Ridge Racer 3D

Genre: Arcade Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless)

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Review:

Ridge Racer 3D, released alongside the Nintendo 3DS when it launched in 2011, is the Nintendo 3DS entry in Namco’s long-running Arcade Racing series.

As a showpiece, Ridge Racer 3D is phenomenal. Not only is the game fast, colorful, and wonderfully detailed with excellent 3D maps and vehicles, it makes excellent use of the Nintendo 3DS’s stereoscopic 3D feature. The framerates here are also mostly excellent too, though I did notice some slowdown in a few areas. Thankfully, this wasn’t enough to bring down the otherwise outstanding presentation that made this one of the best-looking launch games on the Nintendo 3DS.

The sound here is a bit more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, you have some nice, fast-paced electronica music that works well for the game’s fast-paced gameplay and modern sensibilities. There are also pretty good sounds for the vehicles themselves. However, the voices constantly commenting on your performance are extremely repetitive and annoying – do yourself a favor and go into the options in the main menu and shut them off as soon as possible.

As for the gameplay, Ridge Racer 3D has players mainly trying to make good use of drift on turns to charge turbo boosts, and drafting behind other racers to gain a speed boost to overtake them. At times this is somewhat ridiculous in how it works – drifting is so absurd that your car turned completely sideways in a drift can somehow keep pace with other cars next to you pointed forwards. However, once you get used to this game’s kooky physics, it is a blast to play.

Really, the biggest issue with Ridge Racer 3D is a lack of features and content. This game only features 15 tracks (plus mirrored and reverse versions of those tracks) and 18 vehicles (including all unlockable vehicles). Furthermore, the game only has local wireless multiplayer, and no online multiplayer to speak of.

Still, despite some missing content and features, Ridge Racer 3D was not only an excellent launch title for the Nintendo 3DS, but a solid racing game well worth owning for any fans of the genre on the Nintendo 3DS. The excellent visuals and great arcadey gameplay make this game a blast to play, even if it could have done with more content.

tl;dr – Ridge Racer 3D is an Arcade-style Racing game with impressive visuals and great gameplay. It’s a bit short on content and lacking online multiplayer, but even with these flaws this is a must-own game for Racing fans on the Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: B

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