Ridge Racer 64 brought Namco's arcade/PlayStation racing series to a Nintendo console for the first time. Releasing between R4 and Ridge Racer V, it includes tracks from the original Ridge Racer arcade game as well as the PlayStation sequel, Ridge Racer Revolution. (I never played either, though I did enjoy Rad Racer and Cruis'n USA as a child.) It's a fun game, if you like old-fashioned arcade-style racing. The racing formula found in many other games holds here: you choose one of four cars, its color, automatic or manual transmission, then a track to race on against computer-controlled cars. Cars are rated on four stats: speed, handling, acceleration, and grip. You can also play multiplayer (up to 4) with split screen. Courses are arranged as three sets of three. The three starting tracks are a cityscape (the short track from the original arcade game), mountains and valleys (the easy track from Ridge Racer Revolution), and a new track called Renegade set in the desert o...

Mega Man X reinvented the Mega Man series to universal acclaim, and X2 stays the course. The strength of the formula, which rewards you incrementally as you upgrade the robot hero X, sustained my interest despite the game's difficulty. X again faces eight "Mavericks" (animalian robots) as well as, this time around, three additional "X-Hunters," named Violen, Agile, and Serges (a mistranslation of the French Sagesse, which means wise ). Before you select a stage, you are shown in which stage each X-Hunter is hiding at the moment. Every stage has a secret boss room where they can be fought. Each holds a piece of the robot Zero, who nobly sacrificed himself in the previous game. If X finds and defeats all three hidden bosses, Zero is reassembled. This adds replay value to the game for anyone who doesn't hunt down all the X-Hunters in their first playthrough. As in all Mega Man games, each robot boss has its own themed stage, with different enemies and a differ...