, this is great, game is getting better the more you play and see the world lore from different sides and get the hang of the gameplay, more like an 8.5/10

But the game is crazy RNG-fest. More than any other turn-based rpg/srpg I've ever played. There is so much RNG that factors into every battle and can make the ultra hard bosses easy for some players and impossible for others just depending on RNG-gods each turn.

[demi]

weekend gaming:

- Advent Rising (Xbox) (vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2136564395 )

Oldheads will know I stanned this game when I was younger, but replaying it now I definitely see a lot of issues with the game. I still think they should continue this, especially since Donald Mustard is a quintrillionaire after working on Fortnite... but it is what it is. Gideon will never come back from the moon

- Conker: Live and Reloaded (Xbox) (vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2138153910 )

Still a fun time. Some dips (caveman world, war level) but otherwise still great. I still prefer the N64 version, the bleeps really take a lot away from the shitpost humor

[Himu]

Demi turning on Advent Rising?!

Himu, sure I can't tempt you for some SaGa Emerald Beyond?

(Image removed from quote.)

Who is that game for, Meth heads?

[benjipwns]

Like I'm not saying you're wrong Demi. It's an old ass clunky early era console FPS. I can totally buy that the game sucks now. But just saying I still vaguely remember the PS2 generation and Black was one of those regularly brought up in conversations games about "hidden gems" and how everyone should play it. Shooters on PS2 generally felt bad because the analog sticks were awful for FPS games, and I guess I didn't have an Xbox yet when it came out, so wasn't my thing  and never played it beyond the demo I think.

Black has lousy AI, just watch demi playing the first level. The game only is hard in spots because it throws mobs of bad guys and grenades at you. It's a lot like the Call of Duty campaigns in that regard. demi's on normal but hard is just making the bad guys damage you more and take more damage.

Though I noticed demi's not hunting for all the spectacle of things that can blow up, just targeting the enemies. Whenever the crosshair turns black that's a thing you can shoot to blow up. The "secondary objectives" are mostly all "shoot this thing so it blows up awesomely." Doing all those doesn't really extend the playtime beyond demi's 4.5 hours, you can maybe stretch it to 6. There's also a new game plus where you get gold weapons and unlimited ammo and stuff.

It's mostly just impressive compared to what was on the Xbox and especially what was on the PS2, since it came out late not many people got to see it. Call of Duty 2 on 360/PC is better but it would be a while before FPSes in general were.

Bodycount on the 360 is a "spiritual successor" from the designer but is even worse and less spectacle.

[Polident Hive]

Bodycount, judging from the demo, was one of the more nauseating games to play. Everything was blurry, poor frame rate, laggy controls, the feeling of swimming on land. The camera was low to the ground, like you’re a dwarf, and the reticule is centered at the bottom of the screen. It had an odd system where you half press the trigger to aim and full press to change your movement control to lean. Shooting enemies dropped these orbs everywhere.

[demi]

Like I'm not saying you're wrong Demi. It's an old ass clunky early era console FPS. I can totally buy that the game sucks now. But just saying I still vaguely remember the PS2 generation and Black was one of those regularly brought up in conversations games about "hidden gems" and how everyone should play it. Shooters on PS2 generally felt bad because the analog sticks were awful for FPS games, and I guess I didn't have an Xbox yet when it came out, so wasn't my thing  and never played it beyond the demo I think.

Black has lousy AI, just watch demi playing the first level. The game only is hard in spots because it throws mobs of bad guys and grenades at you. It's a lot like the Call of Duty campaigns in that regard. demi's on normal but hard is just making the bad guys damage you more and take more damage.

Though I noticed demi's not hunting for all the spectacle of things that can blow up, just targeting the enemies. Whenever the crosshair turns black that's a thing you can shoot to blow up. The "secondary objectives" are mostly all "shoot this thing so it blows up awesomely." Doing all those doesn't really extend the playtime beyond demi's 4.5 hours, you can maybe stretch it to 6. There's also a new game plus where you get gold weapons and unlimited ammo and stuff.

It's mostly just impressive compared to what was on the Xbox and especially what was on the PS2, since it came out late not many people got to see it. Call of Duty 2 on 360/PC is better but it would be a while before FPSes in general were.

Bodycount on the 360 is a "spiritual successor" from the designer but is even worse and less spectacle.

The game doesnt really tell me any of this in the game - I dont actually own this physically (its available via EA Play) so maybe it's in the manual.

All the secondary objectives they show you are random collectables like "YOU FOUND TOTALLY TERRORIST PLAN TO BLOW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER" that are just sitting in the corner of dilapidated houses...

