Kart racing games tend to be able to beat the king of them all: Mario Kart. While that game started, all a few entertaining offbeat ones have raced by, but this is Sega’s serious attempt at it, and it works. You can play as almost every major Sega mascot, such as most Sonic characters and familiar faces from Space Channel 5, Super Monkey Ball, and others. You race around tracks that reflect the design and setting of various Sega games while using power-ups to stay ahead of the pack.
The game has a power sliding ability that will increase your boost, which is the key to getting in the first place, but also picking up capsules that hold random power-ups such as a homing missile, mines, shields, speed boosts, and various other power-ups we have seen countless times. The game has a great sense of speed, and sliding around corners and doing various stunts is exciting, but the overall experience is borderline juvenile and very easy, even in the hardest mode. There are various missions you can complete as well as buying characters with Sega Miles, but this only goes so far.
The ideal way to play is with friends, but you need several controllers to do so because there is no online play. Why this was stripped from the PC version beats me, but it really brings down the experience since crowding around one computer isn’t very convenient. Once you do get some friends aboard, the game is a blast, and power-sliding and knocking enemies down makes for great laughs.
But when it’s all said and done, the game is a really average kart racer and has dated graphics as well as some annoying sounds. The game just feels the same no matter what you do as a single player, and I highly doubt anyone over 10 can play all 50+ missions without going crazy. If there was just some online play in here, it could sweeten the deal some, but the single-player can only be tolerated for so long.
This was a year with a lot of driving games and a few didn’t make it on the list. A great driving game has a wide variety of cars, great physics and handling (especially if it’s a simulator), great tracks, and a fun multiplayer component. What sets the best apart from the rest? Perfecting or changing something in the genre that none of the others did. Most racing games tend to stick to what’s safe, but the best reaches out just a little bit further.
What sets DiRT 3 apart this year was the fact that it improved on itself and added a lot of new things, but also was a solid racing game with great physics and cars. This was a close tie against Forza 4, but Forza didn’t improve enough on itself like DiRT 3 did. With the addition of Gymkhana, a whole new presentation style, revamped rep system, and tons of new cars DiRT 3 just new what makes a good racing game. With the addition of some DirectX 11 effects on PC, it also is one of the best looking.
The Driver series has been pretty rocky ever since the first game came out in 1998. The PS1 classic was one of a kind but sparked some bad-to-average sequels. San Francisco is the comeback for the series, and it is very strong and will please fans of the original. The story is kind of weird and takes a supernatural spin, with the lead guy (John Tanner) getting into an accident and falling into a coma after wanted criminal Jericho smashes into his car. Tanner can now leave his body and float around the city, entering any car he wants, and this is what the game is wrapped around.
Most of the game consists of various side missions such as dares, speed chases, races, protecting vehicles, etc. You can leave the car on the fly, move around to any car, and smash into the car you need to take down. This can also be used in races to slow opponents down so you can win, but don’t consider this cheating since most of the races are very challenging. Sometimes you have to swap between two cars constantly and keep them in 1st and 2nd place, which is pretty exhilarating. Or you can just enter cars in oncoming traffic and smash them up to win the race. This can also be done on other various missions, and it’s great fun and never really gets old to take a big rig and smash it into cars to take them out.
However, this all gets old very fast because there are 50+ missions to finish, and as you unlock more of the city, you get more side missions to complete. Dares consist of doing certain things, like drifts, speed limits, jumps, etc. The reason for completing these is willpower, which you can use to buy cars and new garages to unlock more cars. The selection of cars is awesome, with pretty much every popular car you can think of. They even added the DeLorean, and if you hit 88 mph, you get willpower! Driving in first-person view looks great, and the car handles well. Drifting, jumping, and doing crazy stunts are great fun. The city is huge, and you really won’t get bored here during the first half of the game. After the last half picks up, you will be more engaged in the interesting story and probably stop with the side missions because they almost repeat forever.
On another note, the main missions are really interesting, and towards the end of the game, you really get to use your supernatural powers. Overall, the main missions have more diversity than the side missions. The voice acting is great, and the characters are people you actually get interested in because of the drama the story brings you through. While the whole story is hokey, you still get a kick out of being able to veer away from the realistic type of game while keeping it feeling pretty real with awesome licensed cars. You can boost in these cars and unlock a thrill cam, but the boost feels useless at low speeds because it doesn’t boost you at all, and you can’t really use it to boost out of a spin.
