I have no recollection of playing this before; my brother had the original game, and the main thing I remember from that was limping around huge arenas in reverse, hoping to hit the one remaining opponent before they hit me. I'd blocked out the racing part, and the points systems, and everything else. Wikipedia reliably informs me that the original game had all of those.
So the sequel seems to add very little to the overall formula. I don't recall being able to roll a car onto its roof before, and the tracks in the second game seem much larger and more three-dimensional. There's also a pit stop, which means there's a little added strategy to the race events.
It's not aged amazingly well. There's no real weight behind collisions, and it's difficult to control your car to hit others in the right place. Collisions see cars emit huge triangles of debris, but these don't seem to do anything to a car that hits them. The driving model itself is very slippy, reminiscent of Sega Rally at times - or even the original Ridge Racer. Compare Ridge Racer Revolution on the PlayStation to Ridge Racer 3D, and you can see how controls have tightened up in the fifteen years since this game was released. All too often I'd be involved in an accident, or slide off the track, and think it wasn't my fault. This could really do with an update, along the lines of a Burnout game - certainly something to make the graphics clearer. Despite what Gamespot say, it's nowhere near photorealistic.
Despite that, I had fun. In the main game series, coming first in the race means nothing if you don't hit other cars along the way. I've progressed into league 3 (from the bottom of league 4), and have been getting better over time. I may start using a faster car.
So the sequel seems to add very little to the overall formula. I don't recall being able to roll a car onto its roof before, and the tracks in the second game seem much larger and more three-dimensional. There's also a pit stop, which means there's a little added strategy to the race events.
It's not aged amazingly well. There's no real weight behind collisions, and it's difficult to control your car to hit others in the right place. Collisions see cars emit huge triangles of debris, but these don't seem to do anything to a car that hits them. The driving model itself is very slippy, reminiscent of Sega Rally at times - or even the original Ridge Racer. Compare Ridge Racer Revolution on the PlayStation to Ridge Racer 3D, and you can see how controls have tightened up in the fifteen years since this game was released. All too often I'd be involved in an accident, or slide off the track, and think it wasn't my fault. This could really do with an update, along the lines of a Burnout game - certainly something to make the graphics clearer. Despite what Gamespot say, it's nowhere near photorealistic.
Despite that, I had fun. In the main game series, coming first in the race means nothing if you don't hit other cars along the way. I've progressed into league 3 (from the bottom of league 4), and have been getting better over time. I may start using a faster car.
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