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
RC Pro AM for NES
Forza Horizon 4 & 5 whilst patiently waiting for Wreckfest 2
Dirt Rally 2.0 & Project Cars 2 are the racing games I consistently play in VR. I picked up ACC but haven’t had much of a chance to play it yet.
I reinstalled Wreckfest not too long ago with the intention of playing through it (especially since the sequel just got announced), but it’s hard to play a racing game that doesn’t have VR support.
Mostly Initial Unity lately, when I don’t bother to turn on the Xbox and set up my wheel for Dirt Rally 2.0.
It’s a free Initial D fan game on–you guessed it–Unity. Most fun I’ve had in racing games in years, with the descent of the latest Horizon installments hahaha
I have Forza Horizon 4 and 5 and GTA V on my gaming computer, and both 5s on my Legion Go. I love completing the weekly challenges on FH5, as well as tuning the cars (which I’m good at) and making liveries (which I at least don’t suck at). I also do rivals, and have been working on 1% for all tracks in all levels (A-D and S1, S2) and am doing well at that.
GTA V I don’t race that much on, I can’t do as well as I can in Forza. But it does have a thriving racing community. Look up Broughy1322 and gtacars.net. Dude tested all cars for lap time and top speed and it’s posted to his website as well as several videos for it. He also streams 1-3 times a week racing in GTA V.
I’ve been enjoying Gran Turismo 7 but I only like playing it with the wheel and pedals. But I don’t usually have the energy to drag it out so I’ll just play Forza Horizon 5 on the steam deck and be lazy on the couch.
I haven’t played any games for a long time but my first love was “TOCA: Touring Car Championship” on the original PlayStation.
It was ahead of its time for a few things: you could do crazy amounts of body damage, deal with lots of weather, have multiplayer races and enjoy commentary from Tiff Needell.
Just reinstalled Forza 5 on the old XBOX One the other day so I can get back into playing again.
MotorNation.com scratches my itch of buying, upgrading, and collecting 80’s through very early 2000’s crap boxes. The classifieds take me back to when I was 16 looking for my first car.
If you fall into the “I remember fondly looking through the Auto Shopper from the grocery store when I was younger” niche, this game is for you.
None.
I got started with Need for Speed on the 3DO (if anyone remembers that console), and moved on to some of the other NfS games on PC. Gran Turismo 2-4 have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of hours since then. I still boot up 4 and run laps around the Green Hell in the 190E Evo II when I’m having a bad day. As others have mentioned, some of the newer games are too grindy for adult me. I have Assetto Corsa also, but I really need to at least buy a wheel and pedals to get into that. That’s on my to-do list once I have my new pro- I mean perfectly great car that needs nothing! sorted out.
….yeah, I didn’t convince me either. It’s a project.
Forza Horizon: I can start a challenging race when I’m in the mood, cruise the scenic countryside when I’m not. Do some silly car stunts out in the open world, or just sit in Forzavista to admire curves on a beautifully designed car.
iRacing, so much iRacing. I recently upgraded to a Moza R9 DD and some load cell pedals, along with an UW monitor on a swing arm so it moves all the way out to the wheelbase. After sim racing for 3ish years, my setup has evolved quite a bit although I’m still on a foldable F-GT Lite chair and mount setup.
BeamNG and Assetto Corsa often, along with the new EA Rally. The Rennaport beta is alright.
But lots of Arca, Gen 4 Cup, Mazda, GT4, and Ferrari GT3 for the looptys.
Oh man, I had Jaguar XJ220 for Sega CD when I was a youth. I loved that game, I was, and am, a nerd for Jags in general, and that game hit all the notes. I have Asetto Corsa and a Logitech wheel, but I barely use it. But I have countless hours sunk into Gran Turismo 1-3, and Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero. Wipeout XL was also extremely formative to my early teen brain.
I’ve loved racing video games since Night Driver on my Atari 2600!
My tastes definitely lean to the arcade side of things. When I got my Atari computer (800, then 1200XL), my main racing go-to was The Great American Cross Country Road Race. F-Zero and Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing on SNES. When I got my first PC my main racing game was Need for Speed 2, and on OG Xbox I was all about the Burnout series. I played some Midtown Madness and Project Gotham Racing, as well, but the crashes always brought me back.
I still have a ton of racing games on my PC and have tried a bunch on my phone. Currently I’m playing Forza Horizon 4 (I picked it up a few weeks ago when it went on sale for $12) and GRID Legends on PC, and on my phone I have been playing Real Racing 3 for years, since my Nexus 7 tablet days.
I would love to get my old Saitek R440 force feedback wheel working, but Windows 10 does not play nice with it.
Idk if this counts, but you know what I’d really love? Another Trials game. I lovehated Trials HD. Evolution got too… I dunno, not quite right. Trials HD had this weird sinister undercurrent and encouraged exploring weird places. Evolution dropped all, or at least most of that, and just wasn’t as satisfying to play. I guess what I really want is Trials HD 2.
I will never forget the time, after playing nearly a hundred hours, beating all the extreme tracks, and trying to get platinum on all the tracks up to Hard, my neighbor at the time came over, laid hands on the controller and played the game for the first time, and crushed my score on a Medium track. It took me two hours to beat *his* time. Horrible stuff.