There was a bit in a later level where I randomly blew up a giant tank and I do make an audible noise about it

[benjipwns]

I noticed there was nothing telling you and I was trying to remember how I knew.

That one spot in the first level where you're being hit by rockets and can't figure out where it's coming from there's like a tower way up that you shoot and it explodes all these buildings and stuff. There's a lot of setups like that where the enemies aren't really a threat but are so you'll shoot and blow up stuff in the skybox or whatever, because you had taken that one path the tower was never framed so you'd know there's stuff to shoot outside of the main enemies. There's a lot of situations like that throughout the game where they really want you to not save your shots and just unload into everything you can find with everything you pick up.

[bork]

What is Ridge Racer’s identity, Bork? When you think of Burnout you think of crashes. NFS? Street cars. Gran Turismo? Racing simulator. Twisted Metal? Weapons and mayhem. Wipeout? Speed. When I think of Ridge Racer the first thing I think of is drifting and drifting isn’t unique to Ridgr racer. Every racer has drifting. GT has drifting in rally tracks and there’s drift challenges. Then there’s other races that do drifting better than Ridge Racer. Mario Kart, Initial D games. Almost all arcade racers are about drifting as a main conceit. So what its famous for it’s not even the best at. It’s just a mid franchise that rested on its laurels, put out mediocre games, didn’t stand out from the pack, and got lazy to be defined as launch game fodder.

I'm not being lazy when I say "it's Ridge Racer."  The look, sound, and feel of the game is its identity and yes, the way you drift is part of it too.



What else was like this in 1993?  I certainly can't think of anything.

[benjipwns]

I liked Ridge Racer Unbounded for a game I got for $2 but it's nothing like Ridge Racer other than the sliding probably.

[Himu]

What is Ridge Racer’s identity, Bork? When you think of Burnout you think of crashes. NFS? Street cars. Gran Turismo? Racing simulator. Twisted Metal? Weapons and mayhem. Wipeout? Speed. When I think of Ridge Racer the first thing I think of is drifting and drifting isn’t unique to Ridgr racer. Every racer has drifting. GT has drifting in rally tracks and there’s drift challenges. Then there’s other races that do drifting better than Ridge Racer. Mario Kart, Initial D games. Almost all arcade racers are about drifting as a main conceit. So what its famous for it’s not even the best at. It’s just a mid franchise that rested on its laurels, put out mediocre games, didn’t stand out from the pack, and got lazy to be defined as launch game fodder.

I'm not being lazy when I say "it's Ridge Racer."  The look, sound, and feel of the game is its identity and yes, the way you drift is part of it too.



What else was like this in 1993?  I certainly can't think of anything.

Daytona USA. All of Namco’s hits were Sega ripoffs. Daytona - Ridge Racer; Virtua Cop - Time Crisis; Virtua Fighter - Tekken.



Absolutely nothing unique about it down to the drift.

[Himu]

It gets even worse when you consider the history of racing games before that like Outrun and Power Drift.

[bork]

Those games don't look, sound, and especially feel like Ridge Racer.  Namco did it first with Pole Position (for the "3D" behind the car look) and some of the UI/text is reminiscent of that.  The cabs for RR and Daytona also couldn't have looked more different.  RR's deluxe cab was pretty immersive.

No doubt that Tekken is a VF "rip-off" (was made by someone who worked on VF) but with Time Crisis they added the cover element.  Good competition between the two companies back then.

[Svejk]

Those games don't look, sound, and especially feel like Ridge Racer.  Namco did it first with Pole Position (for the "3D" behind the car look) and some of the UI/text is reminiscent of that.  The cabs for RR and Daytona also couldn't have looked more different.  RR's deluxe cab was pretty immersive.

No doubt that Tekken is a VF "rip-off" (was made by someone who worked on VF) but with Time Crisis they added the cover element.  Good competition between the two companies back then.

It's good that Sega had some competition at the time.  Namco really got it right with Soul Blade though... Wish Sega made a weapon fighter back then.

But Sega had the racing edge.  I never liked Daytona because of it's rednecky roots, but they more than made up for it with the glorious Sega Rally and even Sega GT.  They had arcade racing on lockdown, let alone Virtua Racing.  Honestly, I don't recall ever seeing RR in the arcades.

As for light gun games, the cover mechanic was not fun imo.  It never felt natural, and the home conversion was even worse having to hold the hand gun awkwardly with two hands.   Virtua Cop on the other hand (pun intended), you could go in and dual wield the whole game solo.  Felt so damn cool.

[bork]

It's good that Sega had some competition at the time.  Namco really got it right with Soul Blade though... Wish Sega made a weapon fighter back then.

They did- Last Bronx!

