An arcade racing game with four cars and four tracks where you race to win on every track. There are additional cars and tracks to unlock, with a total of 13 and 8 respectively. Originally developed for the arcades, but later ported and became a launch title for the Sony PlayStation.

As a launch title for the newly released Sony PlayStation, Ridge Racer was very innovative for its time, introducing minor car sim elements intertwined with the gameplay. The player could choose from what course to drive, the car and transmission to use, difficulty, remap controls and more. Race modes include race (against 11 other cars) and time trial (against one other car). The course select screen also displays data about the course's shape and difficulty.

The game has several features and secrets with nods to other games from Namco. For instance, during the loading screen of the game, a game of Galaxian can be played. If cleared perfectly, you can unlock additional 8 cars. The game is the first in the Sony games part number in both Japan and Europe. Players could also play their own music CDs with in game. This was possible due to the game's small file size (4Mb) which could be loaded into RAM and not requiring the original CD.