Auto Racing Games

[classicgamer74]

In today's episode I discuss some of my favorite early auto racing games.  What were some of your favorites?  What are some you'd like me to add to a sequel?  

[electricmastro]

 

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

My first racing game was Enduro..  I still think that is a great game and play it still sometimes.  Off Road for the NES was a decent top down racer though I'm not a fan of top down racers for the most part.  Anyone notice a serious amount shovelware top down racers on the online console shops?  Rad Racer for NES was great.  for Genesis - Outrun 2019 (great game!).  I didn't like Super Monaco GP too much, but like Super Hang On.   For SNES the Top Gears were great.  There's a super famicom game that is similar to F-Zero that I always forget the name of.  Something Go Go..  Blanking right now.  Spacey with really bright colors and plays like Fzero.

 

As much as it's easy to shit on the state of modern gaming, the racing games made now are just amazing (for the most part).   My gaming collection is probably 90% racing games of various sorts.  Games like wipEout are probably my favorite sub-genre and some great ones have come out recently.  Also the reason I chose Xbox this generation is because Sony abandoned the wipEout franchise and their Gran Turismos feel like sitting in detention.

 

 

 

[Tanooki]

44 minutes ago, NeonSpaceBeagle said:

My first racing game was Enduro..  I still think that is a great game and play it still sometimes.  Off Road for the NES was a decent top down racer though I'm not a fan of top down racers for the most part.  Anyone notice a serious amount shovelware top down racers on the online console shops?  Rad Racer for NES was great.  for Genesis - Outrun 2019 (great game!).  I didn't like Super Monaco GP too much, but like Super Hang On.   For SNES the Top Gears were great.  There's a super famicom game that is similar to F-Zero that I always forget the name of.  Something Go Go..  Blanking right now.  Spacey with really bright colors and plays like Fzero.

 

As much as it's easy to shit on the state of modern gaming, the racing games made now are just amazing (for the most part).   My gaming collection is probably 90% racing games of various sorts.  Games like wipEout are probably my favorite sub-genre and some great ones have come out recently.  Also the reason I chose Xbox this generation is because Sony abandoned the wipEout franchise and their Gran Turismos feel like sitting in detention.

 

 

 

Uchuu Race Go Go for SFC?  At first I was thinking Mach Go Go but Speed Racer was US only.

 

I got Outrun 2019 and Outunners in town here complete a couple days ago, pretty solid stuff.

[electricmastro]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Uchuu Race Go Go for SFC?  At first I was thinking Mach Go Go but Speed Racer was US only.

 

I got Outrun 2019 and Outunners in town here complete a couple days ago, pretty solid stuff.

Would have nice if Uchuu Race had released as Freeway Flyboys in America as originally planned. I think it would have stuck out amongst other SNES racers despite the F-Zero comparison:

 

 

[roadrunner]

F1 2002 on the PS2 
good game


Good old Hockenheim circuit 



 

 

[GameGirl420]

Oh gawd I love racing games! Some of my faves are...

 

Rad Mobile

 

Slipstream

 

Super Monaco GP series

 

Mario Kart 64

 

Gran Turismo 1-7

 

Ridge Racer

 

San Francisco Rush:Extreme Racing

 

Rock N' Roll Racing

 

Championship Sprint

 

 

[classicgamer74]

Wow! Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will be able to make videos on auto racing for quite awhile. I want to try the European racing games. We have a smaller selection in NA. 

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

Sonic racing transformed was great.. sega racing before that was great too. The newer sonic team racing doesn't seem to have the same magic but I like it anyway. 

 

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is a great compilations of racers. And the worst kart racer

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

Street racer is a lot of fun. Played it on the snes and finally got to play it on the Saturn this past year.   The Extreme G series on the N64 (there's two of them), and the one on GameCube (its on other systems that gen too) Extreme G 3 is the best one. There's even a controller code to unlock every track (I get kind of angry when too many tracks are locked and so beyond my skill level I'll never see them, luckily that's not many racing games). 

 

Ugh and please no mandatory tutorials on racing games. Major turn off unless they are super quick.

 

I started playing the newer need for speeds and they are pretty but terrible.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

Oh and pacman rally for gamecube! I loved that more than Mario kart double dash at the time and still do.  Sorry for so many posts.. I can babble on and on about racing games. 

 

Does anyone know of any good Japanese only racing games that might not have English titles? I love discovering those.  There's a few on Saturn that are okay. 

[electricmastro]

6 hours ago, classicgamer74 said:

Wow! Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will be able to make videos on auto racing for quite awhile. I want to try the European racing games. We have a smaller selection in NA. 

One European example would be V-Rally Championship Edition. One of the more standout Game Boy racers:

 

 

[Tanooki]

Agreed V-Rally I guess it's 99 that popped up on the GBC was pretty solid, well done, nice use of color too.

 

Though admittedly I liked just a little more Top Gear Pocket 2, that I could not put down even more than the first.  The three are all amazing.

 

Yet in the end V-Rally 3 released on GBA smoked the lot of them, the fact they did a full 3D engine rendering how basically Sega Saturn did its quads in software is nuts, even has an in car view with some detached floating hands on the wheel, and include windshield cracking as you take more damages.

 

 

 

[electricmastro]

This video on the NES games is informative as well:

 

 

[Hwlngmad]

On 5/4/2022 at 12:22 PM, Tanooki said:

Agreed V-Rally I guess it's 99 that popped up on the GBC was pretty solid, well done, nice use of color too.

