Little-Known or Forgotten Racing/Driving Games

[numbnuts70]

Looked through the thread and couldn't see these.









q,a(up/down) o,p(left/right) and spacebar(jump/fire) or a 'kempston' joystick.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Hi everybody, I wish to share with you a list of the racing games that were fond to me while I was growing and that I have played in many systems. Please comment and share your favorites too! This thread hopefully will grow as I add games to it.

1) Atari - Enduro (Activision). It had night, fog and ice! What's this talk about weather (or lack thereof) in the newest games? I also may have broke a controller or two...


2) NES - F-1 Built to Win (Seta). Wow, too many memories with this one, and lots of firsts for me. First game with a serious career mode that took you all the way to an unlicensed F-1 championship, earning licenses and money to buy parts -which you could also sell- to upgrade your rides. You raced a Mini Cooper, a Vector (we need the Vector in a game, in any game!), an F-40, and finally the MP 4-4 in the real F-1 tracks of that time! Good graphics for the cars and backgrounds for the cars, including a very informative dashboard in the bottom part of the screen. More features: It had selection of music tracks and battery backup for saves, and you could even play slots in Vegas for money prizes! (💡). Highly underrated, but surely highly influential.


3) SNES - Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing (GameTek - Gremlin Graphics). You actually played as Sir Nigel (perhaps my favorite driver of all time) in the full F-1 92 championship, running the mighty (and licensed, sans the tobacco sponsor) FW14B! Many game modes, colorful graphics and fluid gameplay, but buzzy sound and password saves, alas. I just loved this one. It was also released for the Genesis, so I attach this great comparison:

 

[TheNuvolari]

Anyone played full version of Rally Trophy? It is said to be one of the best rally simulators from that period, but the demo I played was pretty much unplayable due to sensitive steering. The car also seems to straighten out after changing direction more than it should, it's not natural. If anyone has experience with the full game, I would appreciate it, because I have been dying for a rally simulator with historic cars.

The demo is down below, hopefully you can notice the quirks in handling as the driver steers:

Oh yeah, Rally Trophy! I loved that game, I last played it 5(?) years ago... When I was 10. I don't remember if I completed ot or not. It was really enjoyable with a controller. The physics were a quite arcade-y (maybe i used assists?), but mainly it was enjoyable! I liked those details like cows running on the road and in there were hungarian dialoges too with Stohl Buci!

 

[dzumaalcapone]

Has anyone ever played any Alarm for Cobra? Is it just a mission-based game or you can roam around freely and do some side-quests/random busts?

It was named Crash Time on Xbox 360.. I think I played Crash Time 4 and 5. CT4 had autobahn with traffic and cars that could go 400kmh.. And splitscreen!! CT5 was fun too with the ridiculous grapplinghook which slowed the other car down and launched your own into rocket speeds..

 

[dzumaalcapone]

Fatal Racing - From the old school.



I miss this game... T-T

If there ever was racing game I want a new version of it's this. I played this as a kid for countless hours. Even though it was arcade the cars were different to drive and it had a nice amount of tracks which I though at the time looked beautiful and well designed. It was a quite challenging singleplayer game (for a kid). Bob, in the white car, driving the car in the wrong direction Splitscreen racing with friends before and after school.. Good times!

This game came about the same time as NFS so I probably got shadowed by that. Nobody wanted to even try it if I suggested it to them.. But everybody who played it, liked it.

 

[ToyGTone]

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

JGTC: All Japan Grand Touring Championship

 

[Lucas]

If there ever was racing game I want a new version of it's this. I played this as a kid for countless hours. Even though it was arcade the cars were different to drive and it had a nice amount of tracks which I though at the time looked beautiful and well designed. It was a quite challenging singleplayer game (for a kid). Bob, in the white car, driving the car in the wrong direction Splitscreen racing with friends before and after school.. Good times!

This game came about the same time as NFS so I probably got shadowed by that. Nobody wanted to even try it if I suggested it to them.. But everybody who played it, liked it.

There was one track where there's a magnificent loop on top of a "void" (so to speak), and I always asked my brother to do it for me as I always feel from the track. Really fun game.

 

[ToyGTone]

Since I posted that video made by a Youtuber, I got interested in older Acrades since it reminded me of my childhood. I decided to first various malls and other locations where I used to go back in the days. Surprisingly I found some older Acrades that are still there to this day.

Battle Gear 3 Tuned

What happens when you mix Gran Turismo 3 with Initial D Arcade Stage? You get Battle Gear. I still remembe playing this game over a decade ago. You get a selection of jdm cars and several tracks including touge racing. Interestingly, you actually have a hand brake lever which I never saw on any other arcade before. The physics are pretty good IMO, however it doesn't have wacky arcade physics like most arcade racing games do. Worth pointing out that the arcade is in Japanese.

