What are your favorite racing games?

abbotsbury@lemmy.world to Games@lemmy.world – 241 points –

Sim, arcade, simcade, anything. I'm kinda disconnected from the genre and want to know what is considered the GOATs of racing games to try them out.

Me personally, I'd say Dirt Rally 2, very addicting gameplay.

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TrackMania -- I recommend Nations Forever if you're starting out; it's free and Nations was the "meta" environment (different environments have different physics) for a long time, so there's a fuckton of custom content for it.

As for what it is: it's like the racing genre's Quake equivalent. It's also like super hot wheels. And it's like Mario Maker. You make all kinds of crazy tracks with it, like Mario Maker. The tracks feature all kinds of wall rides, half-pipes, jumps, loops, and so on, with nothing more than inertia holding you to the track; like hot wheels. And finally, like Quake (and Mario Maker), the high-level players are bat shit insane.

This is the game where you get people who can hit a jump at just the right angle so they thread the needle through a series of holes barely larger than the car while travelling at speeds well above 300mph (welcome to TrackMania, I don't think there's a speed cap). They also do it using keyboards. Seriously. High-level TrackMania players use keyboards, not gamepads or, god forbid, racing wheels.

All of that said, no pressure because you're mainly racing yourself, even in multiplayer. You're trying to get the best time on a track, and multiplayer is basically the same, except your time is being compared with everyone else's. There isn't even any vehicle collision (strangely, there's an option for it, but it doesn't seem to do anything).

Play TrackMania. Is fun.

Seconding Trackmania, though I'd recommend playing the latest one released in 2020 rather than Nations Forever. A year's access to everything is $20 and you get tons of content to play.

For a game that is at its core can be played at the highest levels with just 4 buttons it is incredibly complex with an insane skill ceiling. I'm pretty good and the difference between me and the top players is absolutely insane. The game is a bit beginner unfriendly, mostly because you are going to suck against good players because there are tons of mechanics that the developer tells you nothing about and unless you watch a video you aren't likely to understand why players are leaving you in the dust.

This is the game where you get people who can hit a jump at just the right angle so they thread the needle through a series of holes barely larger than the car while travelling at speeds well above 300mph (welcome to TrackMania, I don’t think there’s a speed cap). They also do it using keyboards. Seriously. High-level TrackMania players use keyboards, not gamepads or, god forbid, racing wheels.

The max speed is 999 km/h, which is only acheivable with speed drifting, but speed in excess of 800km/h are not uncommon to hit in certain kinds of tracks. Your statement about controls also isn't correct, most of the top players play with controller, but there are some that are keyboard players, there is even a couple insane ones that play wheel (most notably Granady).

Huh, I was under the impression that high level players used keyboards and that gamepads were unusual. I was almost certain I'd read that keyboards were considered better because they were full-on/full-off instead of analog; the logic being that it let you respond faster. Where an analog stick would have some ramp-up time when you switch directions, a keyboard would register a full press the moment the key is pressed far enough to complete the circuit. Meanwhile, the physics of Nations were made with keyboards in mind, so analog controls wouldn't offer that much of an improvement.

At least, I was sure that's what I'd read.

Edit: that may have been before TrackMania 2, I'm not even sure if Nations supports analog controls. I haven't played any of the games after Nations/United.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all the control schemes depending on the types of tracks you play, the surface you play, and the car/environment you play.

Most good players play with controller because there are many situations you run into where you want the precision of steering a specific amount around a corner, or you are playing a track where you want to either speed drift (SD) at a specific angle (e.g. fullspeed or higher speed dirt/grass/plastic) or want to keep your steering under a certain angle to no slide (e.g. low speed dirt/grass/plastic).

There are techniques such as neosliding where it is much easier to do them in keyboard as it requires multiple taps in quick succession. It is also easier to play keyboard when you need to make turns where timing of a full steer is important (e.g. ice).

Considering cars other than the stadium car you start getting into situations where one control scheme is far superior than others. The snow and rally environments require smooth steering so wheel is superior there, but controllers are a good middle ground. Desert is faster with tapping movements over smooth steering so keyboard is a bit better there. I recall canyon is a bit better with keyboard as well.

This all applies equally regardless of whether you are playing older or newer games, analog and digital controls are available in all the PC games.

I was curious enough that I looked into it a bit and it sounds like the difference is negligible at this point because they added keyboard binds for partial presses in response to analog keyboards(?). Again, I haven't played TM2 or anything after, last game I played was TMUF/TMNF, so I haven't tried using them myself, however when I was looking to see what the kb/controller/wheel split was I found a lot of people saying that there isn't a strong reason to use one over the other anymore due to the new binds.

Edit: it actually makes me kinda happy to talk about this. I loved the games as a teenager, but they were too niche and I never had anyone to talk to about them.

Edit 2: damn, I remember finding the OG game at Fry's and thinking it looked like the coolest game ever and getting confused when no one else thought it was sick as fuck (everyone was into Halo and CoD, and tbf, I was into them too; but I had patrician tastes that spanned multiple genres, not like the casuals I grew up around u.u)

Yeah they added "action keys" that can trigger different percentage presses (20-40-60-80-100%) as a "fix" because the bobsleigh blocks they added in the new game were not keyboard friendly and they wanted to even the playing field. They eventually changed the physics to get rid of that specific need (but not completely) but they are still useful in some situations.

Download the newest game! It has a free access tier which gets you access to the first 10 tracks of the quarterly campaign and to the ranked mode. It is a bit limited but enough to see if you might get back into it. There is a decent community on reddit for the game.

High-level TrackMania players use keyboards, not gamepads or, god forbid, racing wheels.

It's wild to me that some players like GranaDyy are actually able to compete using a racing wheel.

I really enjoy open world racing games. Forza horizon and the crew being two of my favourites.

