Review #818: Rage Racer

 Get mad.

 There are three things I've been complaining about since I played the first Ridge Racer: No analog stick, No multiplayer and no content. We've still got no analog support, no multiplayer but at least we've got content now! Rage Racer is the third console iteration of the Ridge Racer, gaming was still quite young as it seems Namco didn't discover the importance of brand recognition yet!

 The set-up has changed a lot. Upon entering the main menu you can either play in Grand Prix or Time Trial mode, eventually unlocking the Extra GP, which are the Grand Prix but in mirror mode. As soon as the Grand Prix loads up you'll notice something... you've only got one car you can race with. There's now a very simple customization element to the game, not only must you now purchase other cars from the shop but you can also change their colors(Finally!), their transmission(A few cars only have Manual Transmission, which sucks!!), how their Drift works(You must change the balance between Grip and Drift) and the logo your car brandishes on its hood. I like the new customization feature, but I hate how now you must purchase cars, so it's neither a step forward nor a step backward, more like a sidestep.

 The game has a grand total of four tracks, the first three tracks share the initial and final sections, but the rest of the tracks are completely different, so I'd say 85% of every track is unique, which is about time. The fourth track is an Oval that shares very few assets with the other tracks. So far, so good... Except the game can be a bit of a grind. Let's start with progression, as now the Grand Prix is divided into classes, 5 classes in all. Each "class" refers to the strength of the vehicles. Your starting car is a Class 1, so after you finish 3rd or higher on every track you'll unlock Class 2. While I was pretty close to winning a few class 2 races with my class 1 vehicle I was clearly outmatched. Why did I try that? Because winning Class 1 didn't reward me with enough money to purchase a class 2 car or upgrade my car into a class 2. The same happened after I unlocked class 3, but this time around my car just didn't cut it. The only solution? Replaying lower class Grand Prixes in order to make money in order to stand a chance against my new opponents. In other words, you are expected to play the same four tracks over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. This isn't my idea of fun, and this isn't what I wanted when I complained about Ridge Racer lacking content.

 The game also feels different. I don't think I ever managed to get the hang of how drifting really worked in the game, sometimes I'd get perfect drifts, other times I'd slide all over and other times I couldn't even initiate the drift. The camera is uncomfortably close to the back of the car which took me a bit of getting used to. The soundtrack is still pretty good, although a tiny bit harsher sounding to go along the theme of "rage". The graphics have been completely overhauled, so much so that I also had an adjustment period with it, since at first everything looked so busy and grey, but there's no denying that it looks better than the previous games. 

 It kinda sucks, but I think I didn't like this one as much as the previous ones. It's a better product, that's for sure, there are only 4 tracks but they are very different from one another and look quite pretty to boot. I think car customization was a sidestep in the right direction, but making the game such a grindfest was not. While I had fun with the game I just think the previous games played better. But, hey! At least now we've got content!
 3.5 out of 10

Review #817: Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker

 Batman sure had it rough, huh?

 The Arkham series was not just a fantastic game series, but also games that managed to get the Batman license right. But we're not here to talk about the good, we're here to talk about Ubisoft's Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, a horrible beat'em up that's inspired on the movie of the same name. But how bad can the game be? They misspell Nunchaku and the back cover's filled with lies. 10 gadgets? Where? There's the Staff, the... "Nun Chaku", the discus, the shield and the glider. That's 5. 5 batsuits? Standard, Offensive, Defensive and Nimble. That's 4. 16 stages? Oh no, no no no no no no. There are only 4 levels. 5 if you count the incredibly short Drake Lab stage.

 The game lasts little over an hour, and that's counting retries. You start off with 2 lives, and if you lose them you have to start back from the start of whichever stage you died in. There's no save feature, despite what the back of the game would have you believe(Another lie!), but at least the game is short enough. While it is a beat'em up, the final 3 stages have a lot of awful platforming that kills you instantly if you fall, which made an already bad game even worse. Between stages you get some very bad looking stills and some wonky text trying to convey the story of the film, but it's quite bad.

 Terry can punch, kick, block(he takes damage anyways) and jump. Before you get excited at the prospect of batsuits, know that they don't change Terry's appearance at all. You change suits by pressing select, pick your suit of choice and then pressing circle, which will make the game ask you "EXIT?" and you must actually pick YES in order to change into another suit. The standard suit's only feature is that it has access to the Discus, which can get some use, sometimes, the Staff, which has a single an area-clearing attack and the nunchaku that can be charged for a stronger single-hit attack. The offensive suit lowers some stats while increasing your attack damage, now you can perform proper punch and kick combos, instead of gadgets you get a spin-kick. The defensive suit lowers some stats but raises your defense, you get an impenetrable shield that nullifies any damage coming your way. The nimble suit enhances your speed at the cost of other stats and allows for either a double jump or a glide, as well as letting you roll and dodge around. Your suit of choice during those awful platforming sections.

