Favorite Racing Games

[DOSBoot]

Like the title says. It's hard to pick only one, so I'll choose which ones I like from the various video game consoles I have owned over the years.

NES: Rad Racer, Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
SNES: F1 Pole Position, Mario Kart
Sega Genesis: Vurtua Racing, Outrun
Nintendo 64: Top Gear Rally, Mario Kart 64
PSX: Grand Turismo 2, Wipeout
Xbox: Rallisport Challange 2, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Xbox 360: F1 2010, Midnight Club Los Angeles, Forza IV
PC: Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, Grand Prix Legends, Rfactor, Mobil 1 Rally Championship

[AndreaModa]

Grand Prix Legends truly is amazing, it's almost certainly the hardest ever racing game out there and was way ahead of it's time when released. I've managed to complete at least one full flying lap at every original circuit except the Nurburgring (for obvious reasons!).

I'm also very fond of my F1 Challenge 99-02

[shinji]

I had a Gameboy Colour game, from 1998/99, that my cousin gave to me. It was like Pole Position or something - that infinite horizon idea. I played it to death (literally, the cartridge just stopped working one day). I remember that for some reason there was a Venezuelan Grand Prix - precursor to Pastor?

Formula 2001 on the PS2 got similar copious amounts of gameplay, from intentionally driving backwards when I was bored (hey, I was 8, gimme a break) to taking it seriously and winning a championship with Frentzen, on the lowest difficult obviously. The free DVD review of the 2000 season was one of the things that got me properly fixated on F1; I can still quote chunks of the commentary.

Since then of course there have been slim pickings - I've never really got into PC gaming so GP4 and the like have never appealed, and console gaming has only had a legitimate contender this year with F12011, which I've played a bit (finished a season) but I don't have the time to invest much interest. The first two will remain lifelong favourites however.

[ranig]

Truth is, I almost played only Indycar Racing II, and ToCA 2 and 3. So I will go with Indycar Racing II as I am quite nostalgic of it and its pixels ^^

[DOSBoot]

Grand Prix Legends truly is amazing, it's almost certainly the hardest ever racing game out there and was way ahead of it's time when released. I've managed to complete at least one full flying lap at every original circuit except the Nurburgring (for obvious reasons!).

Yeah, that's a tough track to master. Still, it doesn't hold a candle to the Targa Florio track they made for that game, which is about three times longer than the Nurburgring itself!

[nome66]

BIIIIIIGGGG list here we go. i have loads of favorites.
from the earliest console i own/have played to my PC. the game titles are in no particular order other than that.

SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive: Super Monaco GP, Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP 2
Nintendo 64: Mario Kart 64, Monster Truck Madness 64.
PS2: GT3, GT4, Burnout 3 Takedown, ATV Offroad 4, Need For Speed Most Wanted, Need For Speed Carbon, Destruction Derby 2(ps1 title)
GameBoy Advance: NFS Most wanted and Carbon, VRally 3
Gamecube: Mario Kart-Double Dash, ATV quad racing 2
Nintendo DS: Asphalt 2, Mario Kart DS.

ok. here's where it gets interesting.
PC: rFactor. i invested 20 American dollars back in 2009 and got waaayyyyy more than i paid for. THANK YOU FAIR USE AND FREE COMMUNITY BASED DOWNLOADS!!
EA >> NFS-- Hot Pursuit 2(2002), Underground 1 and 2, ProStreet(it's alright but not as good as...), Shift, Hot Pursuit(2010).
Codemasters >> Colin Mcrae DiRT 1 and 2, 1nsane(2000)
TRI/Microsoft >> CART Precision Racing (1997), Monster Truck Madness 1 and 2(1996, 1998)
Other >> various offroad racing titles the other side of the pond (except maybe australia) hasn't heard of. Such as Leadfoot(Ratbag games) and Dirt Track Racing 2(also Ratbag)
you can probably tell i have taken a liking to Offroad truck racing games.
ehem.......YYEEEEEHHAAAWWWW

[RonDenisDeletraz]

NASCAR Racing 2003 Season

[Salamander]

NASCAR Racing 2003 Season

Same for me. It's 8 years old and is still up there as the most realistic racing game I've played - although, that's a given considering I haven't played any of the newer racers out there (Codemasters' EGO engine racers aside).