Lego 2k Drive is a great one. Micro transactions are sadly pushed pretty hard, but I just played with my Switch in airplane mode and that made it pretty easy to ignore them

Forza Horizon 4 is my favourite, 5 is mostly meh.

Then we have Beamng, that is increadible

Speaking of Forza Horizon, they're really cheap on Steam currently. FH4 is only 4 dollars.

FH4 is only 4 dollars

What country do you live in? For me it's currently $/€14 in the regular version, 20 for the deluxe ultimate edition.

Also note that the game will be getting delisted in december, so now might be the last chance to get it at a discount.

It's 16 canuck bucks for me here. You must get some good pricing in your region.

Ah yeah, must be one of the rare cases where regional prices are really favorable.

Yep, but you can't get all DLC any more, its absolutely worth it, still, but I just wanted to let people know

Favourite racing game is always highly dependent on what I am looking for.

Forza Motorsport 4 (Not Horizon) was one of the best racing simcades i've enjoyed playing, it has solid sim-ish racing and it is very satisfying to build up a garage and take a car for a spin on some of the gorgeous original or real life racetracks. Unfortunately, it's an xbox 360 exclusive and not backwards compatible on xbox one or series x, so not really playable on current systems. I am stll looking for a similar experience on a modern pc.

I also enjoy "Project Cars" and it's sequel "Project Cars 2". I can easily play the games on my current PC or the Steam Deck, but the game can be challenging on a gamepad - not impossible, but managable. It does lack some beautiful original tracks as it only features real life circuits and it does lack the satisfaction of having to "earn" and build up a collection of cars and making them your own. Unfortunately, both games have been delisted on storefronts and can no longer officially be purchased, but if you can get your hands on a PC Key, you can still enjoy the games on a modern system.

If I want to enjoy some sim racing, I'll go with Assetto Corsa or Assetto Corsa Competizione. Great fun with a steering wheel, not really my thing with a gamepad. Modding possibilities for AC are basically endless on PC, but again, lacking some sort of progression system that will allow you to build up a car collection.

Forza Horizon 3 with its Hot-Wheels Expansion was probably my favourite open-world arcade racer, unfortunately it's also delisted, and while I still have the physical xbox one version, that means I can't play it on PC. Forza Horizon 4 (with the Lego expansion) is the next best thing (still far better than FH5) and is still available on PC, but will also be delisted in december (grab FH4 while you still can!)

I have also spent a lot of time playing Burnout Paradise, but I still prefer Burnout Revenge over it's younger open-world brother.

Wreckfest is a great spiritual succesor to the already great Flatout 1/2 and certainly the best banger racer you can currently get. The damage model is very convicing and it's good fun to wreck some CPU racers.

BLUR - an underrated battle racer, with a really fun 4 player splitscreen. Calling it "Mario Kart with real cars" is, imho a bit too simple, but it does get the point across quite well.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005) - early 2000s yellow/brown tinted aesthetics aside, the game still looks good today and police chases can go on forever. Great fun.

Not a racing game, but a honorable mention: American/Euro Truck Simulator 2, bought it as a joke back then, but it does feel cathartic at times.

I miss the arcade-y feel of older racing games. Everything these days tries too hard to be a simulator, that they end up stripping the fun out of it. I want sparks to fly out of my tires when I drift even though they're rubber and wouldn't actually do that, I want wacky announcers with color commentary, I don't want to shift gears.

I want games like Ridge Racer and Need for Speed to make a comeback.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit or Burnout: Paradise might be the closest to what you're looking for. They're both open-world games, but I don't think they really have that open-world filler that you see a lot of. They both got remastered releases in the last few years.

Hot pursuit is barely an open world game. There's never a point to find around in the open world, in fact most people might even miss that you can do that.

I loved Project Gotham Racing because it rode the line between arcade game and simulator quite nicely. I haven't seen anything like it since.

Mario kart is still a thing. I absolutely hate the not actually random item drops, though. Getting punished for being in the lead is lame.

Not a "racing" game but you can race in BeamNG (and even do multi-player with a mod.) After trying it, other games feel underwhelming to me.

At the moment Assetto Corsa and Wreckfest.

Assetto Corsa because it's a simracing sandbox. I've modded it to hell with Content Manager and CSP. I also have a lot of paid mods for mainly formula cars like the RSS Formula 1/2/3/4 cars and the VRC Formula E cars. The AI is the perfect level of silly to cause absolute mayhem with the right settings, but also pretty interesting races when you want them to behave.

Wreckfest is a joy on the Steam deck and for casual mayhem. It still has a nice driving model imo, while remaining casual. The maps are optimized for crashing into others which means you're never safe.

Dirt (series) - because I love rally racing.

Motorstorm (series) - because racing across an active volcano is fun as fuck.

Carmageddon (series) - because it’s insane and hilarious.

Twisted Metal 2 - not really a racing game, but close enough.

I always liked racing games combined with violence like Carmageddon and Twisted metal! Others along those lines are RC Pro Am, Spy Hunter, Road Rash 3D.

Art of Rally mixes fun arcadey accessibility with realistic handling for a fun stylish experience imo.

I love Dirt Rally 2. Oddly enough I’m not too good at it but it becomes a sort of groundhog day simulator as I continue to comically fuck up a run and reset to try and hit tight timing windows and optimize, resulting in a wave of excitement when it all culminates to eventually pushing me over the finish line

I’m a huge fan of Burnout Paradise. The crash physics and cameras are so addicting that I’ll drive up and down the same street just flipping my car on its roof using the same split ramp just to see the carnage. The driving is a wonderful arcadey feel that makes insane turns easy to pull off, and the crashes make those insane turns addicting to completely fail.

Many people say the early Burnout games are better, but I’ve never played them and Paradise has remained entertaining for 17 years

Every time I hear Paradise City I see the loading screen, nostalgia for those early days with the 360 camera that gave you a drivers license. Good times and it still holds up, my gf had never played it and had a great time smashing barriers the other day.