Multiplayer is pretty fun, but overall, you will get sick of the game due to the constantly repeated missions, and there’s only so much you can do with a car. I highly recommend this to anyone into cars, action, or just plain old arcade-style racers. If you can stomach the repetitive side missions, or if that’s just what you like, then you will find a good 25+ hour game here with the huge city of Frisco ready to explore.
Ever since GT4, the series has had a lot of problems with visuals, content, and just overall polish. GT4 was infamous for its high difficulty and questionable car selection. However, the series is known as the best-looking racing simulator and the one with the most realistic driving physics. GT5 has all of that, but problems lie in other areas, but more on those later.
The first thing you will notice is the new menu, which is laid out better than pins on a map. You will notice a used car menu (which tracks mileage now), a better maintenance shop, the ability to generate a unique user profile for online races, and now seasonal events. Seasonal events are updated quarterly and feature endless amounts of races, so when you finish the disc content, you don’t get bored. Even tuning your vehicle is more user-friendly thanks to better descriptions and better visual guides. Polyphony really polished up the menus, so everything looks more streamlined and not so cluttered and confusing. You know right where something is and how to get there without referring to guides or searching around.
Buying cars is really fun thanks to the huge selection and in-depth descriptions and histories of each car. There are hundreds of them, so car aficionados won’t get bored or yawn at the selection. A few new car dealers are Maserati and Lamborghini, to name a couple. There are a lot of selections that can cost millions, so you should stick to the used dealerships until your credits are in the millions. The car selection is varied and strong, so I have no complaints here.
When you actually race, the physics are excellent, and the new cockpit view is amazing. However, only premium vehicles have high-resolution textures and a cockpit view. The rest of the cars look like complete crap and have no cockpit view. Why do this? I have no idea, but it looks tacky and unfinished and is a real blow to the game. The cars that do look good look photorealistic, and the cockpit views are just amazing. Needles move on the dash, and even the rear window and seats are shown in the car. Driving the cars has a great feeling, but of course, you will have to fine-tune them to get some to drive properly. If you aren’t a racing simulator fan, you are going to hate this because it can take hours to get a single car to drive just right. Tuning the cars is very easy to do thanks to the clean menus, but if you add too much power to most cars, they won’t drive right anymore.
Slipstreaming has been added to the game, and driving properly, such as gas goosing, late braking, and everything else, has never been more important thanks to the updated physics. Most of the races are just challenging enough that if you focus and drive right, you will win. I rarely had races where I was blown away by the competition, but being able to see the PP (performance points) that the other cars have helped a lot too. If you feel you need to tune something on the fly, you can now do so in the race menu instead of having to completely quit the race. If you race it for long enough, you will need to do engine overhauls and chassis alignments now, thanks to the new physics system.
While shopping for cars and racing them is fun, the first-ever online mode, photo mode, and new community features are a plus as well. Museum cards can be acquired by logging in every day, new paint jobs can be acquired by winning vehicles, and there are just so many little things added that it all adds up to make a big difference in the overall experience. Winning licenses, however, is just as much of a pain as ever before, but the new special events are a nice touch, such as NASCAR racing, go-carts, and even Top Gear Rally events. Polyphony really tried adding variety to the game, and it shows indefinitely.
There are a lot of little problems with the game that add up to really frustrate you. For example, when I select a race that has requirements, why can’t it take me to the dealerships to buy that car if it’s country-specific or has a specific drivetrain? Why do I have to memorize the flag symbol in order to know which dealership belongs to which country? I’ve already mentioned the cockpit and low-resolution standard car issues. Why are there still loading times between every menu, and how come they can be so long? Some tracks look really ugly and weren’t updated at all with cardboard cutout buildings and flat grass textures. Why are the graphics all over the place? There are so many questions as to why these issues are present, but I guess we will never know.
With some other nice features like custom soundtracks, a huge selection of supported wheels, true 1080p visuals, 3D, and eye support, The GT5 has so many options, features, and a huge car selection that will make any car fan drool. From exotics to classics, you will find something to love about this game. Just remember to focus on driving, and you will win that dream car.
Racing games are usually highly criticized because there is an overabundance of them. Everyone quickly pushes out the crappy racers and holds the good ones up high enough so everyone else can see through the overcrowded genre. DiRT 2 is an amazing rally simulator, and I don’t think there is another rally racer that does this better. The first thing DiRT fans will notice is the complete visual change from the last game. It uses a lot of elements from GRID and has a more Americanized visual attitude by using real-world famous drivers with voice clips to help you out. Gone are the more serious-style menus, and I kind of miss those. The virtual menu is pretty neat, though, which has you walking inside your tour bus for various options and outside to select your cars. It’s a neat idea, but the whole Americanized badassery with the drivers is a turn-off. Not to mention the voice clips are really annoying to hear over and over again, and there’s no option to turn them off.