[dr-baker]

OK, I'm still an amateur at these but here are all the ones I own:

PC: Total Immersion Racing (bought in France in 2003 for either €10 or €20) and some NASCAR games that I bought some months later for two or three euros.

Then I bought a PSP in 2006 and a PS3 in about 2009.

PSP: F1 Grand Prix, F1 06, F1 09, WRC, NASCAR, TOCA Race Driver 2 & 3, GT, Test Drive Unlimited, Disney Pixar Cars

PS3: GT 5 Prologue, GT5, NASCAR 08, F1 2010, GRID, Juiced 2 (played once, because it came free with the PS3), Cars Mater-National, Cars 2 (not yet played).

Online/downloads: none, other than what's in the link in my signature, but that's still in the beta stage...

So I have never competed on the Manx TT course because I prefer to play games on consoles from discs.

And I saw this book briefly mentioned in Autosport recently... Although I suspect most people would prefer to play these games than read about them?

[Phoenix]

Xbox: Rallisport Challange 2

Win. I discovered this game when I bough a XBox and it came with it. I find it to be better than many Colin McRae games: it has fabulous graphics, the gaming experience overall is very accurate and pleasant, and you have conventional rallying, hillclimb, ice racing and rallycross.

[AdrianSutil]

About 80% of my computer games are driving/racing based. Games like TOCA Race Driver with Ryan McKane was an excellent game. All the Need For Speed games, especially Underground 2 as it had a Peugeot 106 .

Formula 1: F1-95 and F1-97 were brilliant games. Something about taking a Forti or a Pacific into the points never failed to bore me. F1 2011 is possible the best game over the years, mainly for it's graphics.

Also had games like WRC and Indycar. But never as good as F1.

Gran Turismo 4 and 5 are the best simulation games though. Used to love driving around Tsukuba, Nürburgring, Apricot Hill, Grand Valley Speedway and Midfield Raceway

[FantometteBR]

Grand Prix 2, Super Monaco GP and Nascar games

Period

[the Masked Lapwing]

V8 Supercars 3 - Every time I play it, I wish that someone would make a V8 Supercars-specific game, even if it would only sell in Australia. And it was what made me support Williams

Gran Turismo 4 - Brilliant! Even though there are only two Holdens...
Funnily enough, I only bought it because there was a Monaro on the back cover...

[Cynon]

NASCAR Racing 2003 Season

Same for me. It's 8 years old and is still up there as the most realistic racing game I've played - although, that's a given considering I haven't played any of the newer racers out there (Codemasters' EGO engine racers aside).

I'm surprised that other people actually play NR2003 around here. I still race it on a regular basis online.

The community support for that game is obscene. People have made most of the V8 Supercar tracks, and you can (theoretically) race NASCAR cars on the V8 Supercar tracks, or even on the 24 km Nordschleife (and DAMN its fun in a stock car), Spa Francorchamps, Magny Cours, etc...

[Shizuka]

NES: Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge, Nigel Mansell's World Championship Challenge, F1-Race
SNES: F1 Pole Position, Mario Kart, Japanese GT game I forgot, Mario Kart
Gameboy: Road Rash
Genesis: Road Rash, Outrun, Lotus
N64: Mario Kart 64
PS1: Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo 2 (which I LITERALLY played through, having tried, owned all cars, completing all license tests in Gold and only achieving 98.2% due to % bug), Toca World Touring Cars (I really play this one as well very good...), Colin McRae Rally 1-2, Crash Team Racing, Micro Maniacs
PC: Any crap racing game. Seriously, I am planning to do a commentary playthrough on a LOT of these... (on Youtube )
GBA: GT Advance 1, 3, NFS Carbon
Gameboy Color: Pocket GT

[David AGS]

The Microprose Grand Prix series is pretty good, and the the current F1 game is good.

I liked Grand Turismo, the original one too

[Londoner]

For me, it would have to be GP3. Absolutely loved the game when I was younger, before it sadly stopped working. I have GP4, but I feel it is inferior to GP3. Probably because I find the 2001 carset rather boring compared to the 1998 carset on GP3.

Have played most of the F1 games on Playstation, favourites would have to be F1 1999 and F1 2006.

[madmark1974]

WARNING : OLD G*T ALERT!

Starting at the beginning (with links for the more obscure ones) :

Atari VCS - Night Driver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Driver). With analogue paddle steering controls!!!!

