Little-Known or Forgotten Racing/Driving Games

[GTV0819]

Forgotten for obvious reasons...

 

[Doomotron]

Forgotten for obvious reasons...

Let's keep it little-known.

 

[GTV0819]

Let's keep it little-known.

Nobody plays a game like that.

 

[mistamontiel]

Anybody played Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix?

This I just stumbled on ordered it put in my PS2 HDD and by golly waow is it RICH! Especially the brake lights are SO super it puts Enthusia's to shame

Haven't put much work in it yet need to play along translation guide o.0

 

[MedigoFlame]

My brother and I enjoy documenting car lists of some games. We recently bought Ram Racing (Wii) and Jeep Thrills (PS2). Since no one really documents these bad games very well, other than IGCD, we wanted to contribute. As IGCD doesn't even have Ram Racing or the complete list for Jeep Thrills on their site.

 

[VulcanSpirit]

Found this on the PS Store earlier today while searching for some new games to try. The best way I can describe is if what happens when you mix Wreckfest and Micro Machines with a little hint of Rocket League:

 

[GTxForza]

Is there anybody remember Ridge Racer 6 for Xbox 360?

 

[r_outsider]

Lot of memories in this thread. Haven't seen this mentioned yet, Battle Grand Prix. Simple top down one or two player racer on SNES, had a surprisingly good damage model. My brother and I spent many hours playing it. The real trick was picking a team with a pit box closer to the entrance so you could drive out WFO.

 

[Arkseven]

Holy damn, guys. This thread is a time machine!

I love how i played most of the games mentioned here: TD: Eve of Destruction, TD: Offorad, Evolution GT, Demolition Derby (ps1/2), Enthusia (best intro song!), Jarrett & Labonte Stock Car Racing (especially love this game because you can race on 2 brazilian tracks and one of them is from my city!), Ridge Racer, Crash n' Burn, Art Truck Battle (beating this one as kid without understanding any japonese is something that i'm really proud of), SRS...

Funny how we could be happy with so little, huh?

Well, here's my contribution then:


London Racer
I saw the trailer for this one in a game i cannot remember, but the music will forever stay with me!

Ford vs Chevy
This one is so cool. I played this A LOT. Like, A L O T!. The two grandpas fighting each other in the cutscenes is the most cutest thing

And while we're at it: Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives

Road Rage 3

Gods, i wish i knew what's the real name of this game. I think it's based on a famous Arcade?

In any case... it's a really good game! I love the selection of cars and tracks and i really love the ost!




Not so forgotten and even less "little know", but Grand Prix: Legends still is a very, very unique game

Ah, good ol' times of playing this Sim with the numpads... I barely could complete a whole lap. Many blue screens in my W98 happened with this game
Speaking of Grand Prix, i had Grand Prix 2 and GP Challenge, as well. You know what was my favorite game in that game? If you park your car, the marshals will come over and push it to a safe place, retiring you from the race!



One of my favorite Rally game: International Rally Championship

So ****!ng fun. You had to refuel your car on especific areas along the track or otherwise you would ended up without fuel for the next stage!



Destruction Derby: RAW, for PS1. Do you guys remember about the arena on the very top of a building? I always tried to glitch my car there!

Speedboat Attack. Best intro of all games

Alright. This post is quite long, but please, just a few more words.

I feel like almost every PS3/360 racing game is forgotten at this point. Which is... unfair. Old gen had many amazing games. Maybe not as good and nostalgic as previous games (and defintely not better as new ones), but they sure was fun as hell.

Blur and Split/Second - My god. Those two games were the most fun racing games back in the day. They run smooth, they're fun, the sound effects, the visuals, the whole presentation... I did not regret buying those two. They are, without a doubt, worth in every possible way.

Motostorm - Quite unique. I still have the disc for the first one. This one is probably a famous one, specially with that E3 2005 trailer

Dirt Showdown - Straight out of the bat: i like this game. It's pure and simple arcade game. I don't know why people hate it so much...

