R4: Ridge Racer Type 4

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R4: Ridge Racer Type 4

Genre(s): Racing
Platform(s): PlayStation
Release Date: JP: December 3, 1998
EU: April 16, 1999
NA: May 1, 1999
Developer(s): Namco
Publisher(s): Sony Computer Entertainment (Europe)
Series: Ridge Racer
Predecessor: Rage Racer
Successor: Ridge Racer 64


R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (Ridge Racer Type 4 in Europe) is a racing video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation. It is the fourth title in the Ridge Racer series and the last to be released for the PlayStation. It was later re-released on the PlayStation Network in 2011 and pre-loaded on the PlayStation Classic which was released on December 3, 2018. It is the first Ridge Racer series game on the PlayStation to use Gouraud shading on polygons.

Why It Rocks

  1. Over 320 cars to choose from four manufacturers such as Assoluto (Italy), Lizard (USA), Terrazi (Japan) and Age Solo (France).
  2. Great graphics that resembles the graphics of PS1 Gran Turismo games.
  3. Outstanding soundtrack.
  4. The story mode is great and can be dependant of your performance as well as the selected team.
    • Speaking of the dependant of your perfomance, winning races awards you with better cars for the next heat while losing with 3rd or 2nd depending of the heats you are competing, you only receive a upgraded version of the same car you're using in terms of speed which makes the game very unique. Also winning the first three races from the Final GP in a row you're competing the last race in Shooting Hoops using high performance cars such as the Assoluto Squalo, the Terrazi Destroyer or the Age Solo Supernova.
  5. Speaking of teams, there are four teams and each of team has their own car peformance.
    • R.C Micro Mouse Mappy (France): Those cars are designed for the lowest speed but they ease the driving which can be suitable for beginners. It is hosted by Sophie Chevalier.
    • Pac Racing Club (Japan): Those cars are designed for moderate speed, grip and drift which can be suitable for amateur players. It is hosted by Shinji Yazaki.
    • Racing Team Solvalou (Italy): Those cars are designed for higher speed, grip and drift which can be suitable for professional players. It is hosted by Enki Gilbert.
    • Dig Racing Team (USA): Those cars are designed for slighty increased speed than the R.C Micro Mouse Mappy but this team can be suitable only for hardcore players. It is hosted by Robert Chrisman.
  6. Collecting all of the 320 cars unlocks an extra 321 car which is the Pac-Man car. Driving the Pac-Man car it is possible to hear "Eat'em Up" which is the song of the old Pac-Man game.
  7. Eight tracks to compete.
  8. Once you complete the story mode with any team, you unlock a Extra Trial mode in where you facing an opponent which is even faster than you in terms of speed. Winning a Extra Trial in each manufacturer the player wins the following cars:
    • Winning the Assoluto Extra Trial awards with a Assoluto Vulcano, a tank car but capable of reaching an speed of 370 kph.
    • Winning the Lizard Extra Trial awards with a Lizard Nightmare, an LMP1 car which provides an amazing speed and grip.
    • Winning the Age Solo Extra Trial awards with a Age Solo Ecureuil, an small micro-car but capable of reaching faster speeds.
    • Winning the Terrazi Extra Trial awards with a Terrazi Utopia, a rocket car capable of reaching 540 kph considering one of the fastest cars in the game.
  9. If you have a PocketStation you can trade cars with friends.
  10. The game marks debut of Reiko Nagase which like SNK's Mai Shiranui, Eidos's Lara Croft and Square Enix's Tifa Lockart, she's the face of sex appeal of Namco.

Bad Qualities

  1. If you don't have a PocketStation, unlocking all of these cars can be extremely tedious due to those problems:
    • While unlocking all cars fron Micro Mouse Mappy sounds easy, attempting to unlock every car from other teams can be severely frustrating whenever you want to unlock cars that requires you to finish in first position possibly due to the rubberband AI.
    • Car unlocks don't stack, so you have to deliberately underperform in 3rd/2nd place to get the inferior car models, instead of unlocking them by default when you get all 1st places.
    • With eight tracks this means that you must repeat the Grand Prix 112 times according to Ryan Burton alias "rynogt4" and "Steve Arcanine" in rally game walktroughs which makes the game extremely repetitive and boring after all.
  2. As mentioned in WIR #4 some cars are just reskins and some of them are the same but with increased performance.
  3. The Heaven and Hell is very infamously considered one of the hardest tracks in the game and it gets even more frustrating in the harder teams.

Videos

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Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot said: "If you've ever cared about any of the games in the Ridge Racer series, then R4 is definitely the racing game for you". Next Generation called it "the best arcade-style racer yet seen on PSX: it's fast, fun, and highly addictive". In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 35 out of 40.

It was a commercial success in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The game sold 759,527 units in Japan and 297,564 units in the United States, for a total of 1,057,091 units sold in Japan and the United States.

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