Racing Games.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I was alphabetising my games yesterday (because I'm perfectly normal) and realised that I haven't bought a racing game since Mario Kart on the DS, over a decade ago. It's not my favourite genre[nb]I know this must come as a shocking statement from me, a racecar driver.[/nb], but sometimes you just can't beat a good racer.

My preference leans toward the more arcade style end of the spectrum. I've given the Gran Turismo games a few tries over the years and never much cared for them - any racing game that forces you to slow down is doing things wrong, in my opinion. Possibly the most interesting bits of the Nintendo Switch videos I've seen have been the glimpses of new Mario Kart and, I'm guessing, F-Zero games. However, I'm not going to drop over three hundred quid on a new console just for them, so where should I (a PS4 owner) go looking a for a fix of non-drugs speed?

Also, whatever happened to the Wipeout series? I know Psygnosis went bust at some point, but those games seemed like a big deal back then. Their trendy soundtracks and graphic design undoubtedly had a hand in dragging games into the mainstream. Did everyone just move on?

[hewantstolurkatad]

Wipeout fury on ps3 is meant to be a peach, last game by that team iirc.


Burnout Paradise is a bit annoying with the open world but I struggle to find anywhere even attempting to argue an arcade racer has matched that series since.

Blur, Split Second, the criterion need for Speed games

[hewantstolurkatad]

No one replied since?

Damn, okay, i'm gonna expand anyways.
The branch of Psygnosis that made the Wipeouts became Sony Liverpool. Their last games proper were the PSP Wipeouts, which were collected and released in HD on PSN, the PSN game also had a download pack that's basically meant to be a whole great game of its own.

Having played it again recently, Burnout 3 is the best in the series but definitely feels rusty and has huge compatibility issues across emulators and such in my experience so you may as well go with Paradise, get it on PC so you can delete a certain track that's overplayed and it should be a treat.


I've heard the more recent Outrun games hold up well. Ultimately it's quite a neglected genre over the past decade from what I can see but I'd imagine there's very little of a market relative to how much they must cost to make one that plays well.
Split Second flopped, Blur flopped hugely and Criterion have been thoroughly gutted. The safe money is very much in boring-as-fuck realism. Whoever can figure out how to make a very fun racer at a budget price stands to make absolute bank.

Criterion were approached by Nintendo to make an F-Zero for the Wii U, can barely imagine how amazing that could've been.

[Sivead]

Redout is a nextgen homage to WipEout/F-Zero, hopefully comes to the ps4.  Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed wicked fun Mario kart substitute, I'm probably alone in preferring it.  Table Top Racing World Tour is cheap and cheerful too.

[Penfold]

There's a Wipeout collection due out in Summer which is a collection of Wipeout HD, the Fury add on and the Vita's 2048.

https://youtu.be/UPDVgSL42sE

I loved it on PS3.

Also add me to the Split Second appreciation list, I preferred it to Blur but that was good too.

New Micro Machines game in April, I have fond memories of the SNES version.

The only PS4 racing games I own are Driveclub and Project Cars, I still like Driveclub. I haven't played The Crew or Trackmania Turbo but they are more arcadey.

[Shay Chaise]

I own several but it's not my favourite genre. I did almost platinum DriveClub on PS4, though. Maybe my favourite driving game ever, besides Mario Kart, and looks sensational.

Dirt Rally, also on PS4, is more of a sim, and can be really hard at first if you expect to hold down on the gas, but it's incredibly satisfying when you get a feel for it. It reminds me of Wipeout in a strange way because of the sense of flow. You reach a point where you're basically gliding round corners, reading the road ahead subconsciously, knowing just what you have to do. Usually, I will then lose concentration and get wrapped round a tree but it's a remarkable game.

Fast Racing Neo on Wii U is also very F-Zero/Wipeout. It's very fast, looks great and feels pretty good. It's coming to the Switch, as is Redout, mentioned above.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Ultimately it's quite a neglected genre over the past decade from what I can see but I'd imagine there's very little of a market relative to how much they must cost to make one that plays well.

This was the feeling I got. Aside from the Forza series, I haven't really heard about any big racers over the last few years. It's all military shooters and sandbox games these days. Also, when even Mortal Kombat includes some big silly storyline, could the racing genre's focus on pure gameplay be unfashionable?

I might well grab Burnout Paradise. I have Burnout 2 on the PS2 and that's exactly what I look for in a racer.

[Van Dammage]

any racing game that forces you to slow down is doing things wrong, in my opinion.

Some games can blend the arcade and realism well I feel. The first Grid game is a good example of this. You can bash into other racers or use their cars to slow you down as you round a corner. When you brake to go around a corner it doesn't actually feel too slow either, unlike Forza or Gran Turismo. From the start you have powerful cars like a 70s mustang as well so it doesn't really feel like a grind to get the better cars in career. (Everything is unlocked for single races though)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GavIFXWabW8 - One of the first videos I came across.

It was free on the Humble Bundle recently but if you didn't pick it up then its probably cheap anyway. Came out about 10 years ago.