Arcade - Super Sprint, Pole Position, Final Lap (my favourite and one of the earliest LAN link racing games), Power Drift, Daytona USA, Continental Circus (3d glasses version), and Outrun of course...

Spectrum - Chequered Flag (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0000912), TT Racer (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0005436),
and CRL management games Formula One (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001845) and Endurance (Motorbikes). But my favourite and most played
Spectrum racing game had to be Nigel Mansell's GP (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003410).

Atari ST - The original Geoff Crammond's F1GP, the brilliant Stunt Car Racer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunt_Car_Racer), Vroom (http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-st-vroom_10791.html), Lombard RAC Rally (http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-st-lombard-rac-rally_22603.html) - great graphics for 1988 in this one. Hard Drivin' 2 - because of the track editor, who couldn't
love a game where you could put a mooing cow in the middle of a loop-the-loop?

Atari Jaguar - not a lot of choice, but I enjoyed Super Burnout (http://www.mobygames.com/game/jaguar/super-burnout)

PS1 - PS3 All Gran Turismo games, plus Tourist Trophy (GT with bikes), F1 '97 and '98, Destruction Derby, Wipeout. F1 2001 and 2003, Burnouts 1- 3. Riiiiddddgggee Racer!

Never have got on with Codemasters' handling, having tried several of their games, namely Toca Touring cars on PS1 and Toca Race Driver on PS2, so have not bought any Codemasters racing games this generation. Oh, and Motorstorm and Test Drive Unlimited 2 on PS3 (so far) ...

EDIT - just realised I missed out the PC, so here are a few (I'm not really a PC gamer and don't have one at home) :

Indy 500 (used to play this at break times at school on a 386) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_500:_The_Simulation). Absolutely brilliant game! Oh, and RFactor, and that's about it ...

[dinizintheoven]

Spectrum - Chequered Flag (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0000912), TT Racer (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0005436),
and CRL management games Formula One (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001845) and Endurance (Motorbikes). But my favourite and most played
Spectrum racing game had to be Nigel Mansell's GP (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003410).

Finally, someone else who realises it's not just consoles and PCs out there!

I was never a massive fan of racing games, actually - but the one I played most was probably Codemasters' Grand Prix 2 on the Speccy, at least, when I could get it to load. Also, Twin Turbo V8, which had a brilliant soundtrack for a 48K game.

A word also goes in for the PC version of Microprose Grand Prix (I wonder why that might be, eh?) and NASCAR Racing - the original 1994 edition.

Hard Drivin' 2 - because of the track editor, who couldn't love a game where you could put a mooing cow in the middle of a loop-the-loop?

Which reminds me: Carmageddon!

[ADx_Wales]

I shall have to dissect this into the consoles/computers that I've had over time

Speccy (1989-199?): Speed Kings 2 (Bike racing)
Master System(1992-199?): Ayrton Senna Super Monaco II (Not as detailed as the Megadrive/Genesis version (which is really saying something))
Megadrive (1995, yes THAT late): Konami F1
Sony Playstation (1998-2000): Gran Turismo 2
Sega Dreamcast(2000-present): Its a dead heat between Metropolis Street Racer (The first Project Gotham Racing) and Tokyo Highway Challenge (I liked it even though the handling was rubbish)

It was at this point I was able to acquire a PC, but I could never get into the racing games/sims due to the need for some kind of wheel.

Playstation 2 (2001-2010 replaced with the newer flatter version when the old one died): Gran Turismo 4, TOCA Race driver 1 and 3.

Original XBox: Forza Motorsport, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Project Gotham 2, and TOCA Race Driver 2 close runners up : Outrun 2, Colin McRae 4, Need for Speed Underground 2. Moto GP 2.

