R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 is the fourth game in the Ridge Racer series on the Sony PlayStation. Unlike some of the other titles in the series, this game is made only for a home console, and does not have an arcade machine version. There are 8 tracks and 321 vehicles, the cars are fictional and are not based on real life cars. R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 was one of the first games on Sony PlayStation featuring gourad shading on the polygons, giving the game very good lighting effects. It was also the first Ridge Racer game to feature a two-player splitscreen mode for the PlayStation. The main mode of the game is "Grand Prix", here you take the role of a professional racer who must decide which team to work for. Your placement in races will affect which car the team gives you, better results leads to better cars and vice versa.

There are four teams available to the player:

• Dig Racing Team - a former front-running team, this American organisation has recently fallen on hard times, after the manager decided to cut back on their funding. This team features cars with expert tuning. They are the hardest team to drive for in the game.

• Pac Racing Club - the newest entry into the Real Racing Roots '99 championship, this Japanese team tunes their cars to a normal standard, making them the more moderate of the four teams available.

• Racing Team Solvalou - this elite Italian team, led by the charismatic Enki Gilbert, are currently dominating the Real Racing Roots '99 championship. Their cars are widely regarded as the fastest in the game.

• R.C Micro Mouse Mappy - this French team have a new owner this season. This is the team where most Real Racing Roots Rookies begin before being snapped up by one of the more dominant teams in the championship.

There are four car manufactures to choose from:

• Age Solo - French, grip type handling.

• Lizard - USA, drift type handling.

• Assoluto - Italy, drift type handling.

• Terrazi - Japan, grip type handling.

R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 featured a CGI animated intro with the Ridge Racer "mascot girl" Reiko Nagase.

R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 includes a bonus disc containing a new version of the original Ridge Racer game, named Ridge Racer Turbo, (known in Europe as Ridge Racer Hi-Spec Demo) which runs at 60 frames per second with improved graphics models. Special editions of this game were also packaged with the Namco JogCon controller. The JogCon controller was released at the same time as R4.

Reviews

• Official PlayStation Magazine UK: 9 out of 10 (90%)
• IGN: 9.4 out of 10 (94%)
• GameSpot: 8.7 out of 10 (87%)
• Edge (magazine): 8 out of 10 (80%)

External links

• R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 at Namco (Japanese Site)
• R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 at IGN

1999 computer and video games | PlayStation games | Racing computer games | Namco games