[Bazooka]

Gran Turismo is very good but unless you are a gear head the console versions can be a lot to bite your teeth into, the PSP GT was may favourite because it was so easy to pick up and play.

Mario Kart goes without saying.

Burnout Paradise is a pain in the arse to enjoy if you ask me, even Burnout 1 is more fun by a long shot.

Grid Autosport on PS3/360/PC was a lot of fun too, although you couldn't choose certain cars for certain track etc if I remember. This applies to many racers though. Same with Ridge Racer(more Arcade series though)

SSX: An unsung hero of the racer games if you ask me, yes tricks etc are included but some really fun courses.

[ASFTSN]

No interest in racing games, really.

UNLESS they are set in the future and have guns.  In which case I have had some great times with them.

The Wipeout series was fantastic, many hours of majestically smooth gaming fun there, the highlight of the original PSP for me with Pure and Pulse, a great fit for that console - really one of those things where they are dependent on slowly increasing your muscle memory/familiarity until you're playing at unbelievably fast speeds.  I gave Pulse a spin the other day after a break of several years and was abysmal at it.  I think I played Wipeout 1, 2097, Wip3out, Pure, Pulse...I think that's all.  As much as I loved them it's possible they went as far as they could with the idea 

I mentioned Rollcage and Rollcage Stage 2 in another thread, great games and very underrated.  The being able to drive when your vehicle was flipped was a gimmick, but an incredibly fun one when combined with the crazy weaponry and driving at 999kph.

Where is this generations Demolition Derby, or even better, Carmageddon?  We could do with another bad-taste splatter hit n' run-em up.  Not sure how it would go down in these constrained times to be honest.  With the increase in hardware they  could really push the huge, sprawling levels full of secrets that you need to abuse the pinball physics that they had in Carmageddon Splat Pack.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Burnout Paradise is a pain in the arse to enjoy if you ask me, even Burnout 1 is more fun by a long shot.

Wouldn't go that far at all
In the context of being a followup to Revenge, I think it works pretty well as a means to add some variety to a series that had perhaps gone as far as it could go. The experiment, while ultimately resulting in less fun races and it becoming more about gaming the system (it's very easy to manipulate the rubber band physics, some of the races are a fucking misery too... I mean, "drive to the crystal summit observatory", fuck off, yeah?), was a solid try, the city is still really fun to just drive around, it's only the races that suffer.
As the only Burnout game to come out after the sixth generation of videogame consoles, it's a disappointment to not just have a dozen plus well made tracks, it's a crushing disappointment to not have all of what made Burnout 3 such an utterly perfect game.




Dunno if I mentioned in this thread already but I was looking at some footage of F-Zero GX just there and it looks amazing

[mobias]

Motorstorm is the only racing game I got seriously into. The first two were superb. There's a lot of people puzzled why Sony hasn't remastered Motorstorm Pacific Rift for the PS4. It could still hold its own against some current gen games I think. It was a superb technical achievement.

I tried my hardest to like Evolution studios follow up Driveclub on the PS4 but I just go bored with it. For all its graphical beauty there just wasn't the same sense of spectacle and excitement. What Motorstorm did right was acknowledge that crashing in car racing, or the possibility of crashing, is one of the main things people get excited about.

Sadly both SSX and Burnout have been killed off by EA. Criterion Studios are pretty much no more and the 2012 reboot of SSX didn't set the world on fire enough for EA's to even think about giving it any DLC let alone a sequel.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

any racing game that forces you to slow down is doing things wrong, in my opinion

Nope, nailing a breaking point and carrying speed through the lap is a better feeling than just zooom.

It takes concentration and getting it right is more rewarding.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Where is this generations Demolition Derby, or even better, Carmageddon?  We could do with another bad-taste splatter hit n' run-em up.  Not sure how it would go down in these constrained times to be honest.  With the increase in hardware they  could really push the huge, sprawling levels full of secrets that you need to abuse the pinball physics that they had in Carmageddon Splat Pack.

This generation literally has a Carmageddon, but what I played was an unpolished, badly optimised bug-fest. Granted I only played the early access version, but even the proper release version was very poorly received.

[imitationleather]

I used to really love Gran Turismo on the PS2.

Since then it's been Mario Kart or nowt for me. If you have ten minutes you need to kill and require an emergency distraction that game never lets you down.

[Obel]

It'd be abominable for the current gen of consoles not to get a proper Burnout game. 60fps, sense of speed and some great physics so we can bring back the crash mode. That was one of the main reasons I spent so many hours on Burnout 3. Best Burnout IMO.

[ASFTSN]

This generation literally has a Carmageddon, but what I played was an unpolished, badly optimised bug-fest. Granted I only played the early access version, but even the proper release version was very poorly received.

Well I never.  Shame it didn't come off very well - actually those videos look like it's pretty dead on to the spirit of the original, better than the 2nd one anyway.  Although it does look like they've recycled a good few of the tracks from the original and splat pack.

[hewantstolurkatad]

It'd be abominable for the current gen of consoles not to get a proper Burnout game. 60fps, sense of speed and some great physics so we can bring back the crash mode. That was one of the main reasons I spent so many hours on Burnout 3. Best Burnout IMO.