These 4 games at the time could not be better placed in the gaming world, Forza for the "do it yourself" aspect of a virtual career in motorsport, Most Wanted for its affinity with all things illegal, Project Gotham for the almost-Gymkhana style mixed in with all things supercar, and TOCA Race Driver 2 for "Climbing the staircase of talent" (TOCA race driver 3 would be more in depth including better Rally stages and American Oval racing, but was never on the original xbox, nor its multi-angled successor). Unfortunately some of these games have mutated into eachother's sub genres in order to boost sales, which is ridiculous really because everyone has their preferances, people who like Need for Speed dont nessasarily want to play TOCA and vice versa, unfortunately with Race Driver: Grid thats what was presented to us, the "Career" but with impossibe races around cities (including a £15 note representation of Long Beach) that would never have races to host (ahem, "project gotham"), and certain drift aspects (project gotham again) and races in (almost free roaming) arenas (not so "most wanted"), The same can be said for the 2 attempts at an "all-round" game in the guise of the Need for Speed: Shift series, more or less the same format as Race Driver: Grid, but with even more emphasis on the career in racing, it would be nice if the NFS and Race Driver francises stuck to what they knew best rather than try to out-do their competitors. Race Driver is nowhere to be found these days, GRID was eventually Codemaster's "Audition Tape" For something much, much bigger.

XBox 360: All the Successive Forzas on this console have been brilliant, yet flawed, I'm somewhat disappointed in #4, for not having enough cars that are actually seen on the racetracks of the world, instead going for the exotic supercars that will never dare go wheel to wheel with proper racing machinery, they've also not really updated any of the venues, Silverstone is still in its old guise (even before the new shed was being nailed together), Indy Speedway however has its current infield layout, except for the Moto GP first section, the super-slow hairpin essbend is replaced with a much more challenging sequence of slow curves.

Trials HD is probably the most entertaining piece of computer game for those who have never played it before, give it 2 days and then you'll start to get annoyed. There is a new one due out soon, it may actually be a fully fledged DVD cased game too!

[Aerond]

I´ll say my fave F1 games first:

MEGADRIVE / GENESIS: F1 Circus, F1 Heavenly Symphony, Satoru Nakajima´s F1 Super License.
SNES: F1 GRAND PRIX (Parts II and III)
PLAYSTATION: F1´95 (truly amazing for its time)
ARCADE: F1 Exhaust Note (Great arcade by Sega vaguely based on 1991 F1 Season), Virtua Racing.
PC: Grand Prix (all of them, but my fave all time is Gp2), F1Challenge, Power F1, GPM series, MGPRS2/F1 Racing Simulation and Rfactor.

------ Then... racing games, loads of them. It´s my favourite game genre, I´ve played many of them for so many hours I just can´t choose a couple! But I can say that some Racing Sims have caught me for long hours like;

GT4, Mobil 1 Rally Championship (Probably best rally sim ever), Nascar Racing 2, TOCA Touring Cars...

[SuperAguri]

For me....

Megadrive : Super Monaco GP, Fastest Lap, F1 Circus MD, Satoru Nakajima´s F1 Grand Prix, SN F1 Hero, SN, F1 Super License, Virtua Racing

FL could use the Analogue joypad the XE-1AP, which when used made the game a lot trickier as you had to steer into corners gentley, too much and you would spin. One of the SN F1 games had stages where you could drive slowly through the edges of the tyre barriers (took a while...) and go into weird extra tracks (Monaco for example had a weird oval).

Mega CD - Heavenly Symphony

Fantastic game with FMV bits of the drivers, including a fantastic 1993 challenge where you can race as Fabrizio Barbazza trying to get your 1 point.

Super Nintendo - SD F1 Grand Prix, F1 Grand Prix and Parts 2 and 3, Human Grand Prix (and II, III and IV), Nakajima Satoru Super F-1 Hero (and F1 Hero 94), Final Stretch, Exhaust Heat II, F1 Circus (including Gaiden, Limited, 2 and 3), Battle Grand Prix

SD F1 Grand Prix is probably the most surreal licenced F1 game ever, and yes Licenced so the cars in the game are Ferraris, Benettons, Sauber, Tyrrells, etc. The drivers included (although changed to animals and given slightly different names) Hakkinen (Dog), Schumacher (Wolf), Alesi (Rose carrying Horse), Hill (Bluebird), Katayama (mouse), Barrichello (Dog?), JJ Letho (called J J in the game and is some small rodent), Berger (Rabbit), Irvine (Eagle) and Frenzten (Bear). There are even 2 SD Fuji TV commentators at the bottom who do commentate on the race (in Japanese..)

I'll write some more later

[MinardiFan95]

My collection doesn't go as far back as most, but I've still played a fair few racing games. In fact, 80-90% of the games in my collection are racing games.

