Went petrol go-karting yesterday and managed to hit a few pretty solid drifts on a hairpin by applying the exact principles learned in games like OutRun 2 and Type 4, which felt very, very sweet. (I also gave myself pretty severe whiplash by spinning out on a downhill, but we'll ignore that) Having never so much as attempted a handbrake turn in all my fifteen years of holding a driving licence, finally getting to experience the rush of throwing my backside out caused me to zoom home, exorcise my disc and compare notes with the virtual worlds that taught me all I know about how to drive good (and bad).

Glad I've persevered with this one - I wanted to give it up early on, but the volume of comments suggesting that this was a beautiful gourmet lobster that needs to be cracked open in order to access its meaty innards is a positive example of how reading Backloggd opinions can enrich your gaming life. As everyone says, it is brutal in its opening hours, with punishing S-corners and AI drivers that work so hard to block your every opening to no real detriment of their own. Worth it, though, when you get a handle on how the handling here subtly differs from Type 4: the beginner car is more beginner-friendly than it first seems, essentially allowing you to "correct" a turn you've already started accelerating into in order to turn it into a drift, even when the corner's almost done - a life-saver, especially when your rival has plans for how to run you off the road. The other cars aren't so easily mastered, though, and the rest is up to you - trying to explain their mechanical ins and outs would be like describing how to ride a bike, essentially useless in comparison to just feeling it out for yourself.

Seven tracks (half of which intersect with each other) seems like hardly any at all, but when multiplied with the number of cars on offer and how wildly they differ, you realise you're essentially being offered a series of puzzles that involve working out when each car should turn or shift through gear - a smart game designer's way of maximising value from what was very likely a limited development time. The heroic, master, etc. GPs are less refined measures of improving the game's longevity by just bumping pure numbers up, but are nonetheless welcome because they let you go insanely fast with no real additional risk. Does drafting belong in Ridge Racer? Sound off in the comments below.

Outside of relatively minor mechanical quibbles and course semantics, all that really divides most Ridge Racer games is their vibes. In this regard, I feel like *V lags a few seconds behind 4. I get it - the potential of a new millennium is far more alluring than actually living in it, and there was no way a PlayStation 2 launch title could compare to a generational capstone... but the aesthetic sensibilities here don't feel as confident or coherent. Type 4's soundtrack plays out like a cohesive album by a single artist, whereas V is more like a compilation CD of electric dance tracks with no specific theme, a gamble of tone that doesn't always pay off. I hit [RANDOM PLAY] in Type 4 and I'll always be happy; in V, certain tracks have me considering whether it's worth just hitting the crash barrier and starting again - that's no good! Relationally, this is in many ways the Tekken 4 to Type 4's Tekken 3. Despite all that, this is, of course, you know it, still leagues and miles better than the vibeless drudgery of Gran Turismo*, which I also played yesterday. You WILL have a good time here, if you stick with it. Guaranteed!