So, after watching the trailer, I ended up signing up for the beta. That was around 7pm yesterday. Today, I got a beta key. That was awfully fast.

That said, this appears to be more Ridge Racer Unbounded Free 2 Play than a proper Ridge Racer game. Which is perfectly fine. Unbounded was a good game that was kind of a mix between Blur, Split Second, and Ridge Racer proper, so I don't mind a new chapter in that. This in an always-online or persistent online envrionment sounds cool. I liked Test Drive Unlimited, and mixing the above inspirations into that sounds fine. Although I would have loved to see a crazy Machine-based Ridge Racer MMO, too.

Above rambling done, did anyone else get in already?

yea, I get ftp vibe from this, which isn't always a bad thing but with these type of games the term "beta" means something different than it would to a game like ESO, these ftp games want people in the door as quickly as possible to tap up people for microtransactions.

I have to say I don't think there's anything perfectly fine about Driftopia. It's basically the same transaction model as Tekken Revolution except completely stupid. It would be more like if Tekken Revolution asked you to pay a token every time you got hit or forfeit the match, and only provided you with five tokens per day. It's so lame I can't even wrap my mind around it.

And there's nothing Ridge Racer about this game or the game it was based on. And whatever, it's it's own game and that's fine I guess, but there's definitely nothing remotely Ridge Racer about Driftopia except the name and a couple songs from Ridge Racer 7 that they probably only threw in there because they were too cheap to pay out for more licensed songs by fucking Skrillex. Maybe if the microtransactions weren't absolutely terrible the game would be decent. The driving hasn't changed, and it was good enough the last time around. I just really wish Namco would stop using Ridge Racer for their horrible terrible monetizing ideas.

@stubbleman: I think the repair kits thing is a bit harsh, yes, but the actual gameplay seems completely fine. The destruction system seems cool, the race types, including a collision based version of how Trackmania works (ghost based racing), seems fun.

That being said, if the monitezation doesn't work for the playerbase, then the game will die. I'll wait and see how it ends up.

Also, you seem really worked up. I can understand passion about a game series (I'm distraught about Legacy Of Kain never getting it's final game), but Ridge Racer was pretty much dead since RR7, I'm just glad to see Namco at least trying to do stuff with it at all.

I agree that the gameplay is decent enough. Like I said before, it's not my jam but I can tell it's competently put together. But the repair kits absolutely encumber your ability to enjoy that gameplay. Tekken Revolution's setup works well enough, but Driftopia's setup really doesn't seem to at all. You'd probably be better off just buying a used copy of Unbounded really.

And if Ridge Racer has been pretty much dead since 7, then why are they putting the name on a completely unrelated game? To sell more copies with the dead brand name? Obviously that didn't work last time they tried it. I would honestly rather they shut the series down entirely than completely disregard every aspect of the series in a vain attempt at staying relevant. If it's time to put the series out to pasture, then I'd rather they just go ahead and do it.

And honestly, I'm not even that worked up about the Ridge Racer thing. I get upset like this any time a publisher does its IP this way. Like with the Syndicate reboot. Who the fuck did that help naming that game Syndicate? I know some charlatans coming in and commandeering some other studio's game series doesn't make the previous games stop existing, but it's still a really shitty thing to do. Like, it's so easy to just come up with a new name and let these good things stand on their own. I don't know. Maybe it's just me.