Ridge Racer

Ridge Racer accompanied the launch of PlayStation Vita the same way it accompanied the launch of practically every previous Sony console, bringing along everything players associate with the series. The driving model is built on drifting, triggered not through delicate balance but a sharp yank of the wheel with the throttle held to the floor. The reward for long drifts is nitro, and managing it well decides whether a race ends in victory. Anyone who grasps the rhythm at which a car dives into a corner and shoots back out of it gets one of the purest arcade racers ever made.

Technically the Vita version is well executed, running smoothly, holding a stable image, and the tracks keep the series' characteristic look, with highway overpasses, tunnels, and coastal vistas. The controls suit a handheld very well, since drifting gets by with just a few buttons and doesn't demand delicate throttle work. The music is the traditional mix of house, drum and bass, and dance electronica, exactly what belongs to this series' driving experience as inseparably as the announcer's voice counting down the start. The game is also rounded out with an unusual feature where the player picks a team and contributes to its colors in an overall competition against other players through races completed, meant to give an otherwise solitary drive a sense of belonging to a wider community.

Reception, however, was noticeably marred by an unusually small amount of content at launch. The game offered only a handful of tracks and cars, with more added via downloadable packs, which sparked strong criticism at the time, even though some of the content was later released for free. Reviews mostly agreed that the core gameplay itself is excellent, but that the path to it was strangely stingy. Today, with the game available together with its later additions, it can be viewed more forgivingly, offering exactly what you want from a handheld console: short, fast, and instantly satisfying races without unnecessary preamble.