I love Burnout Paradise. I used to load up the game and just drive aimlessly for hours.

Crash Team Racing is the pinnacle of kart racing games. The driving is more skill-based than the leading brand name, and it doesn't have shitty rubber-band AI.

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer is still great fun, easy to learn but hard to be good at.

Nothing compares to F-Zero GX. The abandonment of the franchise is a travesty, and should be considered abuse of the gaming community.

Crash Team Racing is the pinnacle of kart racing

Where do you play it? Your comment kinda made me want to play it in my Switch.

I'm playing the remake on PS5. I think they did a pretty nice job with the graphics upgrade, and with the new tracks.

I'd recommend getting a proper controller for it. CTR is a dpad and shoulder button masher.

Hmm, such as?

I only have the Pro controller and the joycons.

Yeah I meant don't use joycons lol

Pro Controller at the very least. CTR is a game that should be played with a dpad for steering. You can use the analog inputs but some more advanced tricks (such as tight steering) will require a solid dpad.

There a quite a few favourites over the years.

  • Colin McRae Rally 2.0
  • Live for Speed
  • Hydrothunder
  • Metropolis Street Racer
  • Forza Motorsport 4
  • Burnout 2
  • Blur
  • Wreckfest
  • Gran Turismo 2
  • Wave Race Blue Storm
  • F-Zero X
  • GRIP (and Rollcage 1 & 2)
  • TT Isle of Man
  • Dirt Rally 1 & 2
  • Circuit Superstars

live for speed

It's always nice to see it still being remembered. The first Sim racer I played.

Same.

I don't play often but I check in every few months for an update or new mods.

Need For Speed Underground 2 I would list as a solid GOAT for the genre of open world arcade racing.

I had to scroll way too far down to find this. The open world and vehicle customization were ahead of their time. Supposed to be a super upgraded fan mod for the PC port coming that makes it pretty for modern systems.

Project cars 3 in VR is pretty slick. I still think the gran Turismo franchise is tops. I wish there was a pc version or anything similar.

Forza 3 was peak racing in my world. Forza 4 killed my interest in the genre.

Dirt Rally 1 and 2 are both very fun.

Assetto Corsa is a fantastic simulator that me and my race team has used to learn a track before we take our race car there so we know all the turns. It really feels like you're there and the game runs well and looks good low end hardware.

I've been playing beam ng drive on my steam deck recently. Haven't got any experience with other driving games but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

How well does it run?

Tbh I don't even know how to find out how many frames per second it gives me! It seems pretty sweet to me though. I don't think it can manage much in the way of traffic, I'm told three other cars is about the limit. That's not been a problem for me though, I'm mostly either playing rally car on a mountain or trying to climb rocks in a 4wd. There's a lot to do that I've not experimented with yet.

Although I haven't played a lot of them, my favorite is Colin McRae Rally 2.0, which is predecessor to the DIRT series.

I used to watch my uncle play on his computer in the 2000s.

Yes! I got it again on PS1 a while back and still like to play it.

My all-time favorite was the first Test Drive Unlimited. Beautiful racing across Hawaii, absolutely no story lines which got in the way.

Forza Horizon 4. I fricking love the British countryside!

I have a work-in-progress list here, strictly games I would consider "must play" in the genre. Notably missing the Ridge Racer and Tokyo Xtreme Racer games because I haven't played enough of them to have an opinion.

https://howlongtobeat.com/user/atmur/lists/40754/Peak-Racing-Games

Mostly arcade and simcade racers though. If you're interested in sims:

For modding, Assetto Corsa is basically the modern rFactor.

For offline racing, Automobilista and Raceroom have pretty solid AI. Note: Raceroom's pricing model is dumb, kind of like iRacing just without the subscription.

For career mode, Project CARS 2 (not 3) is basically the only sim that even tries.

For online racing, ACC and iRacing are unmatched.

For rally, you're already playing DR2. Richard Burns Rally is also shockingly good for its age.

I really liked the Tokyo Xtreme racer games. They are still probably the best car RPG games. I would love to see what someone could do now in the same vein. Even tokyo xtreme never got quite as crunchy or difficult as I would have liked.

I want to go so far as to be like a tactical survival style game, where you are out there earning a living wage from daily(nightly) car racing, and putting most of it back into your car. Just the repairs and maintenance alone being a bar you have to meet and beat every day on average to stay afloat, and then you can think about upgrades after.

It basically takes an environment like that for it to matter in a racing game that there are upgrades between the worst and the best. If trying to save up for even one good part wouldn't be possible without at least some middle parts first.

Meanwhile, could have some "roguelite" elements too in driver experience/skill. The car is only half of what's winning the races afterall. And even if you really blow it at some point and your car is fucked and you need to salvage and pull together what you got and go back to a cheaper car to maintain/repair, you'll still have all the experience/skill your character personally gained helping it go a little smoother this time.

You just described my dream racing game ❤

Gonna have to dig around for one like that again

I would love to see what someone could do now in the same vein.

Genki is finally making a new TXR, got announced a few days ago.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2634950/Tokyo_Xtreme_Racer/

There's also Night-Runners which is very much influenced by the TXR/Shutoko Battle games. It's an in-development crowd funded game, so take from that what you will, but there's a demo up on Steam as Night-Runners Prologue.

Ooh nice. I'll take it. It may not be the dream, but it's what you wake up to after dreaming, and that's really all you can hope for.

I'm pretty sure a game as I described would only be a cult classic at best. Can't expect that kind of passion project in our financial climate.

For online racing, ACC and iRacing are unmatched.

I contracted the iRacing sickness this year. The online is indeed unmatched but I'd argue the single player racing is also best in class.

The iRacing AI is actually fun to race against and nothing else comes close to the level of customization per-racer. You can build whole custom rosters with individual behaviors. If you're so inclined you can even share all this stuff through communities like Trading Paints and Race Department.

iRacing is a hole with no bottom. Both time-wise and monetarily. Even to do AI-only you're still paying the subscription and one-time content prices. It really is the best though.

