ridge racer

Riiiidge Raaaacer Paaaachislot

9:30PM Luke Plunkett | Yeah, you read that right. Ridge Racer. Pachislot machine. Together. In two flavours: one on the PS2, the other, a real life pachislot machine (sort of like a slot machine mixed with a pachinko machine that dishes out tokens) with tacky LCD speedometer. Good news is this is real. Bad news is there’s no way in hell this is ever going outside Japan. Well, except for maybe the PS2 version, which will be out on June 5. Above’s a screen from the console edition, full-body pic of the pachislot machine’s after the jump. More »
News

Should Video Game Patents Be Legal?

5:40AM Mark Wilson | Over on Gamasutra, designer Ernest Adams has posted an interesting piece on video game software patents. He argues that not only are such patents morally gray, but that they are too encompassing—citing an example from Namco’s PSOne version of Ridge Racer in which they patented, we kid you not, load-time minigames. He explains: The US Patent and Trademark Office has taken a much more vague approach to determining what may or may not be patented. Its guidelines for patent examiners requires that the invention produce a concrete, useful, and tangible result, and gameplay patents are being allowed. Then he later continues: More »

Ridge Racer 7 In Crazy 3D

7:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Testing of a 3D version of Ridge Racer 7 at Namco’s Wonderpark HeroesBase in Kawasaki City. The 3D used in the PS3 racing title was developed by NHK and supposedly does not make one’s eyes tired. Called “Xpol,” two images are processed for each eye by blending the scanning lines on LCD TVs. Since images are made from polygons, they are relatively easy to convert to 3D, since the only changes need to be so that base image displays for each eye. According to Game Watch Impress, frame rates have slipped slightly. Free location test runs until the 14th of this month. Hey, that’s tomorrow! More »