Driver: San Franscisco - The Driver franchise as a whole is pretty forgotten. Unfortunately. DSF is fun too. I'm not a fan of the whole eye/shifting mechanic, or the AI in races, but i do love how the cars feel when you throw them at corners. Love the car selection and i really love the Challenge series, where you can drive iconic cars from movies like Bullit or Vanishing Point. I wonder what Ubisoft is planning to do with it...
And since i'm talking about Driver, you might wanna check The Driver: Syndicate. It's a fan made game!

Ridge Racer 7 - This was my 1st PS3 game and i still play the damn thing until this very day. Now, i gonna be honest: i NEVER played previous RR games. So i can't tell you if RR7 is better or worse, but i can tell you one thing: this game is awesome! The fictional world of Ridge Racer is great. That's why i love arcade games like this. The devs have many layers of freedom to create beautiful scenarios and cars. The music from the main menu is my everyday alarm

Formula 1 Championship Edition 2006 - Look, i don't want to bash on Codemasters (as always) but imo, this game is, BY FAR, better than any other Cody F1 game. Last F1 game made by a Sony studio (SCE Studio Liverpool). Both PS2 and PS3 games are great. The sunset on Interlagos in Time-attack mode... gods! And there's also a trophy room with 7 classic F1 cars that you can use in Time-attack as well. I enjoyed all Sony F1 games, 2003-2006. I also have F1 2000, made by EA. That intro is the best intro of all F1 games

Ferrari Challenge - Trofeo Pirelli - Not the most "robust" gameplay, but it's pretty decent. I'm still looking for the song that plays in the livery customization menu. It's so good... You have 26 Ferrari cars and 17 circuits. Each car has it's own tournament.


Alright. Sorry. Post is too damn long. I won't talk about more games, because holy ****... Just looking at PS2, we have Super Truck Racing, Le Mans 24h, D1 Professional Drift, Test Drive Unlimited, Burnout: Revenge. Crazy Taxi, Juiced, L.A Rush, Midnight Club, TOCA (i think 2 is less know than 3), Fast and Furious: Tokyo, NASCAR games made by EA... Some of you mentioned those along the thread, together with Evolution GT, Enthusia (again, best intro song!), Juiced...

You know what? I think my ps4 needs some "rest". Yeah. A little rest is always good. I got "other" things to do after this nostalgic trip

 

[LeGeNd-1]

I've read every post in this thread too. It's definitely a reminder of simpler times. How we don't need a million cars and shiny graphics to have fun. I mean games these days, just trying to understand pre-order bonuses sometimes feels like too much work

I think the reason why we haven't seen a lot of PS3 era games being mentioned is they're still pretty "new". I know everything moves at lightspeed in the digital era but we're not even officially past the PS4 gen yet. Also I feel like the popularity of driving games took a huge dive after the PS2 era. The dwindling popularity and increasing development cost means there are less good games on PS3. The ones that came out and worth remembering, most people probably already know about those.

But anyway, here are contributions from my library that you haven't mentioned yet: Initial D Extreme Stage, Wangan Midnight, Superstars V8 Racing (first game and Next Challenge), FUEL (one of the most underrated open world games IMO), Supercar Challenge (basically Ferrari Challenge with some extra cars lol), Modnation Racers (the trinity of forgotten games along with Blur/Split Second).

Gods, i wish i knew what's the real name of this game. I think it's based on a famous Arcade?

In any case... it's a really good game! I love the selection of cars and tracks and i really love the ost!

The clue is in the video you posted. It's called "Touge 3". I'm sure you knew this but touge refers to mountain pass. It was preceeded by 3 similar games on the PS1: Touge Max (aka Peak Performance in Western markets), Touge Max 2 and Touge Max G. All made by Atlus, which now makes the famous Persona series of games

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198270-peak-performance
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/573675-touge-max-2
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/576800-touge-max-g

First game had the best soundtrack IMO. If you put the CD in a disc player it will play the songs automatically too!


