is an arcade racing game developed and published by Namco for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

, and was a launch game for that platform. Focusing on high-speed

drift racing Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner. The technique causes the rear slip angle to exceed the front slip ...

in the fictional Ridge City, the game features 7 courses, 15 vehicles and 6 modes of play.

Gameplay

In ''Ridge Racer V'' the player is a racing driver taking part in events across Ridge City in a variety of fictional cars. The focus is on accessible and fun driving rather than simulating how a car behaves in the real world; as such the player is encouraged to powerslide around most corners by tapping the brake when entering the turn. Racing on RRV is divided into different race formats. The primary mode is Grand Prix, a series of structured championships completion of which rewards the player with new cars. Other modes include

Time Attack Time attack is a type of motorsport in which the racers compete for the best lap time. Each vehicle is timed through numerous circuits of the track. The racers make a preliminary circuit, then run the timed laps, and then finish with a cool-dow ...

, a long distance endurance race called the 99 Trial and free runs on any of the unlocked courses. Two players can also take part in a split-screen race against one another. A special race is unlocked after the player fulfills certain requirements: it features the arcade game characters

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...

in a roadster and Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde on scooters. Winning this race unlocks special duel class cars for use in other game modes. Duel class cars can be won by defeating bosses in the game's Duel mode after fulfilling certain requirements. After all 4 bosses are defeated in Duel mode, Battle Royal is unlocked, allow the player to choose any duel class cars and challenge all 4 bosses in a boss rush race (including ones the player have selected).

Development

Kohta Takahashi served as the sound director and lead composer of ''Ridge Racer V'', who was previously involved as one of the composers of '' R4: Ridge Racer Type 4''. To create an "exciting new experience", he brought in Japanese electronic music duo

Boom Boom Satellites were a Japanese electronic music duo consisting of guitarist and vocalist Michiyuki Kawashima and bassist and programmer Masayuki Nakano. They were signed to Sony Music Entertainment Japan, with whom they had released all of their albums in Japa ...

, Takeshi Ueda and German DJ

Mijk van Dijk Michael van den Nieuwendijk (born 11 October 1963Felix Denk, Sven von Thülen: ''Der Klang der Familie: Berlin, Techno und die Wende.'' Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012, , Seite 412), known professionally as Mijk van Dijk, is a German DJ and electronic mu ...

, along with Namco composers

Nobuyoshi Sano , better known as sanodg, is a Japanese video game composer, musician and record producer. He is best known for scoring tracks for the ''Ridge Racer'' and '' Tekken'' series, as well as ''Drakengard''. Biography Early life In elementary schoo ...

, Yuu Miyake, and Yoshinori Kawamoto, to contribute music to the game. This resulted in the game having a diverse soundtrack, including genres such as trance,

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

and

breakbeat Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK ...

. Takahashi connected with external artists via Toru Nagamine of Sony Music. Van Dijk felt honored to work on the game, as was already a fan of the ''Ridge Racer'' series, as well as

the first game ''The First Game'' is a painting by Arnold Friberg, and was commissioned in 1968 by Chevrolet Motor Division as one of four paintings to commemorate the then-upcoming centennial celebration of college football in the United States. It depicts ...

's ability to swap the music by replacing the CD in the PlayStation, where he raced to his own music tracks. To ensure that his music fit with the game, he played ''R4: Ridge Racer Type 4'' while composing the tracks in his studio.

Arcade

''Ridge Racer V: Arcade Battle'', the arcade port of ''Ridge Racer V'', first appeared in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

for the Namco System 246 arcade platform. The arcade version has some features such as Duel, Free Run and Pac-Man GP removed. It was the last ''Ridge Racer'' game for arcades until ''Pachislot Ridge Racer'', which was a pachislot game released seven years later (and the last traditional racing game for that market).

Reception

The PS2 version received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Jeff Lundrigan of '' NextGen'', however, said that his quote "bears repeating: 'Like its predecessors, ''Ridge Racer V'' will amaze you with flashy graphics and a great sense of speed. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of meat under the basic shell of the game.'" In Japan, '' Famitsu'' gave it a score of one nine, one ten, one eight, and one nine for a total of 36 out of 40. Also in Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed the arcade version in their February 1, 2001 issue as the second most-successful dedicated arcade game of the year. The PlayStation 2 version was a runner-up for "Racing Game of 2000" in both Editors' Choice and Readers' Choice at ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

''s Best of 2000 Awards. It was a finalist for the

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentation ...

' 2000 "Console Racing Game of the Year" award, which went to ''

SSX ''SSX'' is a series of snowboarding and skiing video games published by EA Sports. It is an arcade-style racing game with larger-than-life courses, characters, and tricks. While the general focus of the series is racing and performing tricks on ...

''.

References

Notes

Footnotes

External links

* * * {{Authority control 2000 video games Arcade video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Namco games Namco arcade games PlayStation 2 games Racing video games Ridge Racer Sony Interactive Entertainment games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Yuu Miyake