Ridge Racer V
Generally touted as PS2�s top launch game, Ridge Racer V was
 released in Japan with much fanfare. Famitsu Weekly, Japan�s
 premiere gaming magazine, gave it a perfect score. Most other
 magz and web sites seem to have followed that trend so far.
 Guess what? It�s not true!

Plagued by a lack of extras and poorly-pronounced English 
background comments, this game was clearly rushed out of 
development in order to meet the March 4 deadline. What comes 
across to the consumer is a mediocre racing game with extremely
 good graphics. But, for PS2, the bar for graphics is raised
 quite a bit, so we can�t even give it a perfect score in that 
aspect. 

The game is full of flagrant design flaws. During a single-
player race, there are only two (count �em, two!) available 
viewing angles, and during multiplayer games, only one! Since 
the third person view of the car absolutely sucks, you are stuck
 with the bumper-cam view for the whole time. Nintendo 64�s 
launch racer, Cruisin� USA, had 3 available angles� and that was
 in 1996.

The game is very Americanized, but the developers, most of whom 
must not speak a word of English, made some major slip-ups. The 
entire game is accompanied by a radio DJ announcing the events 
of the race in English, complete with comments like �that was 
tite� and �wicked.� However, there are some hilarious 
mispronunciations that almost made us puke when we first heard 
them. When you and another car bump on the track, you might 
hear, �That was too close for KOM-fort!� Occasionally during the
 race, there is talk of �veterans and ROOOO-kies,� or you are
 given �KAHN-gratulations!�

Fortunately, the new Ridge Racer girl, Ai Fukami, makes only a 
cameo appearance at the beginning of the game. If you�ve ever 
seen her, you�d understand why this is fortunate. And if you 
thought her name was sexually tainted in English, guess what it
 means in a native Indian dialect: �we screw our mothers.� 
Honest to God, it�s true. We're starting to think that Namco is 
run by the animators from Disney. 

The learning curve is also way to high. It took us the better 
part of a week to master the release-gas, skid, turn combination
 that was the only way to avoid riding the wall. And don�t even
 try Normal or Hard mode� the cars will blow you away every
 time.