But Sega had the racing edge.  I never liked Daytona because of it's rednecky roots, but they more than made up for it with the glorious Sega Rally and even Sega GT.  They had arcade racing on lockdown, let alone Virtua Racing.  Honestly, I don't recall ever seeing RR in the arcades.

Never really got a "redneck" vibe from Daytona apart from the pit crew guy who chimes in to say some things.  It was kinda wacky in that Sega way, too.   I've never been much for Sega Rally TBH, but Daytona, Daytona 2, MUTHA FUCKIN' OUTRUN 2, and Super GT are GOATs.

Definitely saw more Sega racers in arcades back then.  I'm not sure if I ever saw Ridge Racer in the States but I played it on a trip to Israel back in '94 and was blown away by it at the time.  I do remember seeing some Ridge Racer 2 and Rave Racer cabs around though.  Usually at movie theaters.

[Svejk]

It's good that Sega had some competition at the time.  Namco really got it right with Soul Blade though... Wish Sega made a weapon fighter back then.

They did- Last Bronx!

Oh shit... ...why does the name ring a bell too?!    They didn't release that on Saturn though, did they...

[bork]

It's good that Sega had some competition at the time.  Namco really got it right with Soul Blade though... Wish Sega made a weapon fighter back then.

They did- Last Bronx!

Oh shit... ...why does the name ring a bell too?!    They didn't release that on Saturn though, did they...

It came out on the Saturn, too.  Also PC.

[Svejk]

It's good that Sega had some competition at the time.  Namco really got it right with Soul Blade though... Wish Sega made a weapon fighter back then.

They did- Last Bronx!

Oh shit... ...why does the name ring a bell too?!    They didn't release that on Saturn though, did they...

It came out on the Saturn, too.  Also PC.

Damn.. just pulled up the cover art .. yeeeup. Not sure how I forgot that.  Guess it was way overshadowed by Soul Blade (PS1) and Fighter's Megamix at the time.  Megamix was so much fun.

[bork]

Damn.. just pulled up the cover art .. yeeeup. Not sure how I forgot that.  Guess it was way overshadowed by Soul Blade (PS1) and Fighter's Megamix at the time.  Megamix was so much fun.

It came out on Saturn after Megamix- Summer or Fall 1997 IIRC.  Just wasn't that popular and that was when Saturn was pretty much dead anyway.

[tiesto]

Last week I finished Rebirth after 130 hours. Did all the quests, got all the region intel... excellent game, though at times the minigames get a bit overbearing. Absolutely loved the soundtrack and just how flashy everything was, FF16 felt a bit soulless to me and this really improved on what was established in the 7 remake. Combat was very fun, dungeons were cool, some of the minigames were great. Not sure how I feel about some of the new plot contrivances introduced in this one, seems a bit overused in media nowadays.

Continued my Mega Man kick by beating the Saturn port of MM8. Also picked up Rockman and Forte for SFC but haven't played it yet. Next weekend I'll be playing through MM1 and 2 on Game Boy, haven't ever played any of the GB MM games so this should be exciting.

A whole lot of Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line now that I finished with Rebirth. Did all the main stages (and knocked out most of the quests, the few remaining I just can't for the life of me figure out how to do), and now onto the DLC. Just trying to beat every stage in Expert difficulty should be enough for me.

Also playing Ninpen Manmaru, a clunky but cute 3d platformer for Saturn starring a penguin.

My Sea of Stars physical also shipped, so that'll be the next game I dive into.

[demi]

weekend gaming:

- Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee (Xbox) - vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2143545106

First time playing, I enjoyed this one. Felt like a nice chill pikmin. I know its not pikmin, but that was the vibe. Also has a random ass product placement for SoBe drinks? Like it shows up in one level and... thats it.



While streaming, I got visited by some speedrunners, which is cool. That's happened a few times now where I stream a game and some speedrunners will stop by and be like "hey we like when people play our favorite game"

- Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox)

Didnt stream this, just decided to play it offline. This game looks so clean on SeriesX, it might as well be a modern release imo. I'm enjoying it, I've honestly never played it fully, I always only played a few levels and moved on. I played the shit out of Ninja Gaiden 2, and then raged the fuck out of Ninja Gaiden 3 (before Razor's Edge came out).

- Gylt (PC)

This was Stadia exclusive, but was rescued and ported to consoles and PC. It was ok. Not really scary.

- Very Little Nightmares (mobile) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/very-little-nightmares/id1435140819

Neat little puzzler. I havent played Little Nightmares, but it's on the to-do list...


In the pipeline: Star Wars Jedi Academy, Jade Empire (will stream this one)

[Himu]

Don't do Jade Empire best ending. It's not worth it. All you get is a shitty screen that's basically THE END. Shame because the rest of the game was fun AF.