I have really fond memories of the first Grid game from 2008. That's alongside NFS: Most Wanted from around that time, like most people it seems, haha! I also spent an inordinate amount of time playing Gran Turismo 3: A-spec. I loved the career mode so much.

My favorite cars are the Lotus Espirit and Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR, to this day, because of Gran Turismo 3 and Most Wanted, respectively.

There haven't been many recently that have piqued my interest, other than the gang all wanting to get Forza Horizon. I don't play it much on my own, though.

If there were another track game where you work up from the bottom with a shit car in different classes of races, earning money and unlocking new parts and stuff along the way, I'd be into it. It seems most newer racing games just have generic "Engine Upgrade 1"-type options, or full-blown sim where you're picking extremely particular individual pieces and tuning everything to an overwhelming degree.

Gran Turismo and Forza. I love the simulation aspect, ain't no way on Earth I want to drive a sports car. Too irresponsible.

Mario Kart for the social aspect.

When my logitech g27 racing wheel was still working i USED to play the living hell out of modded richard burns rally it was fun playing a racing sim with almost life like physics.

It's amazing that it's still the best rally sim to this day. This game is old enough to drink in the States.

Best rally Sim is definitely debatable, but it most definitely still holds up pretty well against more modern rally sims like Dirt Rally 2.0, and that is insane enough considering it's age. The mods for RBR have definitely extended its lifespan.

The physics in RBR still feel better to me than the modern rally games like Dirt Rally 2, and WRC9 and what not, and that is incredibly impressive. I will say the modern games are better for competitive play and obviously have better graphics and immersion.

Ridge Racer Type 4 was a game that absolutely ooze with style in every aspect. The graphics were up there with the best of them at the time, cars ranged from simple to utter batshit in design and performance. UI both in and out of races is iconic, holding a motif that is both a racing aesthetic and minimal design, keeping the details only where they’re needed. The music moving from the 90s rave of the older games, over to house was a bold move but it works perfectly. It fits exactly how it needs with the course settings, gameplay and overall aesthetic.

Wip3out while the previous games may be more iconic due to the groundwork laid out by the Designers Republic. Even though they gave the series its icon graphic design style, the third game is the most definitive entry in the series (imo). It continues the design and refines that groundwork brought by tDR. The gameplay is fast and can be intense. Visually the graphics were incredible at the time with track designs that influenced the few later games with new elements and environments. The music was the perfect mix of future trance and techno that still lives in my head today.

I’ve been really into Arcade Racers lately. Played the following recently:

-Blur

-Split/Second

-Ridge Racer 6

-Outrun 2

-Inertial Drift

-Burnout: Revenge

-Dirt 5

-Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

-Neodash

I’m looking forward to Parking Garage Rally Circuit coming out later this year. If anyone has any recommendations I’m all ears.

Forza Horizon 5. Why 5? Because unlike 4, it doesn't crash to desktop a lot... although 4 has more to do and a more interesting season system (the tropics has "seasons" but not the snow and scorch temprature swings like people in temperate latitudes are used to), 5 just has a bit more polish, and bold move with taking it to Mexico.

I also am watching the progression of Forza Motorsport 7, because the FM series is basically not-Gran-Turismo and I can play it on my gaming PC (no consoles here).

I used to be all about Gran Turismo back in the day, as well as the DiRT series and even Race Driver. Codemasters games, though, tended to be very arcadey. I need to get Dirt Rally 2, as I played a bit of 1 and it was pretty good.

I also remember Spintires and its spiritual successors Mudrunner and Snowrunner. Fun off-roading sandbox games with mud physics... because no offroading game has even attempted that in the level of detail ST/MR has. Also, the original publisher of ST is the worst, and they've broken the original game, just get Mudrunner or Snowrunner for a better experience.

Also, I am on the lookout for spacecraft racecraft games. I want to use my 4 axis stick for something other than Airbus landing challenges.

Also the 1-2 combination of Automation (car company simulator) and BeamNG.drive. You can build a car in Automation and export it to BeamNG to drive around in. Bonus props to BeamNG being the only car sim I know of that has decided to actually model the physics of an automatic transmission. This is something I wished other games like Forza Horizon and Gran Turismo would do, as a lot of modern cars are Automatic only and in every case they just turn the auto into a stick... and it's terrible, as automatic gear ratios don't work for manual transmission driving. If we can upgrade the transmission, then we can have a better incentive to replace the slushbox with a crashbox if it's worth the upgrade, considering that torque converter transmissions are used in offroad racing due to having better resilience against the shock forces from bumps and jumps.

Shoutout to Live For Speed, the surprisingly detailed car racing sim by three bros that even takes clutch temperatures into account. Their latest updates added workshop-style modded cars into the game.

+1 for BeamNG.drive + Automation

Recreating production cars and racing them is fun.

Optimizing track cars for different locations is a LOT of fun. More power doesn't always mean faster lap times - what matters is power to weight ratio, paired with getting the suspension, tires, brakes, and downforce just right.

The most fun build I've discovered so far is throwing a 2L, naturally aspirated V8 that makes 521 HP, into a Pontiac Fiero with racing slicks. The whole thing weighs just 1159 lbs, and can pull 3 G's around corners.

  • F1 2020
  • Burnout Revenge
  • Gran Turismo 2
  • Need for Speed: Underground 2
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
  • Dirt Rally
  • Test Drive: Off-Road
  • NASCAR Thunder 2004 (PS1)
  • Ridge Racer (1993)

For sim, I utilize iRacing to practice and learn tracks before real life amateur endurance races in champcar and lemons as well as track days.

IMO iRacing physics are so good and the tracks are so well modeled that it's a very effective learning tool. It's the first sim since Live For Speed that really feels close enough to real life for me to forget I'm playing a sim.

