Reiko Nagase

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reiko Nagase (Japanese: 永瀬麗子 Nagase Reiko) is the virtual girl used as a race queen in Rage Racer and R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 for Sony PlayStation, Ridge Racer 64 for Nintendo 64 and Ridge Racer for the PSP.

She was also one of the bonus characters available to play as or against in Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis, for the PSOne, alongside fellow Namco characters including Richard Miller (from Time Crisis), Pac-Man, and Yoshimitsu and Heihachi Mishima in their Tekken 3 incarnations. She also appeared as a playable character in Namco's party game Pac-Man Fever alongside characters like Pac-Man, Heihachi, and Astaroth from Soul Calibur II.

A similar-looking character, Kei Nagase, had a role in Ace Combat 5, and may be related to Reiko.

In an article reproduced on the TG Archive, Incite Video Gaming magazine - February 2000 states that Reiko had an interesting beginning. Apparently, Reiko's Japanese developer used his own face for the basis of Reiko's.

Originally, Reiko was replaced by Ai Fukami in Ridge Racer V , but several online petitions showed that Reiko was much more popular. Reiko was put back in for Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer 6 on the Xbox 360. She also appears in Ridge Racer 7 for the PlayStation 3.