Nintendo World 2011: Ridge Racer 3D Hands-On Impressions

Its not pretty, but it gets the job done

Ridge Racer 3DS was sort of the joke game of the floor, mainly because of its graphics. It’s not a very pretty game compared to what we’ve seen of the rest of the Nintendo 3DS line-up so far. The thing is though, having played it we can safely say while it looks below pay it plays like classic Ridge Racer – it’s an absolute blast to play.

We hate to be negative, but Ridge Racer 3DS was sort of a joke of the show floor, mainly due to its rather lacklustre graphics (Someone said that Kid Icarus on the NES that Sakurai was playing looked better). It’s not a very pretty game compared to what we’ve seen of the rest of the 3DS line-up so far. That being said, and as we know as Nintendo fans, graphics aren’t anything and having played the game we can confirm that it still plays like the classic games, which were a blast to play.

The demo were sampled allowed us to play through a couple of races on two different tracks. Both of these tracks seemed to be new to me, but we’re not that certain whether or not it’s a brand new title.

So, how about these infamous graphics we’ve all been hearing about? The game runs smooth enough like a Ridge Racer game should, but the environments presented in the game, along with the car models appear to be quite blurry and it brings the overall presentation down quite a bit.

We tried to play the game with 3D on and off, but both modes seem to have a motion blur that was not beneficial to the game’s presentation at all. Not only did it make the game harder to actually look at, but it just attempts to hide the game’s bad graphics in a bad way and makes things look even worse. This was the only game where I could see a noticeable blur in the graphics and I even had some slight eye strain after putting it down.

As for the rest of the game, the experience is very solid. The circle pad works well to control your car, much more than the d-pad does. The game’s soundtrack retains a classic Ridge Racer feel and, apart from the graphics, the game has a high level of polish. The menus and presentations are very slick too.

With launch so close we know the presentation and graphical hiccups in Ridge Racer 3DS won’t be fixed. Like the Nintendo 3DS itself, you may have a different experience with the game’s 3D effect than either of us here. Lucky for Ridge Racer and racing fans in general, though ,the game is still good.