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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Split/Second
Make Way
Mario Kart
I have a type.
I’d almost forgotten about split/second. That was a great game.
Rallye Racing 97
I am really surprised nobody mentioned yet
CarX Drift Racing Online
Best drifting game ever. A lot of customization, visual and performance of cars.
Does wipeout count as racing?
Hell yes it does. Great games.
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.
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.
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.
Growing up I’ve always been a keyboard racer. The only benefit i see from gamepad is that you can hold any angle while turning, even slight ones.
With keyboard every movement is timing and it’s easier to build muscle memory for me.
Edit: the reason I want a vr headset and racing wheel are the opposite of what keyboard gaming is
Sim drifting on Asetto Corsa is the only “racing” i do these days.
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.
NFS: Most Wanted as a Car Racing game.
BallistcNG as a Anti-Gravity Combat Racing game.
Rumble Racing enjoyer
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.
Wipeout is my favorite racing series. Jet Moto was pretty cool too.
I don’t know if it counts, but for me it’s Distance
Forza Horizon 4. I fricking love the British countryside!
Mario Kart DS.
Shit’s a masterpiece.
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.
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.