 

Though admittedly I liked just a little more Top Gear Pocket 2, that I could not put down even more than the first.  The three are all amazing.

 

Yet in the end V-Rally 3 released on GBA smoked the lot of them, the fact they did a full 3D engine rendering how basically Sega Saturn did its quads in software is nuts, even has an in car view with some detached floating hands on the wheel, and include windshield cracking as you take more damages.

 

 

 

Will be checking this one out very soon for sure.  I appreciate the information.

[electricmastro]

On 5/4/2022 at 1:22 PM, Tanooki said:

Agreed V-Rally I guess it's 99 that popped up on the GBC was pretty solid, well done, nice use of color too.

 

Though admittedly I liked just a little more Top Gear Pocket 2, that I could not put down even more than the first.  The three are all amazing.

 

Yet in the end V-Rally 3 released on GBA smoked the lot of them, the fact they did a full 3D engine rendering how basically Sega Saturn did its quads in software is nuts, even has an in car view with some detached floating hands on the wheel, and include windshield cracking as you take more damages.

 

 

Yeah, Velez & Dubail really tried to be cutting edge when making some of the V-Rally games. Another of their games Test Drive Le Mans is perhaps the best GBC racer too:

 

 

[Tanooki]

Sometimes they pushed it too far, it worked ok with their Gex/Spyro like Asterix and Obelixx 3rd person platformer which is crazy, yet with Driver3 it's both a gameplay dumpster fire and a technical wonder if it even ran at all.

 

It's not really an auto racing game exactly, but another wicked 3D engine was Blue Roses and Smashing Drive on GBA, it's a sheer contender against what those 2 did.  Yet their best game can't really get shown in this thread using that engine as it's Wing Commander Prophecy from PC converted oddly accurately, the full flight combat models are all there in 3D, right down to shield sparking and little missiles going about.

[electricmastro]

3 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Sometimes they pushed it too far, it worked ok with their Gex/Spyro like Asterix and Obelixx 3rd person platformer which is crazy, yet with Driver3 it's both a gameplay dumpster fire and a technical wonder if it even ran at all.

 

It's not really an auto racing game exactly, but another wicked 3D engine was Blue Roses and Smashing Drive on GBA, it's a sheer contender against what those 2 did.  Yet their best game can't really get shown in this thread using that engine as it's Wing Commander Prophecy from PC converted oddly accurately, the full flight combat models are all there in 3D, right down to shield sparking and little missiles going about.

Drome Racers too. Reminds me of Stunt Race FX on SNES, but faster:

 

 

[Tanooki]

I can see that seen the game before...but comparing this to Stunt Race?  That's a fun game, but the speed well...the old dude at the start of Office Space would out pace that one.

[electricmastro]

Best overhead racer on GBC:

 

 

[mr_me]

Nice video.  It should be said that arcade Pole Position was made by Namco, licenced to Atari.  Of the home versions, Atari 5200 Pole Position stands out because of the analog control.

 

Atari Night Driver first came out in 1976, about the same time as Midway's 280-zzzap.  They were both copying a German arcade game.

 

The others I remember in the early arcade days is Sega's Monaco GP and Atari's Sprint series.  Unfortunately, Monaco GP is tough to emulate.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by mr_me

[Atariboy]

Monaco GP isn't hard to emulate, it's actually impossible to emulate since it's a discrete logic game. In fact it's the last significant one to appear, several years into the microprocessor dominated era of videogame coinop gaming. With no microprocessor running software code, you're left with recreations essentially, including a very nice port from Sega on the Sega Saturn.

 

Back in the day the original Digital Eclipse started to code a Pong simulator that replicated in-software every detail of the physical TTL circuitry and wiring, but eventually they realized that the computer hardware of the day just didn't have the horsepower to run such a complicated replica and settled for a traditional port (While taking advantage of the simulator to ensure the port played 100% correctly).

 

As far as I'm aware that's the closest we've came to what essentially would be emulation of sorts of a discrete logic game. And alas while we now have the power 20 years or so after that effort to do this job on even a low-end PC, virtually all of these games are too obscure in today's world to ever justify that effort on a commercial basis.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Atariboy

[Hwlngmad]

23 hours ago, mr_me said:

Nice video.  It should be said that arcade Pole Position was made by Namco, licenced to Atari.  Of the home versions, Atari 5200 Pole Position stands out because of the analog control.

Agreed on the 5200 version of Pole Position.  It is a nice port and really fun to play with the 5200 controller as I think it really suits the game well.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Hwlngmad

[dudeguy]

Id have to go with Ridge Racer. I hated the game as a kid because I could never figure out how to drift without crashing. There is definitely an art to it. It's not a game like most racers where you just mindlessly mash down the throttle. And I love the soundtrack for the game and the announcer. "Yeaaah!!! It's a NEW RECORD!!"

[mr_me]

20 hours ago, Atariboy said:

...

As far as I'm aware that's the closest we've came to what essentially would be emulation of sorts of a discrete logic game. And alas while we now have the power 20 years or so after that effort to do this job on even a low-end PC, virtually all of these games are too obscure in today's world to ever justify that effort on a commercial basis.

Some of these discrete logic games are emulated.  Have a look at DICE at https://adamulation.blogspot.com .  Mame also emulates some of these [TTL] machines using netlists, Pong and Breakout are working.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by mr_me