''Ridge Racer Accelerated'' is an

arcade racing Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic raci ...

video game developed by

Namco Networks Namco Networks was an American developer and publisher of video games for mobile phones, based in San Jose, California. The company was founded on January 1, 2006, as the mobile phone division of Namco America, and produced video games for mobile ...

for

mobiles Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ...

. It was released for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

006SH with 3D screen, and Amazon Kindle Fire on

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

. It is part of the ''

Ridge Racer is a series of racing video games created by Namco and owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The first game, ''Ridge Racer (1993 video game), Ridge Racer'' (1993), was originally released in arcades for the Namco System 22 hardware, later ported ...

'' video game series. The game was released on the App Store, Google Play and Amazon App Store and it uses

micro-transactions Microtransaction (mtx) refers to a business model where users can purchase in-game virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransactions ar ...

for unlocking more courses and an extra car class. There are three cars available per class, with six cars more to be unlocked during the game's progress. The game also features an SP1 class consisting of prototype cars. The game features an Arcade, Duel, Survival and Time Attack mode. The game uses the same engine, race courses and menu system from ''Ridge Racer 2'' (PSP). It features a

full motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than Sprite (computer graphics), sprites, vector graphics, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games featur ...

opening that stars Reiko Nagase.

Gameplay

The core aspect of the entire ''Ridge Racer'' series is

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

, that is traditional lap racing against opponents with the added twist of intentionally

oversteer Understeer and oversteer are vehicle dynamics terms used to describe the sensitivity of the vehicle to changes in steering angle associated with changes in lateral acceleration. This sensitivity is defined for a level road for a given steady state ...

ing and sliding the car through sharp corners and turns, known as "drifting", which earns the player several bonuses during a race. Controlling the car is done by tilting to steer and on screen buttons for accelerating, decelerating and nitrous. Notable also is the "

nitrous A nitrous oxide engine, or nitrous oxide system (NOS) is an internal combustion engine in which oxygen for burning the fuel comes from the decomposition of nitrous oxide, N2O, as well as air. The system increases the engine's power output ...

boost" system from the previous games in the series. The player has a ''Nitrous Gauge'' made up of three nitrous tanks, which at the start of a race are either completely depleted or only partially full. As the player drifts through the corners (especially at very high

slip angle In vehicle dynamics, slip angle or sideslip angle is the angle between the direction in which a wheel is pointing and the direction in which it is actually traveling (i.e., the angle between the forward velocity vector v_x and the vector su ...

s) during the race, their nitrous gauge fills up. When the player fills up one of the three nitrous tanks, it can be activated to achieve a temporary speed boost. The nitrous tanks cannot be recharged while any tank is in use though, but the residual speed increase when the nitrous boost expires can be used just before entering corners to recharge the player's nitrous tanks at a faster rate than normal. The game features 8 unique courses (16 when played in reverse) with 3 more (6 when played in reverse) that can be bought in-game, all taken from previous

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

games. Including purchased courses (forward and reversed), the total number of tracks comes to 22. The cars in the game include six classes, each increasing in speed and difficulty. There is a seventh (Special) class. The game features 48 cars (referred to as machines), based on 12 basic models. Each class of cars has nine cars, six of which have to be unlocked. The Special Class has only three cars, one of which is available to drive right away. Including purchased cars, the total rides comes to 57.

Reception

The game received "mixed" reviews according to the

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website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

References

{{Ridge Racer series 2009 video games IOS games IOS-only games Namco games Racing video games Ridge Racer Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games