Top 5 Games for the RG351P – Great Games To-Go

Ridge Racer Type 4 is the fourth entry in Namco’s famous Ridge Racer series. It is the first entry that was made exclusively for home consoles.

R4 is one of the most popular iterations of the Ridge Racer franchise, due to it’s effective combination of jazzy, high-energy music, uniquely beautiful visuals, and highly addictive racing mechanics.

R4 was one of the first games on the PS1 to use gouraud shading, giving the cars and tracks a unique visual depth that had never been seen in the franchise before.

Kingdom Hearts – Birth By Sleep is the sixth entry in Kingdom Hearts franchise. A series of action RPGs that combine RPG elements with engaging hack & slash gameplay. It serves as a prequel of sorts and provides greater context for the games that came before it.

The Kingdom Hearts series is a unique collaboration between Square Enix and Disney – meaning that cartoonish Disney characters are mixed in with the brooding, “anime” styled protagonists and antagonists. And it is all played completely straight.

While the story is a point of controversy for it’s confusing and complex nature, the games themselves stand well enough on gameplay alone. With satisfying combat having you wield a mixture of spells and acrobatics to defeat your enemies.

If you’re looking for a more retro-styled racing game, Top Gear may be a great pick. Published by Kemco in 1992, Top Gear is a relatively standard take on the racing game formula at the time.

It does not bring anything particularly unique to the table that you wouldn’t find in other racing games of the era. However, the overall experience is solid, the controls are responsive, and races can be tense and down-to-the-wire.

Top Gear also supports local multiplayer, meaning it can be used with RetroArch’s built-in netplay function.

(Despite the name, Top Gear bears no relation to the popular British motorist TV show of the same name).

A fast paced rail shooter played from a third person perspective, Space Harrier is one of SEGA’s most popular arcade properties of the 1980’s.

The player controls Harrier – a character wielding a large jet-propelled laser cannon that allows them to both fly and shoot, as they tear their way through surreal landscapes composed of stone heads, giant robots, and other strange imagery.

For the time, Space Harrier’s visuals were quite breath-taking, and while very clearly dated, have retained their charm. This coupled with the fast paced (albeit shallow) gameplay makes Space Harrier an excellent game for when you just want to pick up and play something for a few minutes.

Plus, thanks to save states, you no longer need to give up progress between sessions!

Hogs of War is a tactical turn-based third person shooter set in a parodical World War 1 styled setting, where bipedal pigs take the place of humans.

Players take turns controlling their team of pigs (all of whom are voice-acted) as they eliminate foe after foe with a variety of lethal weapons, explosives and gadgets through a multi-level campaign.

Hogs of War was very clearly inspired by the Worms’ series of turn based tactical shooters. However, it predates Worms’ first 3D outing by approximately three years.