Carefully making sure 100s of GB of Forza (Motorsport 7, Horizon 3 & 4) are installed so I can never touch them because I get too stressed out when I practice.
Contrariwise, Star Wars: Episode I Racer, the greatest racing game ever made, lives on my Switch and PCs for permanent ready access.
Apart from that, does doing the mine cart and jet ski portion in Resident Evil 4 remake count?
Been playing Forza Horizon but I’m going to give Dakar another try since they’ve put out a lot of updates over the year. With Dakar I felt like they had a great concept, good driving, but a not so great structure to how the game is set up.
Like, if you want a more true rally experience, then you have to go with the hardcore mode which normally would be fine. But, you have no navigational aids except aside from a true to life direction sheet.
Cool concept, except that the game does not show the player how to read it, nor offer any type of transition mode to help you ease into it.
So the alternative is dropping down just one difficulty level, but now you’re in a head to head race with other cars and you don’t have access to some of the experience/feature sets the rally modes which a lot of the game design was based around.
And Forza Horizon (well the really the entire series) needs to become more of a games as a service. There’s so much content for that game, and being able to take Horizon 5 cars into the Horizon 4 world would be awesome for a change of pace. A previous higher up manager I reported to was an executive producer on that game and apparently that was a huge discussion and fight over whether to make it a gaas type of title, and clearly the keep it a traditional release won out.
All of my gaming these days is with my kids, so it is either Mario Kart (SNES) or Forza Horizon 4 or 5. They’re not car enthusiasts or particularly good virtual drivers, so we need to stick with arcade-y games for now.
I did a race on my horse yesterday in Red Dead 2 last night, that counts right? McHorseFace is a great horse. He’s a good boah
Not long after that, ran across some KKK guys in the woods around a bonfire, threw a stick of dynamite into the fire, that killed most of them, and then threw a throwing knife at the guy who survived.
I named my horses in Breath of the Wild Dimbutts, Blort, elllllbo,and Borse (for Big Horse, of course). I thought I had one named delbo, too, but maybe I let it go.
I like your style.
I had a horse named Beastmode. I think naming the horse was my favorite thing about RDR2. I just couldn’t get into it otherwise.
Lately I’ve been messing with Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 and every so often I’ll boot GT7 up again but I’m about done with it.. I really want a new NFS but Unbound irks me with its weird art direction and the past like 2-3 NFS games have all felt like the same cars just unlocked in a different order. The racing genre needs a boost!
I just saw that Wreckfest 2 has been announced, and I’m pumped. The first game was fantastic!
I need to go look that up now.. I logged a LOT of time on the first one.
Here’s the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcFycn0BjzE
Oh man, second Wreckfest!
Agree, fun game that I tried on GamePass and enjoyed it more than I thought. Does get repetitive though after a bit.
whaaaaaaat?
You have just exploded my day in the best way.
I haven’t played a in a bit, but the last one was Forza Horizon 5. I bought Gran Turismo 7 but it is a bit too grindy for my adult life and time I can devote to gaming. Forza you always seem to have enough fake money to buy something if you want it.
GT7 really irked me when it started “rewarding” me with the opportunity to buy a car that I absolutely didn’t have the in-game money for. I sort of get that crap in a free-to-play, but this is a game that cost full game money. I’m with you on too much grind there.
I downloaded a bunch of Playstation 1 racing games, and among them was Bakusuo Dekotora Densetsu: Art truck Battle. You race a dekotora (those over-the-top costumized trucks) across Japan, 1v1 against another truck, on highways with traffic. It plays like the drag racing segments in NFS: Underground, meaning you stay in your lane automatically, and you have to switch lanes to avoid traffic or to block your opponent (you have to signal first !). There is a horn AND a yell button, which are used to urge people to move out of the way. The races are 3-4 minutes long, and you have a nice citypop/enka song for each race. Finishing first (and without damaging your cargo) nets you money, which you can invest in new accessories for the truck, including new ‘yell’ sentences.
So far, so good, even if it seems a bit shallow gameplay-wise, since I didn’t see any performance upgrades, and the driving gameplay is mostly about evading obstacles.
The general vibe is through the roof though, it’s a weirdly captivating game.
Go try it!
I currently spend at least 1 day a week playing Forza Horizon 5, mainly to play though that week’s challenges for new cars and what not. Next time I take lengthy time off, I want to play through the rest of the Hot Wheels expansion and finally play the 2nd DLC map. I don’t play video games much anymore (outside of what I can play on my Switch lite, which is currently GTA:SA TDE), since I’d rather spend time with my mom then to hear her bitch about how I don’t.
At some point, I’m going to buy Horizon Chase 2 and 100% it like I did the first one. That game was incredible. So much so, I bought it again for Xbox, and plan to 100% it on there for the achievements.
I was big on completing all the challenges, but this month I’m just getting to 40 (at least) to get the cars, and also completing all car prize challenges. Next month I’ll work on 100% again, but I was on vacation and 100% is not an option with bad hotel internet.