Plus traffic management and race craft are so crucially important in wheel to wheel racing & I simply don't get any other opportunity to practice those.

Wipeout 2048 was my favourite of all time and is available in the Wipeout Omega Collection. I wouldn’t say that it’s better than the more recent titles but it was just the one that grabbed me.

I also really liked:

  • Dirt Rally was ace on the PSVR
  • Burnout Paradise
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted (the second one)

2048 is so good. I love the teams each having three craft types. The tracks are really fun, with both wide sections where you can go flat out without a care, and narrow parts where you have to really thread the needle and use the airbrakes with total precision.

If you haven't already, check out BallisticNG. It's a retro style re-implementation of the classic WipEout physics, and the upcoming update will fully implement the 2048 physics mode.

!ballisticng@sopuli.xyz

Wipeout is my favorite racing series. Jet Moto was pretty cool too.

Burnout 3: Takedown was my favorite. I had so much fun playing that game both solo and with my friends online. Burnout: Paradise never captured the same feeling for me, though.

Amen, B3P perfected the formula, I wish I could mod it and bring it to PC and add more cars and tracks

The same team made Dangerous Driving and Danger Zone 1&2. The first is like the race mode of B3, and the second is like the crash simulator mode. Unfortunately, they are separate games, and neither are as polished nor do they have the good sound track.

Gran Turismo 4
Dirt Rally 2 Forza Horizons 4

And the godking itself, Burnout 4 Revenge and its understudy Burnout 3.

Bonus point to Extreme-G and G2.

I’m also going to mention Generally. It was a tiny game with a small dedicated community but gods damn if it wasn’t just super fun to make maps and play community created events/maps/contests.

Oh god i almost forgot about generally. The laughs and the furious screams from the LAN parties of yesteryear were all brought up to the surface 🥲

I've got Gran Turismo 7 and it's great in some ways but they ruined the pacing of the game. It hands out cars like they expire in less than a week. It can be fun to try out a whole bunch of different cars, but there's not much sense of progression like the older ones gave.

I remember building a connection to some of the cars in older games. When you bought a car, it was meaningful because it took time to win enough money to afford something, and then I'd spend a while upgrading it until eventually hitting a ceiling and needing a better car to upgrade to progress to more races. And then add some variety with a few races with rules or restrictions along the way to give a reason to buy some other cards in the same tier, but then then it would be a big decision.

In GT7, all except the top end supercars feel like an afterthought, my garage gets filled for free as I win races, and any time I want to try a different car, first thing I do is buy most or all of the upgrades because it's all trivial. Race with limiting rules? Ok, give me 5 minutes and I'll find, buy, and max out another car to win this one.

Granted, it has more of an emphasis on the driving than the older ones did (where you could usually take your super car into whatever races your wanted and see how many times you could lap everyone), but I think I like the progressing through cars part more than the racing part and GT7 is disappointing in that regard compared to GT4 or GT3.

GT7 going back to its roots... most races in GT2 would vomit up a car at you... and also you had a 100 garage limit due to a hardware limitation.

I had to scroll far to find this...

Extreme-G and G-2

aka Cyberpunk F-Zero but with Tron Lightcycles

My favorite racing game is Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection (2013 version). Arcade racing in the style of Mario Kart, it was the one time where Sega did what Nintendont in that genre. Amazing tracks, amazing wide selection of Sega characters to chose as racers (also ralph from ralph breaks movies for some reason), amazing 3 way modes of racing (by land, by water, by air), amazing replayability due to all the racers and modifications possible to choose from, and good price in promotion events.

I knew one of the designers who worked on that (or maybe on one of it's ports?) and he fucking loved the game. He would often describe in detail why it was the superior kart game

I believe him, it is awesome to play until this day. Would love to hear him spell out exactly how and why.

The absolute best arcade racer to me was always NFS Hot Pursuit 2 for PS2. The physics were so much fun and the cars were a curated selection of cool.

Always loved the Project Gotham Racing series, especially 3. Tons of fun to drift in those games. The Kudos system was definitely a unique feature.

Been playing through the Ridge Racer games most recently. Damn these are just fun to play.

Sega Rally Championship will always stand out as some of the best driving physics early on.

Art of Rally and Art of drift are hella fun "zen" games with a unique art style.

I was always a sucker for some of the cash-in Fast and Furious era car fad games. Juiced, Tokyo Extreme Racer (out before all of it) Street Racing Syndicate, NFS Underground, Midnight Club 3. They're all fun but driving is always just ok.

My short list though: Gran Turismo 4 Forza Motorsport 4 or 6 (4 is less grindy I feel) NFS Most Wanted 2

*Absolute Drift

The only game I ever 100%ed

Also hold top 1% scores in every drift event. Love it.

Probably DiRT 2… Overall just did everything right for me, no complaints at all.

I really enjoy Gran Turismo 7 even if it lacks a proper career mode and the AI isn’t good.

Looking forward to Asseto Corsa 2 as people were really happy with the first one and I haven’t played it.

Art of Rally mixes fun arcadey accessibility with realistic handling for a fun stylish experience imo.

I love Dirt Rally 2. Oddly enough I’m not too good at it but it becomes a sort of groundhog day simulator as I continue to comically fuck up a run and reset to try and hit tight timing windows and optimize, resulting in a wave of excitement when it all culminates to eventually pushing me over the finish line

Need for Speed Porsche to be honest. The campaign of going through the Porsche eras is iconic. Buying new cars and tuning them up is really fun and you really feel the difference between the cars.

GRID: I absolutely loved the original Grid (I think it was called Racedriver: Grid in Europe) when it came out.

