It's the year 2012.
Britto bags were all the rage, Gangnam Style was the soul-sonic force, Rage comics were insane and the Mayan ApocalypseIt's the year 2012.
Britto bags were all the rage, Gangnam Style was the soul-sonic force, Rage comics were insane and the Mayan Apocalypse was right around the corner. Back in those days Android based devices weren't as capable as today, I never saw any truly 3d games that were breath taking until I got my hands on a Nabi 2. The tablet was filled to the brim with games from the start, but the one title that ate the damned cake to show off the abilities of the Nvidia Tegra 2 was Riptide Grand Prix.
The Nabi 2 had a demo, mind you, not the full game. The moment I saw the incredible and tight graphics being held by my hands I saw the future.
The graphics were tight as hell, my mind was really blown away because I hadn't seen anything like it for Android. Most of the games I had seen like Tap Tap Revenge were sprite based, so seeing a high polygon, high resolution game run smoothly was a treat.
The moment you open the game you're met with rich water graphics and a blue sky. The gameplay itself is your run-of-the-mill racer. It has the Grand Prix itself, a Hot Lap mode and simply Race.
The difficulty was set at 250cc, 500cc and 1000cc with the AI getting tighter and the speed getting crazier, making turning and jumping harder the higher you chose it to be. You had to pass each track as first place so you could unlock all the tracks [there being 5, but they were also available in reverse] which were a total of 10.
The tracks themselves are very sporty and futuristic, giving out a very Utopian feel; this, however was counteracted with some areas that in real life are completely impossible because physics really don't allow for it.
Today you might look at the game and not think much of it since there are so many better titles with more content and even Vector Unit themselves have created a broader series out of RGP with Riptide GP: Renegade, which offers a deeper story within the Utopian world you take a part in because of the sport; I can't help but look back at how this game broke the mold and set a higher standard back when rendering full, high poly 3d graphics was difficult on mobile devices. This game paved the way for better development which allowed my 2 year old cellphone to run this game just as good as it would've on the Nabi 2 I had when this game came out.
I congratulate Vector Unit with this entry, for filling a huge gap that nobody was feeding at the time and much more importantly: I thank them for giving me something amazing that I feel nostalgic for.… Expand
