In this ever evolving world of hyper-realism and high-definition hoo-hah, you can always rely on Ridge Racer to take things back to basics. Flying in the face of Gran Turismo's beneath-the-bonnet tinkering and the over-the-top mud bath that is MotorStorm, this latest installment of Namco's arcade racing series is high-speed rubber-burning at its purest and most simple. In fact, cosmetic details aside, playing it is more like stepping back in time rather than embracing the next generation and there isn't a great deal to separate Ridge Racer 7 from the original game that ushered in the PlayStation back in 1995.
Thing is, Ridge purists wouldn't want it any other way and, after playing ever-more complex racers swamped with unnecessary options and modes, playing something that's so straightforward, so - dare we say it - old school, actually makes for a refreshing change.
That's not to say Ridge Racer 7 doesn't offer anything new. Take the Ridge State Grand Prix for example. It's a fleshed-out career mode that serves as the main event in the game, a sprawling racing season where players start out with… well, nothing, not even a car. Before you can make a name for yourself out on the circuit you have to earn the right to compete with the best, by driving in a trial race. Win - which, to be honest, is a complete breeze - and you're awarded a car and are free to steer your racing career in any direction you wish.

From the title, I honestly couldn't put it together with bumper cars. So I had no idea what to expect from Big Bumpin'... until I saw the packaging and all was made clear. Big Bumpin' is very difficult for me to review since it depends heavily on color identification for telling which player is yours and there are various color-related identifiers in the levels for various game types, as I'm red-green color-blind. So this game is confusing, but fun. The game types all work online, and include some obvious and some not-so-obvious variations on smashing bumper cars into each other. The whole idea seems somewhat like a paintball game to me, in that you play bumper cars to knock people in cars around because you can't have the actual experience. Just like you play paintball because you aren't going to have the actual experience of a fire fight. However, unlike paintball games, in this game the bumper cars do explode.