Ridge Racer 64

The block busting racing franchise hits Nintendo 64, with lightning-speed visuals and a breathtaking four-player mode. RR64 sends more than 20 different cars racing over eight wide-open tracks, including all the tracks from the original Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution, plus three N64 exclusives. The brand-new four-player mode looks especially gorgeous, with a high frame rate, no loss of detail and zero fog. In single-player mode, a bright palette, polygon-rich car models and a fast frame rate deliver a potent racing experience that will pin back the ears of even hard-core speed fiends. Subtle graphical touches include lens flares, streaks from rear lights, smoking tires and working headlights. Best of all, RR64 is blissfully free of 2-D scenery, known derisively among developers as "billboards". The finely tuned RR physics are here in full force. Cars loudly bang off guard rails and each other like so many ping-pong balls, while those that drift from the invisible race line spin wildly out of control. Managing the powerslide in each of RR64's four speed classes is one of your biggest challenges - but, like most arcade racers, RR64 gives you a choice of automatic or manual transmissions. Ridge Racer 64 was the first game developed by Nintendo Software Technology Corporation, Nintendo's in-house development team in Redmond, Washington which went on to develop Wave Race: Blue Storm for Nintendo GameCube.