Here's some gameplay from the game

 

[allsupratt]

Off world interceptor. I had it on 3DO back in the mid 90s i remember it as the first game that i would just slow down and check out the environment.

 

[ToyGTone]

For years I always wondered what driving game I used to play back on my old Computer. I remember it had a Beetle along with few other cars and an open world map.

Turns out, it was this game:

 

[Matej]

I have picked up 4x4 Evo2 for PS2 only to find insane rubber-banding ruining every race. Has anyone managed to get rid of it? I could try playing on the lowest difficulty, but don't want it to be too easy.

 

[wvmgmidget]

I have picked up 4x4 Evo2 for PS2 only to find insane rubber-banding ruining every race. Has anyone managed to get rid of it? I could try playing on the lowest difficulty, but don't want it to be too easy.

I've played it on PC, the rubber banding didn't seem that bad. From what I understand, it's a much better version of the game. Then again, I was kid when I last played it.

 

[Matej]

I've played it on PC, the rubber banding didn't seem that bad. From what I understand, it's a much better version of the game. Then again, I was kid when I last played it.

PS2 version has three opponents, so rubber banding could be more apparent and stronger as a result. I have cleared few more races, and it seems the easiest difficulty is the best bet to enjoy the game. Higher difficulty only means stronger rubber banding when you're ahead and slower recovering when you're behind, so you end up spending hundreds of dollars more only to struggle against the same problem, which is no-no for me.

But the advenure missions are great, I like using winch to get out of a trap.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I recently decided to try my hand at Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 again and it's still fun to play. This racing game wasn't too bad back then, it had decent enough graphics, some nice cars to choose from, and fantastic customization. Yeah, the customization I would argue seems in depth during the time and did some things that I couldn't do in NFS Underground 1 (which was released at the same time).

I will say that the car selection was still biased towards the japanese side, but there was great variety of Japanese cars including ones I don't see in video games often. Examples such as the Nissan Celfiro, the Toyota Chaser, and Toyota Corolla FX Hatchback.

I like the game's simplicity of just driving around a highway and racing opponents you come across. The health bar system is a nice, unique touch aswell. I feel a bit bad that I forget that this franchise existed.


Though I will say that it can get boring sometimes since you sometimes have to wait a while on the highway before running into another opponent.

 

[Matej]

I'll get back to TXR3 soon. It's a good game, but I don't like how AI wall-rides whenever it gets a chance, spoils the fun if you drive fairly.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I found out this game exists, which looks like another PS2 exclusive racing game title. I'm curious, has anyone here played this? I have no idea what to think of it.

 

[Dobermann92]

I played a lot of arcade racing games back in the old days. My games included Colin Mcrae Rally 2.0, Need For Speed Underground 1-2, Paris-Dakar Rally 2001, Lego Racers 2, Viper Racing, Rally Championship 2000 and Alarm Für Cobra 11 (based on the well-known series).

 

[jacnob]

I found out this game exists, which looks like another PS2 exclusive racing game title. I'm curious, has anyone here played this? I have no idea what to think of it.

I've tried it out on a whim before, it's pretty fun! Basically, it's a marriage of TXR's highway racing with the simcade elements of games like Gran Turismo. It's honestly pretty repetitive because the course selection is meager, and that's not really helped by my apathy towards Tsukuba :/ I enjoyed my time with it but I knew that I wouldn't be finishing it pretty quickly

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I've tried it out on a whim before, it's pretty fun! Basically, it's a marriage of TXR's highway racing with the simcade elements of games like Gran Turismo. It's honestly pretty repetitive because the course selection is meager, and that's not really helped by my apathy towards Tsukuba :/ I enjoyed my time with it but I knew that I wouldn't be finishing it pretty quickly

Hmmmm, I think I might have to try this myself at some point now. Thanks!

 

[JakeMR2]

The tuning in Racing Battle C1GP is really good, and engine swaps from TXR3 return too. I think you'll enjoy it.

 

[JohnBM01]

It is a terrible shame the United States never got C1 Grand Prix. I mean, I would have played the daylights out of this game. Maybe I'd see it to be a game slightly better than "Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3." From videos I've seen, this game is a bit weird in the sense you can casually race around a proper race track and get challenged. Like, imagine you had yourself a casual little track day against some other drivers, when you get challenged street racer style to a one-on-one race. Fairly awkward in my view. I still think C1GP would have been an excellent game if it was in the USA market.

 

[BKGlover]

Like, imagine you had yourself a casual little track day against some other drivers, when you get challenged street racer style to a one-on-one race. Fairly awkward in my view. I still think C1GP would have been an excellent game if it was in the USA market.

It'd be great for it to be designed with that, but I've been in GT lobbies where that's the jist of the room.

