The other pinnacle of PS1 racing games is turning 25
R idge Racer will always beinseparable from PlayStation, having been a star of the original console’s launch lineup. But it’s the fourth entry in the series that really stands out as being the high point in the series. From the moment cover girl Reiko Nagase sits in her room in the opening cinematic, it’s clear you’re in for something special.
The game launched in Japan towards the end of 1998 and took a few more months to come out over here. But it did so at a turning point for PlayStation. New ‘performance analysis’ software had been developed to allow coders to see how much of PS1’s hardware was being used at any time, allowing a previously impossible level of optimisation – and the difference was marked. As Sega’s Saturn gasped its last breaths, PS1 was hitting its stride, and Ridge Racer Type 4 was pushing all the envelopes.
During development, the team had tried to make a 60fps Ridge Racer game for PS1 that would truly bring the arcade experience home. It wasn’t quite possible with the level of detail they wanted, but it did mean the game came with a demo disc of the arcade original running in high resolution and at 60fps. As for Type 4, it was 30fps but featured previously unseen graphical bells and whistles. Animated trackside details like jet planes landing were coupled with gorgeous lighting and advanced shading, not to mention a showpiece brake light-trail effect across the virtual camera lens. There was nothing as advanced on console at the time.
Of course, we already had Gran Turismo, but the industry was eager for something – anything – to better it. Some contemporary observers claimed RRT4 was ‘better’, though GT’s depth is clearly superior. But, oddly, RRT4 has withstood the test of time far better than the PS1 Gran Turismo games, which are pretty dodgy by today’s standards. It’s smooth enough to look passable even now, especially when played through the 4K upscaling wizardry of PS Plus Classics Catalogue’s emulation. So great is the bump in resolution, you can now even see that the PRC grid girl is wearing Pac Man earrings. Incredible.
RELAXED RACER
But more impressive than the breakthrough visual fidelity is the atmosphere the game exudes. The laid-back house music seems to capture the feeling of crisp morning air and early sunshine on cool concrete und
