Motorsport is a beautiful pastime. It’s also gut-churningly expensive, and you generally only get to drive the fast stuff if you’re incredibly talented or incredibly wealthy. Video games are a way to scratch that racing itch at a much cheaper cost. Thus, I ask you—what racing games are you playing right now?
These days, you’re spoilt for choice. You have console sims like Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport, along with esports titles like iRacing and Assetto Corsa. That side of gaming is growing faster than ever. Then there is the increasingly large bounty of indie titles that trade on nostalgia, silliness, or some combination of the two. Or maybe you’re the one person who finds the racing minigames in Grand Theft Auto V compelling?
I’ve had a taste for a wide variety of titles over the years. As a tot, I cut my teeth on Jaguar XJ220: The Game back on the Amiga 500. We’re talking 2D graphics, module music, and faster lap times if you turned the sound off because it freed up spare CPU cycles. Sadly, I have never quite completed the arduous career mode, which sees you trying to race around the world without running out of money due to airfares and repairs. It was well ahead of its time in 1992, featuring a real damage model, refuelling, and weather effects to boot.
I then moved on to a number of Need for Speed titles, before graduating to the Forza series when I got an Xbox in the early 2000s. Much of my early obsession was with street racing titles. I adored the soundtracks of Need for Speed: Underground and Midnight Club 3 in equal measure. Both taught me swear words I’d never heard before when I looked up the non-censored versions of their track listings.
I also branched out into more off-road titles. Favorites included Colin McRae Rally 04 and the more arcade-like RalliSport Challenge 2. But I also dabbled in more oddball fare, too, enjoying the track-building fun of the original GeneRally. Eventually, in the early 2010s, I drifted away from gaming entirely as a crushing university workload squeezed any remaining time I had for joy.
Lately, though? I’m back with controller in hand. I’ve gone full twee, firing up art of rally (yes, lowercase) on Steam. It’s a weird title. Cute as hell, and dripping in nostalgia. But I’m not in love with it. Many agree the controls are horrible out of the box, and that the first set of cars are terrible to drive. But I’ve persevered with it, and found some joy in trying to beat my ghost on the Sardinia course.
I still probably wouldn’t recommend the game. I find the career mode utterly dull and disappointing. The game is too minimalist. There are no split times, no pace notes, or even any sense that anything is really happening as you drive along. You just do rallies and at the end you find out if you did good or not. Still, hitting that one stage and trying to optimize my lines is enjoyable and has me hooked for now.
But enough about me. What about you! What are you playing, how much are you enjoying it, and should we all be getting on board? Sound off!
Image credits: Art of Rally via screenshot, Salvatore Forenza via YouTube screenshot
I understand where the Art of Rally critique is coming from, but I love it. Definitely not an in depth racing game but just brings you the essentials and is a great chill out game with some cool approximations of rally legends. One of my favorite racing games and a mainstay on my Switch and PS5. The creator has a Motorsport Manager esque game coming out soon that I’m pumped for.
Other than that, Gran Turismo 7 is in a pretty good state for me. The game is challenging enough and has nearly ever car you could hope for. I use it with a VR headset and a cheap steering wheel setup, but the motion controls on PS5 are pretty good when I don’t feel like dragging it out.
Shoutout to Wreckfest as well if anyone wants some casual carnage with some of the best damage models I’ve ever seen.
Art of Rally is a great game. It’s not trying to be realistic (though it does reward you for realistic driving strategies) and they did a great job in offering a minimalist title that you can play, step away from, and return to very easily.
I suppose a few niceties might help the title like split times and such, but with the core gameplay loop the way that it is, I actually think adding complex features would detract more than it helps.
American Truck Simulator. What’s that? It’s not a racing game? It is when I play it.
Nitro on Amiga
Haven’t found much time for iRacing lately, but I still set up my wheel to throw down some hill-climb passes in Assetto Corsa sometimes.
Played Gran Turismo 3 A-spec as a kid; used a GameShark to cheat money. Wasn’t about to spend hundreds of hours of my life doing the 1-hour 100-lap race for $100,000 so many times just to buy one of the many expensive cars.
The GameShark also made many of the cars shown in the stores but not available for purchase…purchasable. So that was nice.
Beyond that, I’ve only occasionally played racing games.
A.I.M. Racing. FlatOut 1 (wasn’t fun enough to play all the way through though…). “Race the Sun”, if you qualify that one. Star Wars Episode 1 Racer.
Interstate 76. Death Track: Resurrection.
Cars with guns while racing is an underappreciated genre.
WipeOut: Omega Collection was my intro to VR gaming and if I get to borrow my brother’s PS4 again I’ll be right back at it. Sitting down and using a regular controller = best VR experience.
Does GTA V online count? I usually just pop on for a couple of quick car warehouse jobs using the Buzzard and Cargobob, but sometimes I get the itch and race it back, or have to beat the guy’s time. Actually correction on that, last time I was on last weekend I actually did the pizza delivery job on the moped to unlock the cheaper price on that, so that totally counts.
GTA V definitely counts. There is a whole racing culture people have developed within GTA V. Broughy1322 not only tests all the cars to see which is fastest, he started a website (gtacars.net) where you can sort through all the cars as well. He races on stream 1-3 times a week, and there are others who organize races. And don’t get me started on Gfred, where you have to race all over the map (Start on eastern island, then checkpoints at the lighthouse, quarry, airport, Chilliad, the observatory and a western island) to win. And I can’t forget 5M, the program that lays on top of single player mode to make multiplayer modded servers that you can roleplay (think nopixel) but also has several servers dedicated to racing as well. GTA V counts!