Project CARS 2 and Assetto Corsa Competizione: A while ago I tried using a PS5 controller on PC and using the gyroscope to steer left and right by tilting the controller. It works well enough when you get used to it. It gives you more granular control than an analog stick. You really can't tilt an analog stick 15 degrees consistently, but you can tilt the controller like that consistently. I'm not saying its as good as a racing wheel, but if you don't have one, it'll at least let you play games that might otherwise need a wheel. I played a decent amount of Project CARS 2 and Assetto Corsa Competizione that way.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a fun kart racing game. If you don't have a Switch and you want something like Mario Kart, you should pick it up. It isn't just a Mario Kart knockoff with Sega characters. Wait no... that's exactly what it is, but it's a good one.

Meta: !simrallyracing@lemmy.world is a community here.

These are some solid picks. Grid is probably my favourite game that is closest to being a sim racer. Love doing the 24 heure le mans

Consider most of people already gives what they like and also me have variety of interest (likes Rally, Endurance racing, Open wheel, Closed circuit, Street races and so on), maybe I'll go with Tokyo Xtreme Racer (and its spin off Drift) series. To me Genki much more than a game but rather a love letter to these genre (they even go down with consulting with street racers, incorporating them in game, and make short documentary about them!).

(Excuse me for going a little bit on culture) First the main elephant, the Wangan racing genre. back then (even to this day?) this sub-genre of racing is niche as IIRC this racing scene mostly around Japanese and traced way back in 80s and early to mid 90s during Economy bubble era. Everyone had a lot of cash to spend their money and guess what? those city people spend it on (illegal) street racing and the infamous one where they raced on highway networks. You got japanese tuners also actively participating on these kind of activity even the infamous one! Like owner of RE-Amemiya, Abflug, TOP SECRET, Auto TBK, MCR and so on, now coupled of that with infamous exclusive Mid Night Club, you get the idea of why these people seeking thrill of moving fast on this highway roads. For Touge scene and sub-genre, I think you guys all know very much as it's more popularised by kind of Initial D and such.

Back to the game. back then you can't find a almost 1:1 recreation of Shuto highway network in a game. On Tokyo Xtreme Racer 1 (Dreamcast) you have almost 1:1 recreation of C1 loop portion of Shuto highway which is well made and still hold up to this day even with decent car roster. Tuning in this game is fairly deep and necessity to gain upper hand on higher stake, you have to make sure your gear setup suited to the portion of highway you're currently run, running on Wangan Bay route isn't the same as running on C1 Loop or Shinkanjo area. Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 (on Dreamcast) brought Wangan Bay route and Yokohane road into the menu and so the highway network almost fully(!) complete, this time they brought more selection to the cars and gives you freedom which car you want to start your adventure to become one of the fastest highway racer. Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero somehow a port of TXR 2 on PS2 which add several new rivals and new cars exclusive to PS2. Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero-One (3 on the West) brings licensed cars and 2 other city like Nagoya and Osaka but at cost of reduced cars (still interesting selection).

For both main series and its spin off Drift series that distinguishing themself with other akin to Need for Speed is the RPG element and roguelite that makes every playthrough can be different. You can start the game using Kei cars class, you can start with bigger luxury cars, or you can just start with sport coupe cars just like everyone else. Your car is half of your strength, you need to couple that with car setup and your skill to conquer the road to become one of the fastest. Another interesting bit is that each Rival has these small bios about them which gave them little bit of personality. To me those what makes it feel more raw and engaging for use who likes the genre and culture around it (becasue back then these street racers come from variety of background, you can have your ordinary young adult up to businessman member).

Nowaday Wangan genre have their spot filled with Assetto Corsa with Shuto Revival Project (SRP) map and even with "No Hesi" (western equivalent) server and you have standalone game such as Night-Runners.

While Genki confirmed they develop new Tokyo Xtreme Racer, I have mixed feeling on it afraid that it turn become something like C1GP where they playing "safe" and becoming more into legal area turning the highway into something like sanctioned race event akin to Tokyo Expressway/Special Routes map in Gran Turismo. Wangan racing without traffic and heavily modified cars kind of feel off.

Fun fact: Genki help Namco develop Wangan Midnight in its early day even on PS2 game they reuse TXR0 game engine, and then Namco do it themselves and turn it into arcade game (Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series).

F-Zero GX - As far as pure racing goes, GX is perfection.

Kirby Air Ride - The actual racing mode is... mid, honestly. But City Trial? One of the most interesting and unique game modes ever conceived. Sad this game never got any kind of successor.

I think Forza Motorsport 2 or 3. That was the peak of the series right there. I also enjoyed Dirt 3 and PGR4.

While I still ppayed all the later forza and GT games, they lacked a good campaign mode.

Anyone know which Gran Turismo has a good campaign?

I loved Driveclub back on PS4, think it's delisted and possibly servers shut down, don't remember.

Project Gotham Racing (I think 2 was my preferred one), Midnight Club II as well

Mario Kart series

Quantum Redshift on OG Xbox

NFS: Most Wanted as a Car Racing game.

BallistcNG as a Anti-Gravity Combat Racing game.

I love me the PS2 era need for speed games.

Burnout 3 & revenge.

Dirt 2 has one of the best licensed soundtracks for a game, same for the OG Forza Horizon.

Modern ones, even horizon 4 and 5 feel very hollow compared to these in my opinion.

Super Woden GP 2 is an outlier to that though.

These days I play a lot of Forza Horizon 4 and not much else, since I haven't found anything else to really click. There's a couple good ones out there though: Motor Town is pretty good as a car game in general, not just racing. Also BeamNg if you just wanna fuck around with the physics engine. Ooh, and Dakar Desert Rally is a fantastic rally raid simulation (albeit somewhat flawed)

Otherwise I would give some classics a shout: GRID the original, still holds up today. Also NFS Porsche, which was so ahead of its time it's ridiculous.

Almost forgot: Driver San Francisco is a gem of a game, and Re-Volt, which is bound to get the remaster treatment any day now.

I have been addicted to Burnout Legends (PSP title) almost since it came out, I kinda want to try other old school Burnout games.

