Mine is Forza Horizon 4, but i’m hype for The Crew Motorfest!
Trackmania
I love race sims, but I always come back to Trackmania!
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This past few months I’ve gotten into Trackmania. It really is the perfect “settle down for the evening and play with a video on the other monitor”. I can just grind out records, while only needing two fingers max on my keyboard, and just enough attention.
I really love TM’s puzzle-as-a-time-attack-race system, as someone who played since 2004. A big problem with TM is the DRM. StarForce for the older versions. And it’s always online DRM for the latest Trackmania due to Ubisoft’s “live service” system. (There’s even a premium subscription fee if you want to customise your car fully, thumbs down)
Even the first TrackMania Nations (2006) has StarForce which refused to work with Windows 8.
Need For Speed Underground 2. Just the right vibes and level of customization to keep me playing through the entire campaign without getting bored
🎶 Riders on the storm 🎶
Yeah, that’s definitely one of my favorites too.
such a good game
@VioletteRei I really like jumping into Wreckfest from time to time just because it makes me think of the fun old Destruction Derby games on PS1/2 and it’s fun to mess around in with friends.
Ahhh friend, that is such a big question. I’m going to narrow down to just 2 games but I could literally sit here all day, fill out an entire chart of games and still not be done. I love racing games.
I’m going to say the best sim overall is Assetto Corsa, the original, because of it’s insane modding community that can make it into any sort of driving experience that you want.
And for best arcade racing game… I am inclined to say Burnout 3:Takedown from back in the PS2 days. The later sequels were also great, but this is the one that perfected the formula of extremely fast and aggressive driving, with blissful brake to drive and crashing physics. They just don’t make games that drive as good as this one in the arcade subgenre anymore.Actually, I AM going to post a chart too, because I remembered I already have it saved.
Nice list. Did you compile that yourself?
Yes, I made that with my own favorite games. Like I said, I could still add more games that I couldn’t fit in there. Test Drive Unlimited, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2, Gran Turismo 2, Forza Horizon 4, Wipeout Pulse, Project CARS 2, Raceroom Racing Experience, Automobilista 2, NFSU2 and Most Wanted both, the other Burnout games… There’s way too many good racing games in the past, and not enough in the present. I really like racing games.
I like the chart idea and while you have excellent taste in racing games, I did make my own with some adjustments, lol
For “Best driving in a non-racing game” I was tempted to put BeamNG, but whether or not that counts as a “racing” game is up for debate. I think ETS2 is a safe bet.
I do enjoy the both of them, and they are more games missing from my chart, lol.
I had a lot of fun memories with the bright color scheme for Burnout 3: Takedown. Plus the controls felt great, and weren’t compromised simply because I upgraded to a faster car.
Wreckfest (2018) is my most favorite recent game. It had a combination arcade and simulation feel, because the controls were simple and the graphics and driving experience felt exactly like driving an authentically frustratingly rusty old car ready to get crumpled again.
Does Mario Kart count? It’s probably the best game to play with friends of different skill levels.
Also the older need for speed games up to undercover.
Stunts (1990, DOS) is what has stayed with me the most. Crappy graphics, unrealistic controls even for its time, buggy physics (a wrong move could launch you into the stratosphere) but for some reason we stayed up all night taking turns trying to shave one more second off the lap record on our favorite track.
Oh yes!! I immideatly thought of this game, but couldn’t remember the name. Maybe one of my most played game…
And you also could design your own tracks!
Did you ever play Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat? That was the flight sim of the same era that gave me similar vibes.
This was the first Flight Simulator I played with an analogue stick. This blew my mind and I had to have a PC! I only used digital Joysticks up until then.
No, I never heard of that game…
But some time later I got a new PC with a CD Rom drive and with it came Need for Speed 3 (I think…).
We designed a track, tried to log the best time we could and brought them to school on a disk the next day. Exchanged disks and tried to beat our buddies time. It always was super exciting trying our buddies creations and to see if the PB was beaten. You always had to wait a day for the results. Asynchronous Multiplayer :-)
Racing games are by far my favorite genre, I don’t think I could pick an absolute favorite, so I’m just gonna ramble for a bit.
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 through Carbon are fondly remembered for a reason, they still stand up so well today. Outside of the golden era of NFS, Hot Pursuit (2010), The Run, Most Wanted (2012), Heat, and
Unbound(absolute trash update today, nevermind on Unbound) are very good as well. Other games in the series are good too (I’m a strong defender of Rivals despite it being objectively subpar), but I’d consider these to be the highlights.The Burnout series is excellent, especially Takedown, Revenge, and Paradise.
Forza Motorsport 4 and Forza Horizon 1 are the absolute peak of that franchise, absolutely beautiful games, I love the atmosphere and career pacing.
The PGR series is great as well, and only got better with every title. PGR4 (the last one) is amazing. This team also developed Blur before shutting down, basically Mario Kart with real cars, which is massively underrated.
The Flatout games (1 and 2, we don’t talk about 3 and 4 is eh) are great. Bugbear also developed Wreckfest, which is a spiritual successor that improves on the original in almost every way.
Driver: San Francisco is one of the greatest games ever made, and I’ll never forgive Ubisoft for abandoning the series.
The Motorstorm games are great, and Evolution Studios also worked on the excellent Driveclub before being bought and merged into Codemasters (and later EA…)
Enthusia is another super underrated one, really unique progression system that encourages you to drive interesting cars instead of the fastest.
The DiRT and GRID franchises have some great entries as well, especially DiRT 2/3 and GRID 1/2. Codemasters also developed FUEL, which I think held the title of biggest video game world for a long time (it might still if you don’t count stuff like Flight Simulator).
Split/Second is excellent despite its shitty PC port.
There’s a bunch of great indies as well, Distance, Redout, Inertial Drift, Horizon Chase Turbo.
There are lots more, Midnight Club, Ridge Racer, Gran Turismo, Test Drive, but this comment is way too long as-is… It is also fairly depressing that most of these are dead franchises, and/or aren’t available to purchase anymore due to licensing expiration.
I really need to play through more Enthusia, that game is awesome.
Ah yes! I followed burnout and pgr. Also rally sport challenge was pretty special.
Some good recommends here, cheers!
Arcade would be the Forza series, as for Sim I very much enjoy Assetto Corsa due to how moddable it is, and because driving around in VR is rad.
Trackmania! Man, the original was a hoot and i spent way too long in Trackmania; Sunrise. The tracks are still second to none, and the track editor; powerful. It allows you to save as many ghosts as you want and then produce a video. This was mind blowing to a younger me; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UcQmJwTnBg
Ridge Racer Type 4. Beautiful controls, amazing soundtrack, just an amazing game
Gran Turismo 2.
It’s simple and very limited compared to some other games, but the combination of the era of cars, the PS1 graphics and the jazz fusion it’s perfect.
Cruisin USA baby!
But seriously, nothing compared to Forza 4 for me. The detail of the cars, the Top Gear commentary, and it was my first game I got with my Xbox 360. Just amazing.
Honorable mention for POD Planet of Death on Windows 95. Its super old but at the time it looked amazing and has a super cool aesthetic and rad soundtrack.
Beamng drive, I’m a huge sucker for soft body physics sims. Also the devs have been actively updating and adding content for over a decade now
Mario Kart for Arcade/Family/Multiplayer/Party is pretty good.
Assetto Corsa is the best sim ever, very realistic, lots of variety from Fiat 500 to F1, loads of tracks and tons of mods.
Now I’m playing F1 23 and they really did fix the traction, it’s early but so far I like it