Once you select a series of events (there are a ton of them) from one of the several areas around the world, you get to pick up your car. Each car has different stats, but you have to buy upgrade packs for different types of events. There are so many different types of cars for raids, rallies, races, trophy trucks, dude buggies, and the list goes on. You can’t upgrade your cars (still), but that is OK because you can now adjust settings such as downforce, gear ratio, suspension, etc. before the race starts (you will have to adjust these occasionally).
You can also select different liveries, rearview mirror toys, dashboard toys, and horns. These are to actually just show off the amazing physics engine, but it’s neat to see a toy dangling around in real-time physics on your dashboard and mirror. Once you hop into a race, you’ll notice the superb cockpit view that was revolutionized in the first game. Everything can be seen, not just your hands. You can look down and see your foot moving on the pedals, your hand shifting, and all the switches and parts of the interior. You can even see your screen swaying to your left in the Raid cars. It’s astounding how Codemasters got everything so detailed without having to have some sort of crazy hardware requirement.
When you’re actually racing, everything comes to life with the physics and sound design. You can hear rocks singing off your car, dirt scraping under your tires, water splashing up on the windshield, and your wipers kicking in and wiping it off. It all looks amazing and adds to the realism. Your car will get damaged in real-time, and dirt will stick and cling to the car as you drive. Depending on what difficulty you chose, you can view your replay at any time and rewind time, which was borrowed from GRID. This helps a lot during tough and long races. Sliding around and drifting around corners is all about skill, and that’s what’s so great about DiRT 2: that you win entirely based on your skill. The AI is also great since they will crash and go crazy when trying to catch up to you; they may even get totaled and have to drop out of the race altogether.
You never really get bored with the game because you’re always leveling up from the XP you earn in races (even completing “missions” such as jumping a certain height, etc.) and constantly unlocking new tracks, locations, and different event types. DiRT 2 also supports Windows Live and the Xbox 360 controller, which is great for people who love that. I want to give DiRT 2 a perfect score, but I wanted more than just racing-type events, and the sudden change in style really bothered me. I also wanted to be able to actually upgrade my cars and have more toys, liveries, and unlocks. There’s a very small amount, and that’s a little disappointing. The game can also be very hard thanks to such realistic physics where you’ll be retrying some events 20+ times to get first, but if you drop your difficulty too much, you won’t earn much money.
I highly recommend DiRT 2 for rally fans, racing fans, or anyone who just loves simulators. There’s enough here to make fans of the last game jump for joy, but some of the sudden changes will make them grumble in annoyance.
High octane is what makes arcade racers fun, and Nail’d nails it with some of the sickest sense of speed I’ve ever seen in a game. The track just whips by, and the jumps are insane, with 300-foot drops, train tunnels, windmills, construction sites, and more. If you thought games like Freekstyle, Splashdown, and Pure were crazy, think again. The vehicles (ATV or MX) control great with really no understeer, and you can whip around 90-degree turns without slowing down. You just hold down the gas and enjoy the crazy ride.
Of course, this is all the game is, and there’s no depth, unlike the three games mentioned above. You just go from start to finish and try to get as much boost as you can. There’s no trick system, and the upgrade system unlocks so slowly that I only unlocked 3 items halfway through the game. You can probably beat almost 75% of the game without upgrading your vehicle, and this is sad. The opponents don’t really put up much of a fight, and even if you fall behind pretty far, you can catch up if you just keep earning a boost.
You can earn a boost by landing straight, landing on top of opponents, or jumping through boost hoops. These are scattered all over the place and on the many branching pathways. Some hoops are hot air balloons that move; some are even on jets! The tracks are laid out in a way that you can just go without thinking, so there’s just one gear: GO! I actually don’t even remember using the brake button, even when holding down the boost. It’s very exhilarating but adds zero challenge, and after you play every track a couple of times, you will probably get bored (like I did) and may not even finish the game.
