Is R:Racing Evolution Underrated? - IMPLANTgames

R: RACING EVOLUTION in terms of storyline somehow is way more engaging than even F1 23.

Completely.
I had a PS2 and this game and I hated it. I was a Namco racing game fan and this game felt like a betrayal. Didn't got farther than 5 races I think before reselling it.
Here I am, 21 years later (lol ) playing it on Emulator and finding it amazing. Driving can be very hard and precise but when it works, it's beautiful ! It's more of a sim than Gran Turismo ever was (I play with ABS TSC and brake assist totally off and the cars are ..difficult. ) !
The reviews are r*tard*d : the "journalists" were already incompetent hacks back then but we didn't know it, now after the gamergate and other internet drama we are fully aware than VG journos are useless buffoons when they're not directly sold out to game company X or Y.

ps: there is one thing that is terrible in this game, and it's something that is in ALL namco racing games ; the chase camera SUCKS.

I still love this game actually starting playing it again a couple days ago. Wish I got another game. Hell I'll take a ride racer 8 at this point

The shower scene is my favorite

R: RACING EVOLUTION is like a mix of Ridge Racer, Persona 5, and ACE COMBAT 7 in terms of storyline.

The audio and car selection are the two biggest let-downs in this game for me. Like so many other games, it fails to get the sound of an American V8 right - if anything Toad's engine from Mario Kart 64 was closer! I didn't think much of most of the cars but was glad to see the Detomaso Pantera, Dodge Charger and Saleen S7 in there. The music was alright but not a patch on the Ridge Racers before Type 4. Good to see some sim physics added to a game that doesn't take itself too seriously though - that side of it offers good re-playability.

Monte Carlo is a banger, this game has a nice OST

Nice video! Seems like a decent enough game. I bought it about ten years ago but still haven't played it. The size of my backlog often scares me.

to me, R seems like a game that was setting out to subtly teach players who are new to sim-racing how to drive 'properly' in them, while offering plenty of assistance to help players get to that level of understanding.
besides the handling assist options in general: the Pressure system encourages drafting with the driver ahead until the player finds (or, in this case, forces) an opening after taking a corner, most courses have baked-in streaks of darkened asphalt at the entrance of major corners that suggest where to brake (surely not an original idea), and the comments from the pit chief about cornering + the RP awards for taking corners & making passes 'perfectly' are clear positive-reinforcement systems.

Can we talk about how iconic the OST is...dayum RRT4 was my fav until R:Racing appears

Still remembers doing this. During that race when I was asked to lose, I made my own challenge to put pressure on every pilot and making sure they all wipe out. I may have gotten 2nd for the boss but I had my fun before its back to normal doing clean races.

I've been playing this game on emulator, and I've been enjoying it for the most part. My main gripes is that I feel that the story is not the main focus, but it's instead the event challenge, as you do need to grind a whole hell of a lot to unlock them AND tune a car to even compete. The event mode is also annoying in that the "level" of the challenge is most of the time an outright lie when it's talking about class of vehicle. Many challenges allows (and in turn forces you) to take higher grade vehicles, even for the gold medal. The other is the course list which is really anemic and drags down the whole game in my opinion. It's disappointing that it's only the oval at Motegi and not the main course and its variant. A couple more courses would have made it a much more engaging game rather than monotonous, and even could have extended the story of the game which I also felt is rather short. It is a shame that this never got a sequel and the eventual death of ridge racer in general. I feel stories in racing games is something under utilized, another favorite of mine being Test Drive 2002. Though with hope they'll pull the series out of the grave like they did with Ace Combat a couple years ago and Klonoa in June of this year, and if that works out maybe R:Racing will got another chance.

This is the reason why Reviewers like this ruin games like this, honestly I adore this game and I wished Namco gave this little game a chance.

Always base your judgement on YOUR opinion and not others, because you might miss out on Gems like this game.

In college through some trades I got a Gamecube with a copy of this game, really cool my first sim racer so I struggled a little with it but then I finally traded the cube for a PS2 which was my objective all along, but never look for this game as I thought it was a Gamecube exclusive, so might as well hunt a copy of it and finish it.

Thanks for the video review, now thinking if getting this

Awesome review! You did convince me to get it, haha! I don't have that much time to fuss around with GT3 or 4, so this alternative sounds perfect! Thanks!