 Gameplay is pretty dumb. Enemies only get into hitstun from your attacks sometimes which means you'll probably trade hits most of the time. But... there's one solutions. This is how you beat the game: Select the Defensive suit and then alternate between block and kick. It even works on bosses. Did I mention that this game is REALLY bad? Combat is overall pretty bland and lifeless, even when not using the defensive suit. At least the graphics manage to capture Bruce Timm's style pretty well.

 The game isn't broken or glitchy, but man is it lifeless! The music is bland, the combat is drab and there's very few, if any, moments of fun to be had with the game. At least it shouldn't rob you of more than an hour of your lifetime, but then again, there are plenty of other worthwhile things you could waste an hour on.
 2.0 out of 10

Review #816: Ridge Racer 7

 And now, let's take a dip into the future of Ridge Racer.

 It's no secret that I harbor no love for the Racing genre. I have a soft spot for Outrun and will never say no to a round of Mario Kart, but driving ain't my thing. I'm horrible at Ridge Racer, and that didn't change with Ridge Racer 7. But that doesn't matter, because this game is amazing. I liked the game a lot after I tried out my hand at a few Arcade races, but after playing the original games I couldn't help but admire how far the series came.

  The modes in this game are fairly predictable. There's a Grand Prix mode, which is actually a single player campaign in which you race for money and Fame points. The more grand prixes you win, the more Manufacturer Trials you open up, clearing manufacturer trials allows you to purchase cars and customization parts for your cars, and you'll also open up UFRA challenges, which are races that might involve a bit more than just landing first. Sometimes, anyways. There's an online mode, which, y'know, is dead, there's a Global Time Trial mode, that can thankfully be played offline, there's Arcade, in which you can race with preset cars in single or multi track formats. Word of advice, there are no difficulty settings and the AI is relentless, so... get good. It can be played in two player mode. Then there's also UFRA Challenge which allows you to download event races.... which is also dead since the servers are long gone. The last pertaining tab on the main menu is "Machine Connector" which is actually the place in which you can customize your cars. The game offers about 40 cars, which I think is a bit of a lie since some cars are just faster versions of previous cars, as well as 22 tracks that can be mirrored. More than one track? Oh, how far we've come!

 Cars look fantastic, and the fact that you can customize even up to their paint job is pretty dope. The environments are a bit simpler, but they are very pretty so they make up for their lower poly count thanks to the artistry. The game runs pretty well for the most part, but there were a few uncommon bouts of slowdown when many cars were on the screen at the same time, nothing to worry about. The soundtrack, save for a few stinkers(Which I searched up on YT and they have some fans anyways!), is brilliant.

 So, the focus on drifting is still here, and the basics have changed so little that you can even play with the digital pad in case you hate yourself or want to dabble in nostalgia. It's gotten a bit more nuanced, however, since cars can now have any of three types of Drifting: Standard, which is how the played before, Dynamic, which is a bit better at steering through the drift and Mild which reduces drifting for more stability. I really liked Mild cars and stuck with them. There's a new addition, which may have made its debut in a previous game but its pretty new to me, Nitros. Drifting fills your three-tiered nitro gauge, however, how much it fills depends on the sharpness and length of the curve, so you can't just drift willy nilly because it will only cost you speed. You can customize the Nitro gauge too, so you could have a four tiered Nitro gauge, or a two-tier gauge with longer bars as well as a few other types. This matters and will affect how you play, because you can't use a Nitro until it's completely full, and with some gauges you can even store multiple nitros in order to use a Double or even a Triple nitro boost. There are even more nuances to this mechanic, for instance, you can't fill the gauge while using nitro, but if you drift on a curve JUST as your nitro wears off you'll get an extra juicy refill. I really liked this Nitro mechanic, and I feel like it adds a lot to the formula without getting in the way of what Ridge Racer is all about. Using the slipstream, meaning driving behind another car in order to gain a boost of speed by having it break the wind in front of you is also a thing now.

 The Arcade Mode is pretty relentless, and the Grand Prix can be a bit tough. I had to restart some races multiple times before I finally finished on the first places which would grant me more points. It is a tough game, at least for people that don't play racing games often, and there's very little you can do to tailor the difficulty to your abilities besides turning Automatic Transmission on. While it can be scary, it's also a load of fun, so I didn't really mind having to retry some courses oh so many times.

 Well, I can safely say that Ridge Racer 7 is among my favorite Racing games. I haven't played many of them, true, but I've played a fair amount, and I can easily put this one next to Outrun 2, if that even counts as a Racer. I've read that Unbouded changed the gameplay a lot, so it's gonna be interesting seeing where Namco took the series after this one.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #815: WWF In your House

 Now, if I could get this disc out of my house...