Not happening. Here's a pretty good retrospective interview with one of the key team members from 2014 http://caneandrinse.com/iain-angus-burnout-paradise-interview/

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I dusted off the PS2 earlier and gave Burnout 2 a spin. Good gracious, it's sheer perfection. The risk/reward way you build up the turbo boost is a masterstroke.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Had a looksee of what exactly Dangerous Golf (first game by the new studio set up by the founders of Criterion) was and, well, it's basically a really shit version of Crash Mode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXAkh9YK3Vc

What it really looks like though, is a tech demo for larger game, so I wouldn't rule them out.

[buzby]

I was a massive fan of the Gran Turismo series from it's first incarnation, playing them all through to 100% completion up until GT5 on the PS3, where I just lost interest half way through. I think I played the single track download demo version more than the actual game.

Ridge Racer was another one - I completed them all numerous times (I can still get the fastest possible time on the original RR by driving the track without braking at all) but after completing Ridge Racer V on the PS2 I lost interest in the series. Part of that was probably because V moved away from the arcade action into more like a career-mode game.

Codemaster's TOCA and Colin McRae series (which evolved into Grid and Dirt). I loved TOCA up until it became Race Driver on the PS2 and they implemented the crappy story mode which turned me off completely. I went off the McRae games after 4 on the PS2, then bought Dirt when I got a PS3 but was put off by it not really being about rallying anymore (which I think was to appeal more to the US market, as rallying is a very minority motorsport over there);

I used to really like the V-Rally games too (I held a couple of stage records on the game's website league table in the olden days), despite being burned by V-Rally 2 (I think it was that one) being impossible to win all the rallies because of graphics slowdown issues on one of the stages in the last rally in Hard mode.

A one off game I really, really loved was Shox on the PS2:

A very entertaining arcade rally game with great handling (sort of like Sega Rally for the PS2) and it had some classic rally cars (like the Alitalia Lancia Stratos, Martini Porsche 911SC and Hannu Mikkola's Eaton Yale RS1800 Escort) and the Group B cars as unlockables.

Another was Super Trucks on the PS2, which was based on the FIA Truck Racing World Championship:

They got the handling of the trucks really right, and the rubbing and nudging that's part of the real thing

The PS2 Le Mans 24 Hours game was also really good, (though biased more towards simulation than arcade) and gave you the option to do the full 24 hour race if you wanted (which I did, once).

[Dex Sawash]

^did an AI driver take shifts, or you drove for 24 hours?

[buzby]

^did an AI driver take shifts, or you drove for 24 hours?

No, I did it all with a few rest periods. I did stints of 4 hours on, 1 hour off (with the game on pause, usually when I'd come in for a pitstop) so it took about 30 hours in total. Not something I ever wanted to repeat. The game has very realistic random weather as well, and there were a couple of periods of heavy rain over that time.

[Dex Sawash]

That is impressive/horrifying.

For GT or GT2 I saw a cheat online that said 43 laps without running off, done backward, of track X (high speed ring?) with a stock Fiat 500 would unlock the whole garage or million dollars or something. I would always manage to run off by lap 30 or so. Probably wasn't even a real cheat.

[HappyTree]

I got Dangerous Golf in the Steam sale and it would be good if the controlling the ball weren't so extreme. Burnout crash mode was one of the funnest things ever in any game.

Burnout 3 and Revenge were brilliant. I also really enjoyed Flatout 2 on Xbox. Sadly no 360 backwards compat. Burnout has its crash time, Flatout has lots of crazy mini games with a rag doll driver. You have to fling him about to do ski jumps, play darts, etc. A lorra fun. And the racing was not bad either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqdM0ke9rzA

[mobias]

Has everyone being following the recent announcement for Dirt 4? Looks really promising. Mainly for me because it has two completely different drive modes. You can either play it as an arcade racer or as more of a sim. I've don't know why more racing games don't do this. It'll be following on from criticism that Dirt Rally was too challenging for all but the most hard core racing fans. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-30-dirt-4-is-more-evidence-that-codemasters-is-back-on-track

[Blue Jam]

Rocket League. I'm rubbish at it but I still enjoy it immensely.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I thought that was a sort of football game.

After having fun with Burnout 2 (and getting annoyed by the horribly upscaled s-video picture) the other day, I bought Burnout Paradise for the 360. The open world approach is occasionally annoying and I miss Crash Mode, but it's hard to care when it's so eyeball blisteringly fast.

Now I'm more annoyed that the genre seems to be in a rut.

[HappyTree]

I broke out Burnout 3 the other day. Starting at the beginning again. Lovely! I even like the cheesy DJ, he adds to the sense of occasion. Though the best DJ for that is in SSX3. Atomika rulez!

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

I bought and downloaded a copy of Gran Turismo 6 for the ps3. It was 20 quid phone credit that I exchanged for credit on the PS store. It did take an eternity to download, install and update, around 12 hours in total. It's good fun to play with a few drinks which is now frowned upon in real life but essentially it's more of the same.

The best racing game of all time is probably Road Rash on the mega drive.