(Still) Love GTA V for so many reasons.
… well… it’s not racing, but I’ve been sucked into Snowrunner lately. Think giant rigs, offroad, locking diffs, 4wd low/high, and dragging cargo carefully across a map filled with mud, rocks, and water trying to ruin your day. It’s super chill, but engrossing. It sort of a sandbox with really crazy awesome physics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcFSFjJ2b6o
I mentioned Beam.NG below, and this is a bit like that. I don’t care for racing, but I do love a good simulation with some missions.
BeamNG was my vote too
Any time I play Snowrunner I manage to get myself into some situation where I am just toast and I give up.
That’s the game lol
ADDvanced, so true!
Working on any YT videos lately? I look forward to them
Great video on your dad’s boat, by the way
Thanks. It was a lot of things, all at once. I’m finishing up the yellow sea ray I showed in the beginning of that video, selling it to the original owner’s grandson. Should be cool, stay tuned!
I put a fair bit of time into Mud/Snowrunner, their new game Expeditions is really good too and it supports mods on consoles which is nice. Worth checking out if you haven’t already!
Exactly! I’m really rocking some old school farming in season 9 right now. It’s really relaxing.
Great game. Let me know if you need help getting tasks done!
Mario Kart 64
I still love to bring out the N64 every once in a while. I’ve even thought about getting some new controllers.
Ive been playing 2. Gran Turismo 4 for PS2. I found my old console and an old CRT tv and hooked it up in my office. Sometime i just leave the menu music on while I work. I am trying to go full OCD and full gold all of the licensees. Right now I have all gold thought the International B – but man it gets stupid hard after that.
I am also playing a great racing sim called Maro kart 8.,…
I’ve been relying on my PS2 for gaming, I really need to get a newer console one day, but right now Gran Turismo 4 is in the tray, before that was Need for Speed Underground 2, I still have all the games I played when the PS2 was new, and some good PS1 games like Driver 2, I have so many I can’t think of off the top of my head. But any of the GT games are usually a go-to for me, I even have a copy of GT5 but no way to play it.
Nothing sadly, which is especially disappointing when you consider that I have a decent force feedback wheel sitting on my desk gathering dust. Just too many other hobbies taking up my time.
Don’t discount board/card games. Championship Formula Racing (formally Speed Circuit) is a great board game of Formula 1 racing.
I mostly don’t have time to play racing games, but on days we’re absolutely desperate to find anything to keep the kid entertained, I’ll dig my old XBox out of the basement. Sometimes he likes bombing around Midtown Madness 3, and has done a bit of Forza (not well, he’s 4), but his favourite game is Dakar 2 just for the couple of open stages where you can go nuts riding motorcycles around the desert. I made a point of playing through the career mode a couple times just to unlock enough that I wasn’t constantly entering the cheat codes.
I treat Assetto Corsa (og) like a flight sim and the mods available are great. I tend to drive the pacific coast highway in fieros.
I still have a rig but I dialed back from iracing big time, Ill just do ai races anymore and Im looking forward to the NASCAR 25 game in the future.
If you are good at racing in real life or you pop Adderall like candy, you can do quite well with iracing. Im not as quick as the real guys or the gamers so as I got better and reached my skill limit, it kind of lost its fun.
That being said Im doing my first online race in a while with MX5 miatas at Martinsville this weekend. Id expect 200 laps of cautions so I’m not sure if it will make the game fun again.
I could never get the hang of video games, so I don’t even have any.
I’m playing IRL My Summer Car, I guess. Complete with swearing!
Me too old to get beyond IRL, so it’s the summer of my Daihatsu discontent. Kei?
Right now I’m deep into another playthrough of Tokyo Extreme Racer 3. Trying to get all the wanderers for the first time. Hoping the next Horizon is in japan….
I’ll play SuperTuxKart every now and then, does that count?
I may have popped my Xbox Series X into dev mode to run a PS2 emulator and currently be enjoying Need for Speed Underground 2 in 1080p.
I dusted off Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 a few weeks back and was stunned at how good it still is. It looks amazing and the physics are top notch.
When I was playing 5, i remember a glitch was found on one of the tracks, where you could net your self millions in one race. The glitch was up for like 3 days. In that time I staked over 10M in game currency – when I put the disc back in all the money and cars were still there. Its really a best case scenario, so now i can buy and tune anything i want without grinding and just enjoy any car i like in any race.
I’m a Forza Horizon guy. It’s my jam. A friend though, recently got me a gift of You Suck at Parking. It’s amusing.
None at the moment..
I feel like I’ve wrung all I can out of Forza Horizon 5.
I might grab the new mainline Forza game if it ever goes on sale.
I got it on sale a while ago and finally started playing it a couple months ago. It’s really pretty good. They have done a lot of updates to fix all the “grinding” issues that people complained about when it was first released, and they are actively adding new tracks and cars. Sebring was just added a couple weeks ago.
I just redownloaded iracing and dusted off the VR rig. Can’t wait to get PIT maneuvered by 12 different Miatas in the same race!????
Forza Motorsports. The game was widely panned when it was first released, but I only started playing it a couple months ago, and there were significant changes in game play before then.
I am really enjoying the game and recommend people who stopped playing it try it again now that all these changes have been made.
Beam.NG is my go to. Not a racing game per se, it’s more of an open environment simulator thing.
Never actually played on it, but I sure have enjoyed some of the videos from Neologic & GSP featuring unreasonably fun scenarios in Beam
Beam.ng is criminally underrated. I’ve spent so many hours in beam + automation.
This is what i spend most of my time playing too. Check it out, everyone!