Available for the PS3 and Steam, Namco is releasing Ridge Racer:Driftopia as a free to play racing simulator with an emphasis on “drifting”. It honestly looked pretty standard as far as gameplay is concerned, but much like their Tekken title, what makes this game stand out is the groundwork. The game is free to play, points will buy you “booster packs” of random cars/upgrades/repair kits, and you’ll get a free pack every day, but can spend money to buy more.
That repair kit business is probably the most important. As your car gets wrecked up, or completely totaled, you’ll need to repair it. Cars come in common, uncommon, and rare varieties with the rarer ones taking more repair kits to fix up. They also perform better, so I imagine it’s generally a good idea to keep them in top shape.
Another interesting feature is the asynchronous multiplayer. To explain, imagine you have a completion time of 3 minutes for any given track. When you race, the server will pit you against ghost racers, players that have previously completed the course and did slightly better than you. This will encourage players to better their times, and keep the competition fresh.
I worry slightly about getting a fluke run where I do really well, and then never be able to replicate it, while ghost racers smoke me every try. Maybe an average of your last 5 runs would be better?