Finishing the game can be a huge pain because there’s no way to tell if you beat a race or not. Yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but when you play a race, it just turns gold. There’s no information on what you placed, your time, or anything like that. Each cup has five stars, and you must get all five to move onto the league cup. If you accidentally skipped a race or didn’t place first, you have no idea which one, and you have to play them all over again to find out. That’s a huge design flaw, and it really bumps the game down a lot, sadly. All the problems mentioned above could have been solved with more time, but even changing your rider’s outfits won’t fix these issues.
Multiplayer is almost non-existent since no one is really playing online, and when you do, it’s whoever crashes first, because unless they are bad drivers, they will constantly use a boost, and you will never catch up. The game also has a weird login and password system, but it’s not connected to any site or anything like Dragon Age, Crysis, or any games like that. Besides this, the game looks pretty damn good, and the motion blur effects help enhance that sense of speed, and there are some nice water effects as well.
Nail’d is a great bargain bin game for people who love fast-paced racers but don’t expect the depth of content you have grown to love from the better arcade racers out there. Multiplayer is something you shouldn’t bother with, so just sit back and enjoy the insane tracks and pretty visuals.
The Need for Speed series has been seriously confused and hurtful since Most Wanted. While Shift was a simulator, the other ones in between have been either subpar or bad. Hot Pursuit revives the classic entry with the Burnout team behind the wheels, and this feels more like Burnout than Need for Speed, however. Using the Paradise engine, Criterion did a good job making the game both look pretty and giving us a Burnout feel with real-world cars. These are slick cars, ranging from Mustangs to Maseratis.
As the name would suggest, it’s about cops versus racers, and each opponent gets a set of four weapons. Cops get an EMP, helicopter, spike strip, and road block. Each is pretty self-explanatory, but this feels like a glorified version of Burnout’s Road Rage mode. Racers get the same, but instead of a helicopter and roadblock, they get a jammer and turbo, which is an extra boost for NOS. Now you can earn turbo by doing crazy stuff as well.
The world map is also classic Burnout style, with each icon labeled for a racer or cop, and there are previews, time trials, and special events for each side. There is also Autolog, which is a social networking type of setup. Your friend’s best scores will be posted, and you can post screenshots and videos of your races. If a friend beats your score, you can jump right into that race and try to beat it. While the single-player is fun, it’s the online stuff that makes the game shine with all the weapons. The single-player feels predictable and stale compared to multiplayer because it feels like this game was made with multiplayer in mind. You earn a bounty and have to hit certain goals in single-player, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen in racing games already.
Once you race, everything feels fine, but the steering tends to suffer drastically depending on the road conditions and the car. Despite awesome damage modeling, the cars all feel pretty much the same, and the sense of speed is so fast that you don’t notice speed differences. This also concludes the repetition because once you unlock all weapons, it’s just the same events over and over again, and some people may never even finish the single-player due to this. The game can also look pretty good at times, but in other ways, it doesn’t.
The chaos comes from the fact that in multiplayer, you never know what anyone is going to do. You can see a roadblock ahead and get your shot lined up to dodge it, but just then someone deploys a spike strip right in your face and you hit both, losing a crap ton of health. You can take off again and try to shake off a helicopter, but then get hit by an EMP. It’s the same with racers, but this can also feel a bit unbalanced since racers’ biggest weapon is the jammer, so cops can’t use their weapons for a few seconds. It all depends on the players’ skills and how they race.
Despite the repetition and lack of weapons, the game works, but also notice all the Burnout references. There’s hardly any need for speed in this game, despite the real-world cards and the Hot Pursuit title. This is just a weird mix-up of game identities, but it’s probably better to have a burnout feeling than an old, crappy NFS game rehashed. Criterion already had the engine built for something like this, so I expect to see a sequel in the near future. I do recommend this to Burnout fans more than NFS, however, but old-school Hot Pursuit fans will dig this completely.
Driving games are all about the cars whether it’s a simulator or arcade racer. A good driving game has responsive controls, slick cars, fun tracks, and customization options that suit the game.
While it has its flaws and was overhyped there’s no denying the attention to detail in GT5. With over 500 cars, tons of real-world tracks detailed to every crack, excellent tuning options, and a slick interface what’s there not to like? With the new special events, GT5 is oozing with awesome content for car lovers. So flaws aside it’s the attention to detail that won this over the rest.
Arcade racing games have always tried to do something new other than just adding new cars, tracks, and customizability. Racing games are trying to go beyond that by bringing in the environment and getting more involved with the other opponents instead of just racing them to the finish line. Split Second tries to involve everything around you in the race, and you really get the feeling that it is. The guys behind the hit sleeper Pure bring back exhilarating speed with top-notch audio, visuals, and controls. The focus around Split Second is bringing the environment down around your opponents and getting ahead in the race.