Is seriously underrated. It had the bad luck of being compared to Gran turismo wich was the king at the time.
But R is a thing on it's own, the story, character desings, the original tracks, like the dual rally course, something we not saw on other racing games of the era, the music, etc. Is true that the controls weren't that smooth, but weren't that bad either.
I only wished that the devs putted some of the cars on Ridge racer as a trowhback to the famous series of Namco, and to see them being driven in a more realistic way.
To me, the game was 8 out 10.
P.S: the guy from the ambulance is named Stephan Garnier. 😁
P.S 2: now we need a new Ridge racer with Rena, Gina, Reiko and Ai, including all the tracks and cars from the series hisrory.

You spoiled way too much of the story mode. I didn't even know this had a story, so to have every story beat discussed here kind of kills it for me. I was just curious about the gameplay when I clicked on this video, to be honest.
I think you could've mentioned that it had a lengthy story mode without getting into the details?

I love this game

This makes me wanna get the other Ridge Racer games and experience them

I wanna try and get this game to 100% complete lol

Also, this game only reminds me of Ridge Racer than GT, speaking of which, this game has ALOT more soul than GT

GT is just a boring sim racing game, while R:RE is a unique simcade with alot more soul than GT

I just feel like this deserves more appreciation than the overrated GT franchise

Best sim of its era, cause best physics and style. No big content, but all is pure gold, well crafted like Namco arcade game.
Play it with a force feedback wheel.

Rewarding the player for smooth throttle control is nice but with a ps2 controller thats not really possible to do

This game had the best plot of it Era other than nsf most wanted

I loved the game but was bad at it lol. I never got past the time trial race in the story mode to even become a racer

Great Review. I've got a bunch of games in a lot and I was thinking if I shold keep this one or not.

This and Toca Race Driver 3 were my favorite racing games growing up. The only things missing from this game is damage and open wheel cars but overall this is a great game.

I loved this game back when. The GameCube controller was perfect for steering and pedal graduation

I like the game so far. Don’t like the main character though

When I first played this game I had no idea that this game is apart of the ridge racer series

SMS choice was wrong.
Rather than creating PC3, reviving this franchise would be much more better.

I admire the amount of work you put into this.

One of the best games in its generation, but...I dont know, the world wwasnt prepared for this jewel.

So, it's like Ace Combat except it's racecars.

This review proved potentially 2 things :

1) The reviewers back then were frigging lazy and narrow-minded. They were unable to see anything from Namco beyond Arcade racing, and they were not willing to think "outside the box" and learn the way of playing a "sim" racer.

AND/OR

2) The Dual Shock pad was a very bad controller for this game which really affected the score. However, Gran Turismo did exist for the PS2 so perhaps this aspect isn't true.


So, in short... This is a good game released in the wrong era.

Gina x Reina is my Yuri OTP

Namco need to remake or reboot this game on next-gen console.

Thanks a lot for this review. It’s very well made. I just discovered your channel and for the last few hours I’ve been watching a lot of videos. Subscribed right away!
R Racing was a game I’ve been thinking about getting for a long time but reviews were not really positive and I felt like I was better off without it. I’m a big ridge racer fan and I’m a huge sim fan. I’ve grown up between the likes of Ridge Racer and Gran Turismo and after watching your review I felt like I NEEDED that game!
I just bought a copy on eBay for a few euros (it was very cheap even CIB) and can’t wait to play it when I’ll get it this week. Thanks to you I’ll finally get to play it and I think I’ll enjoy it at least as much as you did. Great work anyway! Awesome videos. Every series has something fresh to bring. I’ll try and catch up every other videos you made. Keep up the good work.

Nah, just shitty.

Another nice touch you forgot to mention is that the in-game chatter is inspired by Ace Combat and delivered and visualizied in the same way.

R: Racing Evolution is a magnificent game. I finished it this year (2019) Controls are good combination of arcade and simulation, graphics are brilliant, models are very good and game provides nice challenge. Only bad thing is, when you try to unlock everything, it becomes extremely repetitive.

Guess I'm one of the few who only gonna buy the game for the dialogues that was taken right off of Ace Combat 5's development line?

I'd love to see another racing game with an ace combat-esque story and radio chatter like this one someday

Fantastic! I loved the Pressure Bar. Rarely I had so much fun playing versus the AI.

Nothing wrong with this game an underrated gem for sure

Had this game sitting on the shelf for years. You convinced me to at least check it out.

The perfect example of why gaming journalists are completely useless.

Is this supposed to be like Ace Combat for cars?

After a really long searching, today I got my copy for the Xbox. Thank you for reviewing this game, because that was the reason why I grab it.

Is the steering in the game as bad as it looks?