NES/SNES: Didn't have anything notable here, as these were long outdated by the time I got them - the only racing game that came with either of them was Mach Rider, which wasn't exactly memorable.

PS1: Gran Turismo 1 and 2 (for obvious reasons), the TOCA series (probably my favourite series at the time - wish that Codemasters would have continued with this rather than go to GRiD), Colin McRae Rally, Need For Speed: High Stakes (still the best NFS game IMO) and F1 World Grand Prix (based on the 2000 season, with a fully fledged career mode, similar to the same mode in F12011 - possibly the first ever in an F1 game)

PS2: Gran Turismo 3 and 4 (again, for obvious reasons), the V8 Supercars series (replaced TOCA as my favourite series at the time... didn't know they were actually the same series of games until much later on), F104 (the only F1 game that HWNSNBM appeared in), Colin McRae 2005, WRC 4, F1 Career Challenge, Enthusia Professional Racing, MotoGP 4, Driven To Destruction.

PS3: Gran Turismo 5 (yet again, for obvious reasons), the Colin McRae Dirt series (mainly because I had so much fun with Dirt 2 and 3 online with a bunch of guys from another forum), F12011 (haven't played it that much though), F1 Championship Edition, Race Driver GRiD.
(P.S. - if anyone wants to race against me in any of these games, you can add me on PSN. My username is thestig-13. Also, leave a message stating that you're from the F1 Rejects Forum, otherwise I may decline the request)

PC: rFactor (so many mods - it gets hard to choose what you want to race at times!), Race On, Grand Prix 4, Rigs of Rods.

[Barbazza]

For me....

Mega CD - Heavenly Symphony

Fantastic game with FMV bits of the drivers, including a fantastic 1993 challenge where you can race as Fabrizio Barbazza trying to get your 1 point.

Was it you that mentioned this before? Because it sounds amazing and I want it! (Chances of getting it = approximately zero though I suspect)

[Shizuka]

There's always emulation

[Waris]

Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 2 is my favourite racing game of all time. I've also played GP4, and I really liked it, but that was before I played GP2. I've played F1GP as well, but the graphics and sound are a bit irritating even for my relatively old-fashioned tastes.

My favourite SNES racing games are F1 RoC, F1 RoC 2 and this strange game called Top Gear that has nothing to do with the Top Gear show. I think it had different names in different countries. I also like Super F1 Circus.
And there was a really old game for Mac, the name of which I can't remember, but I think it was made by a company called Sierra or something.

Oh, and do Mario Kart-like games count? Obviously I really like all Mario Kart games, I think the original and Mario Kart 64 are the best. And there was a crazy DOS game, I think it was called Wacky Wheels, but it had nothing to do with Wacky Races - it was basically a Mario Kart port with various animals as drivers and different tracks. It also had a crazy battle mode in which you had to shoot ducks, so it was like a crossover between Mario Kart and Duck Hunt... epic win (?)

[Phoenix]

Oh, and do Mario Kart-like games count? Obviously I really like all Mario Kart games, I think the original and Mario Kart 64 are the best. And there was a crazy DOS game, I think it was called Wacky Wheels, but it had nothing to do with Wacky Races - it was basically a Mario Kart port with various animals as drivers and different tracks. It also had a crazy battle mode in which you had to shoot ducks, so it was like a crossover between Mario Kart and Duck Hunt... epic win (?)

If that kind of games count, I really have to mention Crash Team Racing. It was one of my first ever videogames, and I remember me and a friend, many years ago, would reunite at my house and spend some epic hours during summer time battling it out on both race and battle mode. I also remember that in that game, sometimes a message for the winner of multiplayer races would apper calling the guy "Fittipaldi". At that time, I was really intrigued as to what could mean...

[DOSBoot]

And there was a really old game for Mac, the name of which I can't remember, but I think it was made by a company called Sierra or something.
And there was a crazy DOS game, I think it was called Wacky Wheels, but it had nothing to do with Wacky Races - it was basically a Mario Kart port with various animals as drivers and different tracks. It also had a crazy battle mode in which you had to shoot ducks, so it was like a crossover between Mario Kart and Duck Hunt... epic win (?)

Hmmm. Sounds like this game: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/wacky-wheels

It says that it was for DOS only. When I think of Sierra, I think adventure games. Racing games were not exactly their field. Here's a good site that can help find that certain game you are looking for.

http://www.mobygames.com/