Ridge Racer 6: fast and furious
<em>Ridge Racer 6</em> has arrived on the Xbox 360, satisfying our cravings in the post-launch drought. If you've ever played <em>Ridge</em>, you'll be right at home -- next stop,<em> Dead or Alive 4</em>
A console launch without a Ridge Racer game is like Christmas without a turkey. This much-loved, slip-slidy racer has debuted on all of Sony's hardware -- PlayStation, PS2 and PSP, but now it's betrayed its Japanese partner and made the move to Microsoft's Xbox 360.
Essentially, Ridge Racer 6 is the PSP version with a high-definition lick of paint and a seemingly endless single-player mode. The gameplay is exactly the same as the previous five iterations, with the nitrous boost from the PSP bringing some much-needed strategy to the arcade racing.
The only true innovation is the online mode, which speeds by at 60 frames per second without any hint of lag. It's the perfect game for a five-minute fix, so it's a shame that you have to plough through a boringly easy single-player game in order to unlock the cars needed to compete online.
Ridge Racer 6 doesn't have the depth or graphical quality of Project Gotham Racing 3, but with Dead or Alive 4 around the corner, it will just about get us through the rest of January. -GC