Racing Games.

[Van Dammage]

Booted up a Dreamcast emulator and started playing Sega Rally 2 again. Ahhhhhh my Lovely Lancia Delta and "Game over yeaaaaaaaah!".[nb]Which was the work of Kenji Eno for some insane reason[/nb]

[HappyTree]

The game that got me into console gaming: Midtown Madness 3. Absolutely played the bejeezus out of that game. I still know every nook and cranny of the maps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9wZUIC_4vQ

[hewantstolurkatad]

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.

Has the 360 version the restart race option? It's pretty much a necessity for those fucking races that leave you stranded up in the north west.

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!

Atomika is the one on Paradise I think, can't stand him but sure he might give you a nostalgic kick?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Has the 360 version the restart race option? It's pretty much a necessity for those fucking races that leave you stranded up in the north west.

Thankfully, it does. As much as I'm enjoying the game, I have already got a bit sick of the windfarm. Of course, even if you win, you're still stuck there. I don't understand why they didn't add more events around that area.

Also, being able to choose your own route is fine and dandy, but it really is a pisser when one wrong turn sends you hurtling off in the opposite direction to everyone else. The best tactic I've discovered is to stay in second place until the final stretch and then turbo my way to victory. I wonder if a better approach would have been to randomly generate a route and then fence it off. Thus, instead of a limited number of races with multiple, mostly pointless detours, you'd have a vast amount of more focussed races. It would have also allowed for circuit races.

Still, have I mentioned the speed? Fucking hell, the speed! I unlocked the pseudo Ferarri last night and the game could only have seemed faster if I'd had a leaf blower blasting wind in my face.

[LanceUppercut]

Pity you don't have a x box one as forza  horizon 2  and 3 are some of the best racing games ever forza 6 is a good racing sim, and gold members are getting project cars for free this month.

[HappyTree]

Atomika is the one on Paradise I think, can't stand him but sure he might give you a nostalgic kick?

Is he, ah ok. I played a demo of Paradise and hated it, so never got the game. The open world city racing game I do like is Midnight Club LA. And of course the above-mentioned MM3.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Thankfully, it does. As much as I'm enjoying the game, I have already got a bit sick of the windfarm. Of course, even if you win, you're still stuck there. I don't understand why they didn't add more events around that area.

Also, being able to choose your own route is fine and dandy, but it really is a pisser when one wrong turn sends you hurtling off in the opposite direction to everyone else. The best tactic I've discovered is to stay in second place until the final stretch and then turbo my way to victory. I wonder if a better approach would have been to randomly generate a route and then fence it off. Thus, instead of a limited number of races with multiple, mostly pointless detours, you'd have a vast amount of more focussed races. It would have also allowed for circuit races.

Still, have I mentioned the speed? Fucking hell, the speed! I unlocked the pseudo Ferarri last night and the game could only have seemed faster if I'd had a leaf blower blasting wind in my face.

Yep, the rubber band physics are very easily exploited in Paradise and the lack of fixed tracks makes it a lot less fun to just power miles out in front.


You know, a neat bonus feature would've been tracks with specific locked in routes. Could've been some very easy DLC and all.

[Beagle 2]

Drive Club is £6 or something for the full game at the moment on PSN, I picked it up a couple of days ago and it is bloody good. I had the PS+ version but didn't play it much, but I can see I'm going to be hooked on this for a long time. Not even dipped into bikes yet.

The PS4 could really do with some more racing games though, couldn't it? Is there anything sexy on the horizon?

[Penfold]

Wipeout remake!



Today I downloaded a new version of Burnout Revenge on the 360 because it was only £5 more than buying a crappy used version and it's as great as I remember. I'm tempted to get a XBox copy of Burnout 3 but not sure about the 360 backwards compatibility and don't want to waste £2.50 and have to go to Rochdale.

I did buy a used copy of Virtua Tennis 2009 for 50p and it is good. for tennis.

[HappyTree]

Burnout 3 works fine on the 360. I'm playing it right now!

[Penfold]

Do you work for the recently reinstated Rochdale tourism board?

[HappyTree]

Go into Manchester centre and make an event out of it. It's the original modern city.

[Penfold]

UPDATE!

I did end up going to CEX in Rochdale and purchasing Burnout 3 and it's great. It's also one of my more satisfying bus stories but I'll save that for the satisfying bus stories thread.

I also set up my PS3 again to play Wipeout HD which led me to pre-ordering the new Wipeout Omega Collection.

TODAY I bought Trackmania Turbo for £12 on PSN and I'm really enjoying it. I'm only doing the campaign time trials, and I won't bother with online things. Short fun tracks though.

[hewantstolurkatad]

UPDATE!

I did end up going to CEX in Rochdale and purchasing Burnout 3 and it's great. It's also one of my more satisfying bus stories but I'll save that for the satisfying bus stories thread.

I also set up my PS3 again to play Wipeout HD which led me to pre-ordering the new Wipeout Omega Collection.

TODAY I bought Trackmania Turbo for £12 on PSN and I'm really enjoying it. I'm only doing the campaign time trials, and I won't bother with online things. Short fun tracks though.

How does burnout 3 compare to the 360 version of revenge? I gather revenge has some dumb bullshit added to the game mechanics but I'm curious as to whether they technological upgrades make up for it.

[HappyTree]

I prefer Burnout 3 over Revenge, but they're both similar. The former is harder, more fun in my view, and in the latter you bounce off cars more easily because that is the takedown mechanic, so it's less of a challenge. But can be fun pinging other cars all over the place.

[mobias]

Has anyone here got or played Project Cars? Its looks pretty good but more sim based. I prefer racing games that are more arcade-y.

