Fans of old, forgotten racing games have been doing pretty well as of late. Over the last two years, we’ve seen the first-ever console releases of Daytona USA 2 and Ridge Racer’s original arcade version. Very soon, Nintendo will even deliver a secret F-Zero spinoff thought entirely lost to time, so one by one, we’re checking off what seemed impossible. Today, we’ve got another white whale to welcome, straight from the arcades. Hamster is bringing 1995’s Rave Racer home via its fantastic Arcade Archives collection, and it’s a big deal.
See, while Namco was cleaning up on the original PlayStation with Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer Revolution, and the especially underrated Rage Racer, it released a totally different game in the arcades, called Rave Racer. (Yeah, I know the names get a little ridiculous here, so please bear with me.)
Rave Racer never got a home conversion, although one was once announced—not for PlayStation, but surprisingly, PCs that used NEC and VideoLogic’s PowerVR graphics card that competed with 3dfx’s Voodoo and Nvidia’s Riva 128 in the mid-to-late ’90s. The second-gen PowerVR chip would go on to power the Sega Dreamcast, and see use by Sega in the arcades as well. Namco had been working to convert Rave Racer, Tekken, and Air Combat 22 for PowerVR’s initial launch, as Edge Magazine extensively reported at the time, but they never came to pass.
Console Archives and Arcade Archives 2 – Announcement Trailer – Nintendo Switch 2
So Rave Racer remained stuck in arcades, where it dazzled players with better graphics, smoother driving physics, and exclusive tracks that you couldn’t get on PlayStation. Where Rage Racer went for an industrial vibe, and R4 chased the avant-garde, Rave Racer continued down the path established by the earliest installments in the franchise, with a glorious but simultaneously bizarre and frankly jarring dance soundtrack. Rave was in the title, after all.
Although Rave Racer never got that home port, Namco did acknowledge it in subsequent Ridge Racer releases after the series’ arcade run ended. The PSP titles included Rave’s exclusive tracks and even delivered some new ones set in the same environments. And choice cuts from the game’s phenomenal soundtrack wound up in later installments as well, so newcomers could experience the sheer bewilderment upon hearing it for the first time.
JAZZ MISSION – Rave Racer
Finally, on February 26, the game will land on Switch 2. We can probably add the original Switch, Xbox Series, PS5, and PS4 to that list as well, though publisher Hamster hasn’t offered more details yet. You can bet I’ll be there on day one; I’ve been waiting for this for 20 years.
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