Ridge Racer 64

HEY! STOP CHEATING!

» N64 » 2000 » NINTENDO SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY/NAMCO I had already sold off my N64 by the time Ridge Racer 64 came out so I made sure it was one of the first games I acquired when I rebuilt my collection in 2019. Once it turned up it was obvious to see why it had generated so much excitement on release because it’s a fine companion to the earlier Playstation games that had been such a success on Sony’s console. Yes it features a number of tracks from earlier games, but there was no denying that all the precise handling and exciting track design that had made them so much fun to play was still intact and I hungrily devoured each well-designed course that Ridge Racer 64 threw at me.

Eventually I rang up my cousin (who is a huge Ridge Racer fan) and told him I’d completed the game. “Have you completed Extra mode?” he immediately asked me. “No, but I’ve reached the end credits,” I smugly replied. “Well you’ve not completed it yet then, have you,” he said. I won’t bore you with the conversation that followed about when a game is and isn’t completed, but his words did make me want to fully complete Ridge Racer 64.

I now regret that decision, because it has been two years since that initial conversation and I’ve literally just completed the first Extra track, like a week before writing this. To say it’s difficult is a gross understatement. The AI of the cars is not only incredibly aggressive, but they cheat too and you can literally see them teleporting ahead of you as you race, which is very demoralising. Still, the wave of euphoria that washed over me when I finally snatched first place was quite exhilarating, so maybe I will complete it. After all, there’s just ten more tracks left to beat…