 Every time a company strikes gold they inevitably try again, and that's how WWF In Your House happened. It's... well, it's more of the same. General consensus seems to agree that it's a worse more of the same, but... I'm not too sure about that, I think this game has a few things going for it.

 The wrestler roster has been bumped up to ten. The Undertaker, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels are joined by superstars like Ultimate Warrior, Goldust and a very early Triple H, long before he used the Triple H moniker. The other new guys are Vader, Owen Hart, Ahmed Johnson and the British Bulldog... names that, sadly, mean nothing to me. Considering I can recognize more wrestlers in this game.... I was much fonder of this roster. Each character has their own ring, they look ugly, but at least we've got more than one ring. Speaking of ugly, the new digitized sprites seem much less detailed and more pixelated, and am I crazy or is Owen Hart's sprite tiny? He looks incredibly out of place. Meanwhile, Triple H is already larger than the others, which makes Owen look even more minuscule. ON the flip side, every time you beat the Arcade ladder you get a 5-8 second long highlight reel clip of your wrestler which is a nice, if small, extra.

 Gameplay is pretty much exactly the same, two punches, two kicks, running, head locks, a block button and a very glaring missing movelist. Power ups were added, and can be turned off, which come in the form of White power ups and Red power downs. They are random and sorta lazy, they might heal you, stun you, stun your opponent, make you stronger, make you slower... and you don't really get a clear sign of what you got, except for the stunners. The two unfair Arcade ladders from the original game return, but there's a new 10 match 1-on-1 ladder, thank god, and you can play with up to four players with a multi-tap, not bad!

 Look, it's more of the same. A more recognizable roster made it more inviting for me, but still not enough to make me care about it. The controls still feel sluggish and I hate not having a readily available complete moveset, not even on the instruction booklet, which probably soured me on the game since I had to struggle to guess my character's reversals and headlock throws. When it's all said and done, I'm sorry to report that I can't say I enjoyed either of these games, but I'll give the edge to this one, if only because the roster was more recognizable to me.
 3.0 out of 10

Review #814: Ridge Racer Revolution

 Oh, here's the second track!... but where are the rest??

 Well... it's more Ridge Racer. Ridge Racer Revolution is little more than an upgraded version of the original, to the point that it's almost ridiculous how small this thing is. That said, it's still fun as hell, and pretty much every change they did was for the better. Except for the soundtrack.

 Once again, one track and one track only is all that you get, but you get six different tweaks: Beginner, Mid and Expert versions, as well as unlockable mirrors of each. Each different level adds a new part to the track, so after playing the beginner course you'll have played 80% of the game. Each track can be played in either Race(3 laps), Time Trial(VS CPU) or in an endless Free Run mode. It's a better set up than the original, that's for sure, and I appreciate how every version of the track adds something on top of the other, unlike the original in which some variations only upped the max speed. I'd also like to mention that this new track is more detailed and more fun to race in than the one in the original, so bonus points for that. It's also a bit more challenging. And, y'know, despite it only being one track, it has a nice assortment of pieces and panoramas to make it interesting to look at and race on. The graphics as a whole are a bit better, but on the other hand, the soundtrack isn't as amazing. It's still a really good soundtrack, like 9/10 instead of the original's 10/10.

 There's a multiplayer mode now.... if you own two Playstations, two copies of Ridge Racer Revolution and the fabled link cable, so it might as well not be there at all. There's still no analog support, and, once again, the brunt of the playable vehicles are hidden behind a brief Galaga 88 loading minigame. There's a cheat to automatically destroy them all this time around, which is welcome.

 And that's pretty much it. Same fantastic gameplay, a slightly better set-up and another single, but more entertaining, course to race through. It's still far from being a good product in this day and age, but I'm more comfortable vouching for this one since it feels like it has slightly more content than the original. And once again, scoring the game is tough, because as far as gameplay is concerned, it checks all boxes, but there simply isn't enough content here to justify a purchase.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #813: WWF WrestleMania - The Arcade Game

 Mortal Kombat gone Wrestling.

 I've never been much of a fan of digitalized sprites, however, WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game looked so weird that it intrigued me, so of course, I went ahead and got both it and its sequel. What makes it so weird is that this game isn't your average fighting game, it's more akin to Mortal Kombat, with life bars and a block button, as well as a very similar sense of humor. Undertaker can summon ghosts, Bam Bam Bugalow can throw fire punches and Ramon Razor can turn his arms into deadly blades. It's a weird game, alright?

