Ridge Ranker: #1

[This is the final entry in a countdown of the best Ridge Racer games. I recommend you read the introduction before reading this; it includes a brief history of the series and links for each entry.]

Ridge Racer 7 - Sony PlayStation 3, 2006

Drift King

Ridge Racer 7 is where everything in the series comes together. Featuring the arcade gameplay that's been around from the start, the depth that was added to the formula on the PSP, the customization introduced in Rage Racer, and even some of the endearing self-seriousness of R4, Ridge Racer 7 is the payoff to everything the series had been working towards for over a decade.

Ridge Racer 7 uses the same engine as Ridge Racer 6 (which itself was based heavily on the gameplay of the PSP games), but there's a huge difference right off the bat. The very first thing you notice the second you get in a race is "holy shit, this game runs at real deal 1080p and 60 frames per second." This is something we struggle to get in video games now, but Namco was somehow able to pull it off at launch on the PS3, a console that was damn near SEGA Saturn levels of being hard to develop for in 2006. It could stand to be a bit more colorful, and there's the occasional dip in framerate when a lot of nitro-boosting cars are on-screen at the same time, but for the most part, this is the sharpest Ridge Racer has ever looked. Picking it up today, it feels like you're playing a game that's somehow a remaster of itself.

Ridge Racer 7's single player downscales considerably from 6's Ridge Universe to merely a state, but don't let the name fool you: Ridge State is home to the best career mode in the series. Instead of carving your own path through hundreds of single races, the main goal is to complete the Ridge State Grand Prix, a series of 14 tournaments of varying lengths held by the UFRA (which stands for, and I'm completely serious, the Universal Federation of Ridge Racers Association). All of Ridge Racer 6's courses return here, with 6 new tracks and the original Ridge Racer circuit joining them for a total of 22, beating out Ridge Racer 2's 21 for the most tracks in a single Ridge Racer game. This isn't a case of quantity over quality, either; the track designs themselves are among RR's best.

The arcade brand of gameplay seen in 6 remains, but Ridge Racer 7 considerably expands things between races thanks to a huge focus on customization. You can apply new liveries and exterior parts to your car, but for the first time in the series, you're able to swap parts on the inside, outfitting vehicles with new engines or even giving a Dynamic car a more Mild style of handling. Chief among the customization options is your choice in nitrous. RR7 blows out the options seen in the PSP games and 6 (which gave players the ability to use two or three charges of nitrous at once for a faster, longer boost) and provides eight different types of nitrous. There's automatically-charging nitrous, nitrous that only charges while it's in use, nitrous that you can use whenever you want, nitrous soup, nitrous stew, nitrous salad... There's also a "plug-in" slot on each vehicle, which grants perk-like features such as improved slipstreaming speeds or the ability to start each race with one canister of nitrous already filled. With the robust selection of choices at play, vehicles can really feel like your own and you can plot your approach to each track layout even further, which becomes a necessity as the difficulty increases.

There's still a litany of single races outside of the RSGP to clear, but they serve a new purpose, earning you currency (returning for the first time since Rage Racer) which lets buy and upgrade cars as you progress. Before you can race in the GP at all, you have to curry favor with the various vehicle manufacturers by winning a trial race with their cars, after which they'll give you a free starter. From there, you build your relationship with each manufacturer (whether it's for cars, parts, or nitrous) as you complete races using their products, and by doing so you unlock new parts, some of which must be earned through another trial race. It's a better carrot-on-a-stick than the rewards seen in Ridge Racer 6's World Explorer, and it's an effective way to encourage you to play outside of your comfort zone (as opposed to Ridge Racer 2, where you'd probably find me in a Himmel E.O. most of the time).

Some of the best racing in the entire series can be found after the credits roll, when the Extreme Battle category of races is unlocked. Alongside more intense Quad Battle races against three other challengers, this is where the game's one-on-one Duel races against the series-staple boss vehicles can be found. Near-perfect execution on the track is a must, but your car's setup is an equally-large factor into your success here. Before long, you'll find yourself poring over a circuit's every corner, figuring out which vehicle and nitrous type would get you the speed you need to beat that damn Devil car. It's at this point that the arcade gameplay and customization system achieve full synesthesia, and the victories earned here are among the most thrilling of any racing game out there.