[Shay Chaise]

I played a lot of Project Cars, yep. I've also played it on Oculus Rift, which was pretty good and the best way to experience it. It's much more sim than arcade.

It does certain things very well, the tracks in particular are tremendously accurate. I have a mate who races around Europe regularly and he tows his car there behind a souped up van. He has Project Cars set up in the back, cockpit, force feedback wheel and everything and whenever he stops off for the evening, he 'rehearses' the track he's going to. He said it's changed his racing because he is so much more familiar with every nuance and bump and elevation of the track.

On the other hand, it feels curiously devoid of soul or excitement or even speed. When you're going too fast and you know you're going to fly off the track, you don't feel anything. This is different in VR, where it is pretty jawdropping, but even with a wheel, it kind of lacks that immediacy, which I think DriveClub has in spades. When you take a flying corner and barely hold onto it, you just feel...OK.

And equally disappointing is that it is so simmy in structure. There's basically no career mode to speak of because there's no progression. Everything is unlocked from the start so there's no real impetus to try different vehicles or the less interesting tracks, so it does get a bit boring pretty quickly. I mean, there is a career mode but it involves you starting out with Kart racing which is absolutely awful, just a total misstep.

And worse, the main dev is a total bell end and was really disrespectful in response to community feedback. They basically decided to announce a sequel rather than fix a load of issues with the base game instead.

Have you played Dirt Rally? Best driving game on PS4 for my money.

[mobias]

I haven't played Dirt Rally but I was definitely thinking of getting Dirt 4 when it comes out. I know a couple of people who work at Codemasters and apparently Dirt 4 is a real step change from what they've done before, in a good way, I'm hearing a lot of positive things about it anyway. I guess the influence of the guys from Evolution Studios being brought in is maybe starting to be seen.

I'll give Project Cars a miss I think. I'm really not a fan of sim racers, they always feel curiously soulless and boring. DriveClub got things about right in its mix of sim based fun but with a vague sense of realism. Apparently Dirt 4 does a similar thing but you can actually choose if you want an even more sim based feel to the game. 

Its a crying shame DriveClub isn't getting a PS4 Pro patch.

[Bazooka]

Waverace is a series that needs a comeback, I mean Jet Skiing is as popular as ever right?

[biggytitbo]

Some racers ive been enjoying recently are Redout. Weird to think that this is basically exactly the same as wipeout but actually fast. I used to think the original wipeout was impossibly fast but it only ran, at best, at 30fps. Redout is uncapped and so insanely fast in comparison it seems impossible to control at first, but after a while it becomes second nature and massively satysing. On a similar front, Sega and sonic all star racing kart racer borrows its controls from the great 2006 outrun, also runs at a silky smooth 60fps and is fantastic fun, even the gimmicky mix of flying, racing and boating is impeccably well balanced. Only downside is the characters outside of the sonic ones are all shite. Blur is a great mix of a tradional racer and Mario kart and Burnout Paradise is basically a mix of every racer ever in an open world. I know some people hate it but there's so much game there, and you can play it anyway you like that it earns its place. Of course the aformentioned outrun 2006 on ps2 is probably still the pinnacle, at least of arcade racers. 

[Bazooka]

I recently played F-Zero 64 on the VC, it doesn't hold up well at all, it's simply just very boring. I would like a new one though.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Wipeout Omega Collection has finally been released. I gave it a go earlier, but there was a grand total of two tracks downloaded at that point. It's rather a large file.

[Cuntbeaks]

Excite Truck on the Wii U is absolutely fantastic, the faster than necessary invincibility mode is a thing of beauty as is the preposterous air time you can achieve. A hidden gem of a game.

[mobias]

Wipeout Omega Collection has finally been released. I gave it a go earlier, but there was a grand total of two tracks downloaded at that point. It's rather a large file.

Yeah I was thinking of getting this for the PS4 Pro. Its meant to be quite impressive in 4K. I might wait until its on offer though.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I haven't played any of the Wipeout games in well over a decade and, in all that time, I certainly haven't improved.

[Blue Jam]

Forza 5 is now free with Games With Gold on the Xbone. It features the voices of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard The Hamster Hammond HE'S NOT A REAL HAMSTER and I think The Stig pops up somewhere but don't let that put you off- I've been enjoying it and I'm crap at racing games.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane is also available- I'm not sure what they're doing giving away two racing games at once, but I'm just pleased that for once the Games With Gold selection isn't totally shit.

[Shay Chaise]

Cheers. Totally forgot that was coming. Forza Horizon 3 is probably the best driving game I've ever played. Pure fun and beautiful. Keen to try one of the Motorsport games too.

[Beagle 2]

Wipeout is fucking brill. It is tough, but I love that "one more go" hook. I've been playing Wip3out on the PS1 recently and this seems a lot easier compared.

[Famous Mortimer]

I bought "Need For Speed: Payback" recently, with a new XBox One. The driving parts are, as ever, loads of fun, and the story is sub-Fast and Furious nonsense (though still a laugh), but the system they put in place for microtransactions seems to have finally backfired on them. Upgrades to your car are cards, and you can buy better ones with real money - or rather, whatever barrier they put in between your actual $$ and their credits, to set up dissonance about how much you're actually spending on a slightly faster car.

I completed it sharpish, though, and went back to the 2015 version, because I loved the super-cheesy FMV storytelling it had.

Next up is Forza Horizon 3, which is apparently much better than either of the last two NFSs. 

[Bazooka]

Never understood the appreciation for Burnout Paradise, long races but a ball ache to start new races without a selection menu, the open world format is flawed as takes too long to enjoy the 'Burnout' format.