Ridge Racer launched onto the Vita with just three tracks, barely much in the way of music and just a smattering of cars. A few months later and it’s much better stocked, my copy is now rocking nine tracks (plus reverse) and more cars than I’ll ever need – I haven’t really bothered downloading any music even though it’s included in the DLC packs.
DLC packs? Yes, Ridge Racer has two content packs, dubbed Gold and Silver. Each one of them opens up three tracks (hence the total above) and some cars and music, all of which are also available separately, although it makes much more sense to buy the two bundles rather than individual purchases.
Getting to this stage of feeling like the game is approaching completeness wasn’t an easy task, though. Firstly I borrowed Peter’s Japanese import and played it to death. We then got sent a review voucher – from which our 5/10 review was written – from Namco, before I opted to purchase the game myself when the Store finally opened on the Vita itself.
[drop2]My understanding was that in doing so I unlocked the Gold DLC pass, which, after logging in and out a couple of times, appeared to happen – the Gold pass became free on the Store, I downloaded it, and then again after toggling in and out of the app, the Store finally decided to grant me free access to – wait for it – one new track.You see, the DLC was staggered, with tracks rolling in every couple of weeks. This was never really explained in the game’s description, the DLC pass’s description or that of the first track, I only knew this from reading about it online.
So, over the month or so, I dutifully checked the Store (the best way was by simply searching for ‘Ridge Racer’) and downloaded stuff that looked new – the track count finally increased to six and I had a few new cars. Then came the news that a Silver pass was coming, which contained more tracks and more cars, but would cost additional money (the Gold pass is now just over a fiver, too, the deal with getting it free expired a while back).
I don’t mind paying the money, and seeing as the tracks were £1.99 each, the bundle for £3.49 seemed like a good alternative. However, it’s a complete mess on the Store.
The description for the Silver Pass doesn’t make any mention of the tracks you’ll get included – leaving it up to the user to do their own (rather fruitless) web search. “Get your hands on the following downloadable contents” it begins, typo included. And then proceeds to just say: “3 machines, 3 course, 2 new songs, 1 medley song” and “check your current contents to avoid double purchasing.”
Double purchasing what, exactly, it doesn’t say what’s included?
Even the new tracks is just as bad – inside each bit of DLC in the Store none of the three mention the fact that they’re included in the Silver Pass, and Oceanfront Cruise Way says “add a new course to your game with Lost Ruins from RIDGE RACER 7”. Lost Ruins, if you didn’t know, was included in the Gold pass, and certainly isn’t Oceanfront Cruise Way.
[drop]So, for the sake of assisting any potential buyers, the Gold Pass contains: Old Central, Sunset Heights and Lost Ruins, and the Silver Pass contains: Oceanfront Cruise Way, Silver Mountain Skyway and Redstone Thunder Road. See? Simple.The naming of each bit of DLC is also really scrappy – some have RIDGE RACER with a trademark symbol, some don’t, some say COURSE: then the name, some don’t. It looks really unprofessional, and absolutely doesn’t need to be this way.
The music packs are just as bad, some have an odd space before them, some have colons, some don’t, and it’s the same with the cars, sorry, machines. Â Ten minutes would fix all this up and then at least people would have some idea what was new and what wasn’t.
Part of this even feels a little bit cheap and disingenuous – there’s little chance this is done entirely on purpose but it’s entirely possible that someone might buy the tracks and then the Pass, not really knowing what’s inside it until it’s too late and the money’s already been spent. Who writes these descriptions anyway? Namco, SCEE?
This all might not bother you, and chances are you’re not fussed about Ridge Racer anyway, but I am – I love the series and actually really like the Vita version, especially now the DLC has started to flow and the game feels much more complete. But these oddities are a pain, they’re not helpful to the buyer and chances are, are actually putting people off.
Fix your Store, guys.
Forrest_01
I suspect descriptions are in Sonys court (with guidance given from the dev as to what sort of thing they want to get across), but i could well be wrong.
Either way, someone needs to sort it out – Not only does it look bloody messy (a definite no-no from me!), its downright misleading.
What sort of case would a consumer have should they purchase the wrong one due to a misleading description (& lack of red ‘puchased’ bag on the item)?
FluBBa
I don’t even know how many DLC items that doesn’t even state what game they are for (this is in the Swedish Store though), how can they even hope to have people buying it?
I don’t like DLC at most time but I can’t for my life understand how badly the PS Store is run some times…
seravok
The swedish store sucks balls in many ways. The pricing of some content sometimes makes me want to puke. And don’t get me started on missing content. *Cough* Hyper Nep MK.2 *Cough*.
The Lone Steven
So it’s finally happened. SCEE has reached the highest level of cocking up. I know Namco could be at fault but it is SCEE’s responsibilty to check things before they go up on the store.
I mean, how does one mess up a simple description? Just how? *scratches head* Did someone do it whilst drunk? Or did they get their cat to run accross the keyboard and somehow ended up with the current description?
To be honest I was expecting something a lot worse as it’s SCEE. Can i award them the unoffical TSA award of cocking up?
Crocadillian
I love the series too (well, loved), but the fact that the PS Vita version recycles tracks that have been potentially recycled 3-4 times before this felt enough just to not bother sadly, even if this was the case.
If Namco decide to properly release a new Ridge Racer game, like the fond memories I have of Ridge Racer 5 (which was so stylish and well designed IMO), then I will happily invest, but I really don’t know what the hell they’re doing atm with the franchise, apart from bleeding it more dry than I think any publisher has done with any franchise to date, unless someone wants to correct me on that one.
Crocadillian
…and i realize that this comment made more sense in my head than it currently does now. *shame*
R1MJAW
The description on the Gold Pass said ‘by purchasing this content, you can download the above items (which are named in the description) from the store as they become available through March 31st’.
The issue I had with the Gold Pass was the fact that the 5th car and 3rd track were not actually available in europe until the 18th of April … and even then, they just mysteriously appeared on the store without any mention on the EU blog store update posts, mainly because Jawad (the guy in charge of the blog post) had no idea … that very week someone asked about the missing content only to be told that they were coming, although when was anybody’s guess.
Partly because of this, and the fact that I’ve already platinumed the game, I will not be purchasing the Silver Pass.
cam the man
They couldn’t of done a worse job if they tried.
Sympo
Its really lazy on SCEE’s part. I noticed the mistakes and I was like “seriously? more incorrect, half arsed descriptions?”
Awful to see, sack them please.
TSBonyman
If only they had released a full game from the start.
Foxhound_Solid
You are correct!
stueeeee
I honestly don’t see why they couldn’t have waited a few weeks and put all the dlc onto the cartridge, and put the price up a couple of quid. At least then it wouldn’t be taking up precious memory card space, as well as showing the world what a shoddy mess the PS Store can be!
flatspikes
Love the game (I’ve never owned past games, perhaps explains it), the DLC communication and store presence has been shocking. If the content was badly written the content manager at Sony should have bounced it back with coreeciions.
The shame if the game is it is eating up more precious space but then patches of other games are doing the same…