While the online component of Ridge Racer 6 is left vacant, there's still a group of diehards populating Ridge Racer 7's online modes, and they're just as good at the game as you would think people playing the game 13 years after the fact would be. In my half-dozen or so races with players online, I came dead last in every single one of them, but just watching the masters at work is a pleasure in itself. High-level Ridge Racer play is a damn near awe-inspiring spectacle, starring a group of racers who are constantly slipstreaming off of each other and drifting in perfect unison. If you've ever seen Tokyo Drift, it's basically like if the driving in that romance scene was done at twice the speed. It's really something to behold.

Besides getting your ass waxed by people who've played the game religiously, there's also a good bit of DLC to be found online (although it seems to require a overseas PSN burner account now because none of it can be had in the US store anymore). There's a bunch of paid DLC songs from previous games, but the main attraction is the batch of 25 UFRA Special Events, which are unique single races that can be even harder than the ones found in Extreme Battle. There's arduous time trials, Quad Battles comprised entirely of Devil cars, races against 13 blue cars with infinite nitrous (in an apparent Pac-Man reference), and more. It's excellent endgame content perfect for when you've unlocked everything and still want a challenge.

When you beat one of these Special Events or achieve a few other well-fought victories (finishing the Grand Prix, beating the Angel or Devil cars, etc.) you'll be "interviewed" by a reporter asking for your comments on the race. Whatever you say will then be recorded and show up in the Ridge State News ticker that scrolls along at the bottom of the main menu for all players of the game to see (reminiscent of the Wii U's criminally underrated Miiverse). It's not exactly a key feature, but this ticker is actually one of the most charming aspects of the game, helping Ridge State feel more "lived in" without standing in the way of any actual racing. In addition to seeing comments from real people bragging after finally beating a tough race or using their platform as a chance to beg for Ridge Racer 8, the news feed will show world record times on the various circuits, racing hints, and news updates from around Ridge State. R4's racing teams and managers may be missed by some, but there's still fun in reading about endangered animal sightings near racetracks, car companies from prior games being absorbed into new ones, and other assorted bits of "lore" from the world of Ridge Racer. You even find out the fate of R4's Robert Chrisman after his time with the Dig Racing Team.

Ridge Racer 7's soundtrack is the largest in the series, featuring 20 original tracks from various composers new and old, and 20 more from artists on the King Street Sounds record label. Unfortunately, the soundtrack is more quantity than quality, with a lot of songs feeling kind of generic and never really going anywhere interesting. It isn't all bad news, though, since there's still some great music to be found in the game. The licensed tracks hold up their end of the bargain pretty well for the most part. They're maybe a little too slow-paced for Ridge Racer's brand of action (and the dev team would agree with me; many of the tracks are sped up specifically for use in this game), but club bangers like Tomo Inoue's Cross Saw Funk and Hiroshi Watanabe's Bad House Music (Nite System Groove) work fine nonetheless. The soundtrack feels like a bit of an off day for series veterans as a whole, frankly: in addition to the King Street tracks, some of the game's best songs (Kaleidoscope, Supercruiser) come from another series newcomer in Park Jin-Bae (better known as ESTi), a Korean composer known for his work on various MMORPGs. That being said, the game's best track belongs to AYA of series mainstay SamplingMasters, whose Nitro Witch may just be her finest work. Described by the game itself as "a high-speed techno track to penetrate the darkness," Nitro Witch is an aural fucking beatdown that wouldn't feel out of place as boss music in a Streets of Rage game.

With Ridge Racer 7, this list ends as it began. As you complete tournaments, accrue money, and rework cars to suit your needs, you slowly realize that the journey that began with Rage Racer is complete: Ridge Racer has successfully transformed from a pick-up-and-play arcade racer into a more substantial, deeper console experience that's dripping with style, all without losing its arcade spirit. More recent games may have left my hopes for a new entry in the gutter, but even if we never see another full-on Ridge Racer game, at least the series went out on top.

[Key Tracks: Nitro Witch, Supercruiser, Combustion]

[Key Licensed Tracks: Don't Deny Love (Main Vocal Mix ; MG Edit), Cross Saw Funk, Bad House Music (Nite System Groove)]