Also I like Mario Kart 8 for Switch.

Sim drifting on Asetto Corsa is the only "racing" i do these days.

In terms of play time its probably Ridge racer type 4 for psx and the wipeout series followed by Mario kart.

Seconding R4, truly have high replayability value due to its unlock system & how every car handles differently. Not to mention the great soundtrack that I never get bored of.

So, no one has mentioned any of these as far as I can tell.

The Crew Motorfest - sort of a competitor to Forza Horizon (FH is PCand Xbox only... The Crew is also on PS)... it's an open world ish always online style game. Some say it had better physics and closer to sim than simcade when compared to FH.... it worked better out of the box with my peripherals (wheel, pedals, shifter)... bonus: the prequel, The Crew 2 (which is a bit older and has a different setup) is $0.99 on basically all the platforms right now.

Dakar Desert rally - kinda rocky launch and might still be buggy... not sure on that front... but it's kind of an ambitious game that no one else was making. Basically driving offroad through the desert from GPS waypoint to GPS way point in a huge open environment (this is called "rally raid") in a variety of vehicles - cars, "cars" (really super trucks), big trucks (imagine racing a dump truck across the desert at whatever 120mph), motorcycles, side by side, atv. More simcade than sim in terms of driving feel. They,re not developing it anymore (in terms of new content... game breaking bugs probably get fixed) but there's a decent amount of content there... a little context that they kinda over promised to an extent and under delivered. Victim of the recent industry-wide layoffs for sure. So it got kinda panned. Definitely not the GOAT, but maybe worth it when on sale if it sounds at all interesting to you.

Playing Colin McRay rally on linux with wiimote + wheel frame as a controller was the best time I've had with rally games. Both game and controller worked better than I expected and was easy setup for living room couch.

Old crap now, but later sequels nor Dirt didn't give the same feel.

i am a diehard for old school SEGA sprite-scaling racers. OutRun, OutRunners, Super Hang-On, GP Rider, and Power Drift are all must-plays. they all run great in MAME and have also had a number of high-quality console ports. later polygonal titles like SEGA Rally and Hang-On GP are also great but will be less impactful if you're already used to modern racing games

i see a few comments mentioning different F-Zero games and would like to throw F-Zero 99's hat into the ring. the sheer chaos of that game is really something you have to experience for yourself

Diddy Kong Racing on N64. There's no other that come close for me.

You can use either vehicle, hovercraft or plane. Depending on the tracks. Some tracks you can try using any of them. Some are vehicle specific.

You have somewhat open world for you to run around in any of those vehicles mentioned above.

Like in Mario Kart, instead of boxes for you to hit to get items. You hit balloons, and they're all colored with specific usages. Like red is a rocket, blue is a boost, etc. However, if you hit same color balloon twice or thrice your item upgrade. Like 1 red balloon = 1 rocket, 2 red balloons = homing rocket, three red balloons = 30 rockets for you to spam away. If you hit two different balloons, newest balloon override over your last. There's no blue shell bullshit in this game tho, that's either positive or negative for some folks.

There's mini games, one which I think is really underrated: Dino egg mini game , one where you have to grab egg, drop it in your nest and protect it until you hatch it. You can attack others and steal eggs. You need to hatch three to win the game. You have to find hidden key in one of racing track to unlock the mini game.

And you get to face the boss of each area, each boss has their unique mechanics. You face them 1v1.

Once you beat all tracks, you can do them again but with coin challenge where you gotta gather all coins and win the race. Some tracks are insane hard to point where you have to strategy which coins to take each laps and deal with other racers at the same time. And what's the worse is the fact that other racers doesn't care about coins. You have to get all coins and be in first place to clear the track.

Once you beat all coin challenges, you get to battle bosses again which are harder, then you unlock the final boss.

There's also a tourney you gotta do in each area to unlock secret area with new tracks and harder final boss.

That's it? Nope, you get to start all over again with the tracks flipped and other racers are harder. Then you gotta do bosses, coin challenges too.

And one final thing, prob one of hardest to do is time challenge. Beat that and you unlock final unlockable character. There's two unlockable characters in the game.

Imagine that single cartridge of N64 got all of this, this could have been much more if Nintendo purchase Rare. I could never get into Mario Kart because of Diddy Kong Racing. Compared to DKR, Mario Kart on N64 is a joke to me.

I still play N64 from time to time, I love to replay Zelda games, banjo, etc and of course Diddy Kong Racing.

I really like DKR but I was never amazing at it. Especially the boss races. Killer soundtrack though. I listen to it more often than I play the game lol

In case you don't know about it, there's a cool site called Retro Achievements that has community-curated achievement sets for thousands of games (and leaderboards for specific tasks, like Mario 64's Princess' Secret Slide), and it integrates nicely with RetroArch and Dolphin (I haven't looked into other emulators, but I'm sure there are other supported ones). It's given me a great reason to play all my childhood games again, instead of playing them just to waste time.

Speaking of BK, I finished that set just last night and it was so satisfying. I'm sure you'd make short work of the DKR achievements!

That's pretty cool. But I don't play on emulator. I still got original N64 and like 30+ games from when I was a kid. It's still going strong. Had to buy new controller tho.

Respect 👍 I still have all my old consoles and games from my childhood, all the way back to the NES. And I still collect classics that I didn't grow up with. Hope you play yours on a good ol' CRT :)

Sadly no, I gave away my 42" CRT away to buddy's relative who was poor and I didn't have any space.

It looks pretty bad in my 1080 ledtv. But even then, I still find myself replaying N64 games over and over.

You know, I have like bunch of games on my pc but I can't get hooked on any of them like I do for old Zelda games. Altho I did get hooked on botw and totk. Maybe it's Zelda games.

I need to find other Zelda-like games maybe. Any suggestions?