 

[MedigoFlame]

Drive For Life by Volvo for the original Xbox. As I've read from forums back in 2005, it was a promotional game that was distributed at Volvo dealerships. Found a couple copies at a local game store franchise while I was in NY. The game manual is great, it's almost like a brochure for Volvo. (Sorry for the bad pictures)

Found some gameplay footage online.


Sadly it ranged from $10 to $15 at this game shop. I might just buy it online for $3 as I've seen.

 

[MedigoFlame]

Digging this thread back up as I've been on a forgotten or "little known" racing game kick lately. Going to thrift stores and used game/music stores to find some of these.

Jarrett & Labonte Stock Car Racing (Which was actually a renamed copy of TOCA World Touring Cars) for PS1. Seems like a lot of games of the PS1 era were renamed to appeal to Americans.

Peak Performance (aka Touge Max: Saisoku Driver Master) Another game renamed for American audiences, saying it was about Pikes Peak. But in reality, it was a touge game.

City Racer (aka Downtown Run). A racing game with power ups, I guess you could say closer to Blur's gameplay style?

Sorry for the large image sizes. It was either large pics or super tiny ones off ebay listings.

 

[VulcanSpirit]

Anyone remember Drive To Survive and Micro Machines V4? They were pretty fun racing games, and the actors of Drive To Survive were hilarious.

I remember playing both the original version of Drive to Survive, Mashed, along with the updated version which was known as Mashed: Fully Loaded in PAL regions. Enjoyed both very much; essentially Micro Machines with added insults. Don't think I played much of the PSP version of V4, to be honest.


Also, once upon a time, Codemasters had a couple of officially-licensed IndyCar Series games of their own. I remember crashing a lot in the PS2 version of IndyCar Series 2005 while trying to master the realistic physics, AI and damage modelling on offer. To this day, and after watching David Land's playthroughs of the Xbox version, I contend that this was far better than the series' later appearances in the main ToCA Race Driver/GRID franchise:

 

[jake2013guy]

I remember playing both the original version of Drive to Survive, Mashed, along with the updated version which was known as Mashed: Fully Loaded in PAL regions. Enjoyed both very much; essentially Micro Machines with added insults. Don't think I played much of the PSP version of V4, to be honest.


Also, once upon a time, Codemasters had a couple of officially-licensed IndyCar Series games of their own. I remember crashing a lot in the PS2 version of IndyCar Series 2005 while trying to master the realistic physics, AI and damage modelling on offer. To this day, and after watching David Land's playthroughs of the Xbox version, I contend that this was far better than the series' later appearances in the main ToCA Race Driver/GRID franchise:

I watched this series a few times. He also does Indy 500 Evolution which looks a fun game as well. I'd love to see a proper IndyCar game with the feeder series as well.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

2 Games I recently have tried.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2, I originally played either this or the first one back when I was in middle school. I remember liking it, but I for some reason never actually bought it. I recently got a chance to try it again and I like it so far. Unlike the regular TXR games that focused on highway battles, this game has a focus on mountain racing and drifting. It's giving me the same kind of vibe as the Initial D anime.

I like the car selection quite a bit, it's primarily JDM focused of course, but man there's a great amount of variety with the JDM cars. There's different generations of Subaru Legacys, there's Forester STIs, the Mazda 323/Familia GTR, Nissan Pulsar GTI-R, and it even has Toyota AE86 Coupes. Most racing games just have the liftbacks. I think this will give me the proper motivation to collect more of the TXR games.


Option Tuning Car Battle Spec-R
This game gives me some Gran Turismo vibes with its tracks and visuals. However, I found some enjoyment in what I tried so far. I do like the visuals, I think the cars drive okay. It's kinda a shame this game never got released outside of japan, I think fans of GT1 & 2 in the NA and PAL regions would enjoy this.

 

[rom30s]

Since I posted that video made by a Youtuber, I got interested in older Acrades since it reminded me of my childhood. I decided to first various malls and other locations where I used to go back in the days. Surprisingly I found some older Acrades that are still there to this day.

Battle Gear 3 Tuned
View attachment 725393

What happens when you mix Gran Turismo 3 with Initial D Arcade Stage? You get Battle Gear. I still remembe playing this game over a decade ago. You get a selection of jdm cars and several tracks including touge racing. Interestingly, you actually have a hand brake lever which I never saw on any other arcade before. The physics are pretty good IMO, however it doesn't have wacky arcade physics like most arcade racing games do. Worth pointing out that the arcade is in Japanese.

View attachment 725394

Here's some gameplay from the game

Ive been playing the PS2 version of this alot latley, its a descent game with fun physics

 

[SPhilli911]

Pro Rally on the Gamecube is a very memorable rally game to me, in fact the memories of the game are some of my fondest despite the game not being so great, if I recall. I think it was all I had at the time for a rally game before I got Rallisport Challenge 2 and Colin McRae 2005 on Xbox.