 This is a straight up port of the Arcade original, without any bells and whistles. You get 8 wrestlers: The Undertaker, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Yokozuna, Bam Bam Bugalow, Lex Luger, Ramon Razor and Doink. Wrestling wasn't a thing over here, even though curiously enough, Hulk Hogan was a household name, so... I could barely recognize anyone besides The Undertaker, so the roster might resonate a bit more with American households, or people big into wrestling during the 90's. Single Player Mode is made up of two Arcade Ladders, but you can also play Co-Op and Deathmatch with another player. It's... it's quite lacking. And the Arcade Ladder is quite annoying, one of them starts off with 1 on 1 matches, but then you have two one VS two matches and ends on a one VS three match, while the other ladder is even worse, starting off with one VS two matches, then two one VS three matches and ends with a fight against all 8 characters. It's tough and it's unfair and I recommend turning off blocking for this mode.

 The game has a very Mortal Kombat five-button setup: Punch, Kick, Super Punch, Super Kick and Block. Punch+Kick makes your wrestler run, while S. Punch+ S. Kick allows you to grab opponents... with a specific few characters. Other universal inputs are forward-forward-S. punch to get your enemy in a headlock, back-back-S. punch to throw your enemy towards the rope and back-back-punch to throw your enemy into the ground. You can also get out of the ring and get on top of the torn buckles to produce jumping attacks. There's a combo gauge that lets you use Super Moves, but the instruction booklet is no help and there's no in-game moveset, and I couldn't care enough to google them, so I wasn't able to pull off any of them. Even so, controls didn't seem very responsive, and the fighting system was a bit clunky, so I didn't have much fun. That said, I'm sure it's better against other players, since the CPU just isn't fun to fight in this game, they react to fast to your head-locks, producing reversals before you can try to figure out what input combination works with the Wrestler you picked.

 I'm pretty sure this game has a small cult following behind it, but sadly, I just didn't enjoy it much. Combat in the game is bit wonky and unresponsive, although not altogether bad, just subpar, and playing solo is more of a chore than anything. I give them props for the idea, however, and while I wasn't so fond of the end product, I'm glad that such a weird idea can live on as a game.
 3.0 out of 10

Review #812: Ridge Racer

 It's RIIIIDGEEEE RACEEEEEEEEEER! ....but where's the rest of the game?

 So, last year I decided to give Ridge Racer a try which meant I bought a ton of Ridge Racer games. I decided to start with 7, and spoilers, it's pretty darn fun, but the original piqued my curiosity so I started it shortly after. And I was done with it 2 hours later.

 The game offers a single track with 7 variations. Beginner, which has a slow max speed and a 2 lap race, Mid, which raises the max speed and makes it into a 3 lap race, Expert, which once again raises the top speed and adds another very sinuous part to the track and Time Trial which raises the top speed even further but turns it into a race against a single AI opponent. Getting first place on all four variations will unlock mirrored versions of each. And... yeah, that's pretty much it. It's just a simple racing game against 11 racers, while trying to make it onto checkpoints too since you can lose if the Time limit expires, even before anyone reaches the finish line. There isn't even a multiplayer mode, this is a single player racing game. You get 4 cars to start with and can unlock another 8 by... beating the Galaxian minigame upon start up. The game is so small that it's completely loaded into memory while the brief Galaxian minigame runs, and once that's done you can swap out the CD with a Music CD to play your own tracks, which doesn't work very well and... why would you? This game's soundtrack is AMAZING. As for the graphics... it's pretty rough and undetailed, pretty telling of a very, very early PS1 game.

 The game's main mechanic is its drifting, you have to let go off the accelerator, or make a short break, turn your car and then go full throttle. The instruction booklet is of little help, but Ridge Racer 7 prepared me a bit better for it. When drifting you have to be quick to straighten your car, lest you take a massive loss of speed. It feels slippery, car-on-car collision doesn't feel quite right and the lack of analog support is harsh.... but I can't deny the game's charm. This single track was a load of fun, and I had so much fun during my 2-2.5 hours with the game, as I very slowly got better at drifting and actually managed to score first places! Having a banging soundtrack helped so much to keep me invested in the game, no lie.

 It's very hard to score Ridge Racer because while it's oh so very barebones... it's also pure bliss. It's a fun game to play, it's a fun course to race in and working out how to drift was fun. I mean, I was, heck, still am terrible at the game, but I had so much fun losing over and over again. That said, since I already played RR 7, and I know RR 4 has a very simple(and even more barebones!) remake of this game.... I just can't recommend it in good faith. It is a fun time, I think it's worth a look, but I don't think it's a game that deserves to be paid for in this day and age. And I'm telling you already, there's no way this game is making it into my "Worst of 2020" because, at its core, it's REALLY good.
 2.0 out of 10