The way you accomplish this is by building up your power meter, which has three segments. Doing drifts, shunts, jumps, or slipstreaming will grant you this power. Activate the power when the icon appears above an opponent and blast! Something’s going to happen, but you have to watch out because you can wreck yourself doing this as well. You can start out by blowing up cars near opponents, but it’s when you can level whole pieces of track on top of them that it really gets exciting. Having a landing plane come crashing down on you and try to drive under its wing is pretty damn cool and has never been done before in a racing game. Watching huge towers fall down and block the path can really get your adrenaline going, especially when you start getting ahead.
Yeah, the further ahead you get in the pack, the bigger the target you’re going to be and the more you’re going to have to watch out. I’ve never played a racing game before where I was actually afraid to be in first since everyone would be targeting me. There are several modes to keep this interesting, such as time attacks and an eliminator mode, as well as others that have you dodging things and even shooting back at helicopters.
You can unlock cars, and most of them vary depending on their stats, but don’t expect any real-life cars here. These are generic, and Burnout fans will already be used to them. Unlocking new episodes is rewarding, and it keeps you playing through the long game, so you won’t ever get bored.
The game looks and sounds great, but the PC version suffers from a bug that makes the music drown out the car sounds if you have any surround sound system at all. Also, playing the game on a keyboard is no good since you can’t get precise control of your car. I recommend a gamepad for this, or even a wheel if you have one. The multiplayer is what you would expect, and it is a bit more intense thanks to the more clever human opponents.
Split Second is a racing game that really tries to define the genre and really does a good job doing it, if only it weren’t so repetitive. While the game is super fun, it slowly wears off unless you play in short bursts. The game really could have built upon the destructible environment idea more and made it a bit more controllable. Despite this, Split Second is a must for action racing fans, and you will walk away with a smile on your face and sweat on your palm.
Hate me all you want, but Gran Turismo on the PSP is a huge disappointment. Why? Well, first off, this game has been floating around the vaporware bin since 2004, and now, five years later, we have a half-done game. Where’s the career mode? That’s my biggest question. Instead, we are forced to pick everything ourselves. This doesn’t have anything to do with laziness either. I like my career modes in Gran Turismo, and this is the first game in the series that doesn’t have one. Another thing you’ll notice missing is that there’s no way to upgrade your cars.
Like every GT game, once you start the game, you head to the dealership, but that’s where the problems already start. It’s random. Yeah, you get four or five random dealerships every day in the game. Do you see a car you want? Sure! Normally you just save up for it, but then when you go back, the dealership is gone. Why Polyphony chose this stupid idea is beyond me.
The game also lies in the fact that there are 500 different cars. There are a few models of each different car, so you’re only looking at about 200 or some oddly different types of cars. The game gives you some interesting backstory on each car, but viewing the stats is a nightmare since they just scroll by without a still datasheet or something of the like.
Once you start getting into a race, it’s simple enough. Choose your track, number of laps, and the car from your garage. You can use quick-tune options or do a bit of fine-tuning, but the default works just fine. The number of laps and length of track determine your winning outcome, so you can always change accordingly. If you want money faster, try the license tests. They range from passable to impossible thanks to the game’s new and weird slipstream system. This is only normally seen in street racing games, but GT doesn’t even give you any visual clues as to if you are doing this right or not. The point of the slipstream is to stay behind the opponent so they block the wind for you, giving you a small boost in speed. While it works on paper, it’s very hard to execute in the game.
Once you start racing, you are in for a treat because the cars feel very close to their console counterparts, and it feels like our beloved GT. The game even sports an impressive cockpit view for the tiny handheld that could, not just the floating rearview mirror view we’ve been accustomed to seeing pre-PS3. Each car handles differently, and buying and stocking is a lot of fun, but without a career mode, vehicle upgrades, or even an online mode, it makes you wonder why they even bothered. All of the most beloved features of GT have been stripped out as a joke to us fans waiting for GT5.
When it comes to the looks the game delivers, I know it could be pushed just a bit further. The vehicles look like no other racer on the system, but the tracks are lacking a bit. Still, the game accomplishes a lot more than most PSP games ever have. The audio, however, is also a bit of a disappointment, with a dull soundtrack, and a lot of the engine sounds sound the same as well as sounding a bit tinny. This is probably for hardcore fans only, so fans of other PSP racers should stay away.
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Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.