The only Zelda-like I can think of right now is Tunic. I haven't finished it yet, but it's a great game. It's on PC and all the major consoles. I'd say it's more like the pre-N64 Zeldas than the open-world ones. Also has an in-game manual that's 100% inspired by the manual that came with the first Zelda on NES. Incredibly charming game.

I’d have to say an all time classic for me is Mario Kart, just so much good fun memories playing with my brothers.

Also Grid, and Grid 2. Just really deeply enjoyed both, played em a ton.

A final note would have to be the games that were part of the MX Unleashed series, just so much fun racing dirt bikes and doing all the awesome tricks.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is my childhood game and I will always love it. I also like various other games from the NFS series, from the first one up to Carbon.

Not many newer racing games I like, but I do enjoy occasionally playing art of rally, Inertial Drift, Forza Horizon 4 and Wreckfest.

Art of Rally

Need For Speed: Heat

Does bike racing count? If so: Descenders is amazing

And if that counts, how about Crumble?

Ooh: Turbo Golf Racing, and Kart Rider

Race the Sun?

Wreckfest, Absolute Drift, Art of Rally, BeamNG, New Star GP, F1 23, My Summer Car, Super Woden GP 2.

A bit more unorthodox than the normal recommendations maybe but truly excellent games. Except for F1 they are all quite cheap too.

Any AG racing fans in here?

BalisticNG is my latest main game, but my love began with the WipEout series.

I also enjoy Redout and Redout 2, but the lack of weapons means I can only go so long before needing to play WipEout or BNG again.

Obligatory mention of !ballisticng@sopuli.xyz

Redout 1 and 2 are great fun if I'm in the mood for lap times, but I hate racing against the NPCs.

Major fan hear. BallisticNG is such a love letter to WipEout, its fantastic

  • 4D Sports Driving (1990)
  • Hi-Octane (1995)
  • NFS: Most Wanted (2005)
  • Flatout 2 (2008)
  • Vector 36 (2017)
  • Forza Horizon 5 (2021)
  • BeamNG.drive (ongoing)

Burnout 2: Point of impact (got me into burnout) Burnout paradise Split/second

Had fun with the original Forza Horizon and Midnight Club L.A.

Midnight Club was my absolute jam back in the mid oughts, loved the shit out of that game. Kinda got away from the Arcade style racers, but that game has a special place for me.

GT3 had the right amount of advanced and customization without going overboard or being too realistic. It was my sweet spot.

Great topic for discussion.

Pole Position

Gran Tourismo

Road Rash

R.C. Pro-Am

Mario Kart

Jet Moto

Go Go HyperGrind

Every racing game not trying to sim stupid cars is gold these days.

I really enjoyed some Xbox game called "quantum redshift" and I've been trying to capture that feeling ever since. VR game called Redoubt gets close.

GOAT: F-zero GX

Best kart: sonic and all stars racing transformed

Best drifter: inertial drift

Best arcade: track mania turbo

Best Car Combat: Gas Guzzlers extreme

I don't typically go for racing games, but I have fond memories of playing Extreme-G on the N64. It had wepons, high speeds, and a soundtrack that tricked a young me into thinking I might like techno music.

I am really surprised nobody mentioned yet

CarX Drift Racing Online

Best drifting game ever. A lot of customization, visual and performance of cars.

I haven't played a racing game since Need for Speed: Underground 2, and before that Carmageddon which probably doesn't count. I have, though, seen a Group B Audi Quattro like in the thumbnail. It was in a heritage rally and it sounded FANTASTIC.

I think they still have issues at the emulation so many maybe haven't had the chance but Project Gotham racing as a series is great. If youve liked modern GRIDs I highly suggest them.

My go to would be Burnout3, revenge, or dominator.

More modern probably Forza horizon but the formula is running a bit long for me.

What was that older one now, with the biggest game map in the world at the time? I think dirt.

Very beautiful atmospheric game with a lonely feel but fun driving

Recently discovered Night Runners (free demo on steam if you are interested). The soundtrack is a blast and it is very fun. Very hyped for the official release :)

While not exactly a traditional racing game, I always loved the Stuntman series.

  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted

  • Slipstream

  • Mario Kart DS / Double Dash / Wii

I spent a lot of time on forza 6 and a lot on money on iracing. but eventually stopped racing. It is not fun any more and there is no respect in online racing. Just people wrecking each other

Dirt Rally 2 with even a cheap driving simulator setup is incredible. It's like the dark souls of racing games, and doesn't hold your hand at all.

Assetto Corsa is another great one with a simulator. The amount of mods, cars, and tracks added to the game has made enough content to keep someone entertained for probably their whole life.

Really, any modern racing game that uses wheel and pedals are amazing compared to what existed before that. Luckily, even the good direct drive wheels and good pedal setups have gotten more affordable in recent times.

Assetto Corsa with realistic force feedback in non power steering cars is unironically a workout. Driving a F-40 on the Tokyo highway project for an hour and I actually sweat. Few times I've loosened the mounting of my wheel I have to grip it so hard haha. It's advisable to let go of the wheel when you crash too.

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage was a real banger that I played the shit out of

Not the Greatest of all time, but Growing up the two racing games I’d play the most was Forza Horizon and Little Big Planet Karting. Sadly I had to drop LBPK after my PS3 died and Forza Horizon I can’t find the disk for anymore.

I really wanted to try Forza Horizon but the closest game like it I could get my hands on was NFS Heat, which I had a lot fun playing. Riders Republic was also fun if you want a non car racing game. I guess I'm just into open world racing.

I generally hate racing games. The one I do remember playing a lot was 1990's Stunts. It was an early polygonal game. You could make your own tracks. It's was pretty ahead of its time.

Mario kart 8 deluxe and super tux kart

Nobody is calling either game GOATs, but I personally really like Sonic Riders Zero Gravity and Cartoon Network Racing.

Any Black Box made Need for Speed.

(Currently busy fixing Pro Street, so many bugs...)