3DS Hands-on: Ridge Racer 3D

January 28, 2011

When Reggie Fils-Aime announced Ridge Racer as a launch window title at the 3DS event, he hesitated a little. We think he wanted to say “Riiiiiidge Raceeeeeer.” The thing is, it’s kind of a big deal, actually.

 

 

 

Racing is clearly going to be a big genre for the 3DS. Three dimensions actually does help with judging distance, so in addition to being more immersive, it’s actually a bit more intuitive too. While Nintendo doesn’t have a Mario Kart or F-Zero ready for launch, Ridge Racer is here, and it’s polished.

There aren’t many frills to Namco’s racing title, and we could only try out one track, but the visuals looked nice, the analog controls were smooth and the added touch of classic Namco avatars for the AI racers just made us smile.

Ridge Racer 3D is also going to have a focus on multiplayer, though we weren’t able to get more details on this. For now, we’ll just say that you should probably buy it and play with us.