Ridge Ranker: #7

[This is the fourth 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 6 - Xbox 360, 2005

Explorers

Ridge Racer 6 takes the excellent, nitro-fueled foundation of the PSP's Ridge Racer and blows it out into a full-fledged console game. This means there's 15 new courses (okay, one is from the PSP game), 17 new songs, and a hell of a lot of racing to do. That being said, it's also the game that came closest to not making it onto this list. If you have Ridge Racer 7, there's not a lot of reasons to bother with this game, since 7 does almost everything 6 does, and better. Despite this, I have this nagging feeling that I'd be doing a disservice to its unique progression system if I left it out.

Ridge Racer 6's main mode is the World Xplorer, a sprawling series of 235 races split up into numerous branching paths that you can explore on your own terms. You can do a single race at a time or, in a surprisingly forward-thinking design choice, group races together to complete them in a single sequence, considerably cutting down on time going in and out of menus. Enclosing circles of races on the world map by clearing them will unlock the bonuses (usually new cars) inside, encouraging you to do races in a specific order. As you progress, you'll come across different types of challenges, like 1-on-1 duels with boss cars, classic no-nitro races, and even a weird reverse-charge mode where your nitrous only charges while you're using it, forcing you to take corners as fast as possible to maintain a supply of nitro. The feeling of repetition is inevitable, but World Xplorer does a pretty good job of covering up the fact you're doing 235 races on just 15 courses.

Unlocks are mostly the usual menagerie of vehicles and liveries, but every once in a while, you'll be thrown a real curveball. Late-game rewards include a port of Pac-Man (with a high score further unlocking a duel with Pac-Man himself), the ability to have Heihachi's Japanese voice replace the standard in-game announcer, and the most interesting array of boss vehicles in the series. Just when you think you're tired of playing the game, you'll be thrown into a 1-on-1 battle with a hovercraft, SUV, or whatever the hell this is. These cars (well, machines) return in the next game, but if you want to bask in the glory of a buff old dude screaming at you in Japanese as Pac-Man spins around a corner in a UFO, you'll have to play Ridge Racer 6.

The PSP Ridge Racer marked a sort of return to normalcy for the music of the series, with SamplingMasters (the team of Shinji "MEGATEN" Hosoe, Ayako "AYA" Saso, Nobuyoshi "sanodg" Sano, and Takayuki "J99" Aihara) being reunited after Hosoe and Saso's departures from Namco's Sound Team shortly before the release of Rage Racer. Ridge Racer 6 continues this reunion, and the soundtrack reaps the rewards. These guys are the MVPs of the series, and their tracks here are just one example of why that is. Hosoe's series-long love affair with gabber music continues, with Valley of the Mind taking things down a notch compared to his previous gabber tracks, resulting in an easier listen that's no less addictive. Saso provides the incredible Nitro Mantra, which builds up into an exhilarating mash-up of Middle Eastern and techno sounds. There's highlights elsewhere (including sanodg's trip to synth heaven, Floodlight, and the spacey-yet-hard-hitting vibes of Hiroshi Okubo's Explorers), but the returning AYA and MEGATEN steal the show here.

Ridge Racer 7 damn near makes Ridge Racer 6 obsolete, but the game remains a novelty thanks to its sometimes-bizarre unlocks, gripping soundtrack, and unique single-player mode, which almost serves as a prelude to the carrot-on-a-stick progression design that would become so popular later on in that generation of consoles. I can't pretend that Ridge Racer 7 doesn't kneecap its value, but there's enough here to make it worth at least a quick look.

[Key Tracks: Nitro Mantra, Floodlight, Explorers]