Ridge Racer 6

Apparently a videogame industry superstition would have us believe that if a Ridge Racer game is part of the launch lineup for a new console, then it will be a rip-roaring success. Let’s hope that mojo alone is enough because very little about Ridge Racer 6 will set your  360 on fire.

The gameplay is classic Ridge Racer: You crank through powerslides like a maniac to build up three tiers of nitrous bursts and rocket past airports, through tunnels, and over jumps. A deep World Xplorer Mode offers 230 races on 30 courses and 138 cars to unlock, but all too quickly, they blur together and start feeling so “the same” that you’ll tiredly wonder if you didn’t just accidentally load up an event you’d already beaten. That’s because nothing about RR6 is next-gen, not even the graphics, which are just barely good enough that you’ll grudgingly admit they probably couldn’t run on original Xbox.

True-blue fans of the series will still enjoy the game, especially since it counters its relentless faithfulness to the RR heritage with the series’ first foray into online action (including 14-player races, downloadable content, and uploadable time-trial ghost cars). Thankfully, the sensation of speed is always lickety-split fast, but not in a way that will catapult you off your couch.

Mostly, RR6 is just a good evolution of the spiffy PSP version that hit earlier this year. And that’s not nothing, but it does feel more than a little cheesy when you’re probably expecting it to be one of the early stars on Microsoft’s wünderkind console.