By the way, your Speedboat game reminded me of Choro Q Marine. Basically shrunken down ships racing + battling

 

[Neddo]

Y 2 K aesthetic!

 

[MrCrynox]

Y 2 K aesthetic!

Awesome game

@LeGeNd-1 I have the V8 superstars next game but not played it yet, on this basis would you recommend tracking down the first one to play beforehand ? What's the difference ?

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Awesome game

@LeGeNd-1 I have the V8 superstars next game but not played it yet, on this basis would you recommend tracking down the first one to play beforehand ? What's the difference ?

They're both very similar honestly. Next Challenge added a few more cars and tracks so if you have it then there's no reason to track down the first one, unless it's just for completionist sake. It's quite a hidden gem. Sort of like a lite TOCA and physics wise it's similar to Grid Autosport. Not too sim, not too arcade. Decent wheel support too.

 

[Qvale]

Is there anybody remember Ridge Racer 6 for Xbox 360?

Yes! My favorite Ridge Racer game. 7 seems to be more well-remembered because it did pretty much everything 6 did but better... however it doesn't have 6's general aesthetic and incredible soundtrack.

 

[Scaff]

A selection of my retro titles, some well known, some less well known, all of which I am revisiting, recording and uploading into this thread.

Scaff's Retro Rewind

Managed to grab a copy of Test Drive Ferrari Racing Legends, which arrived yesterday, rare in that its an SMS title that released without a massive amount of bugs and plays well with a gamepad out of the box.

 

[MrCrynox]

A selection of my retro titles, some well known, some less well known, all of which I am revisiting, recording and uploading into this thread.

Scaff's Retro Rewind

View attachment 956741

Managed to grab a copy of Test Drive Ferrari Racing Legends, which arrived yesterday, rare in that its an SMS title that released without a massive amount of bugs and plays well with a gamepad out of the box.

Some great games there Scaff. I used to love playing Vanishing Point & Le Mann's 24hr on my Dreamcast, in fact it's still set up ready to go I'm interested what you think of the Ferrari games, I might pick them up myself if their any good.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Managed to grab a copy of Test Drive Ferrari Racing Legends, which arrived yesterday, rare in that its an SMS title that released without a massive amount of bugs and plays well with a gamepad out of the box.

Would be interesting to hear what you thought of this game. From gameplay videos I thought it looks too much like the Shift series physics wise, so I've always avoided it.

Also, damn I feel old that GT5/6 is considered retro now

 

[PletdeKoe]

Yeah, so what is Retro? Is that 10 years, 20 years or more? I can’t say it is less than 10 years.

Than again I can understand it is always changing, and is therefore different for every generation of people. (So not for every generation of console...)

 

[MrCrynox]

Everyone's got a different take on it but in my mind it's roughly when a system is 2 generations old. For example the Wii, although it feels a bit early due to the short life of the Wii U.

 

[Scaff]

Yeah, so what is Retro? Is that 10 years, 20 years or more? I can’t say it is less than 10 years.

Than again I can understand it is always changing, and is therefore different for every generation of people. (So not for every generation of console...)

It’s a difficult one to define, personally I’ve gone broadly with two console generations old.

I’m including PS3 stuff as we are almost into the next gen with PS5, etc. launching this year.

 

[Yarf]

Offroad Redneck Racing, apparently it's just this game called Offroad Racing but it's country themed

Indy 500, a Japanese IndyCar game. There's the Indianapolis track, with 2 other tracks. They're not very good however

FFX Racing, some browser racing thing I kept playing when I was 12 and could never understand why. You drive a red car across a countryside. You beat your opponents by jumping across ramps. The game also had 2 different menus depending on what site you played it on. Also the physics were all over the place so if you went upside down your car would slide across the map. I think you press r to flip the car over. Was probably a physics test game for FFX runner/On the run rather than an actual game.

 

[VulcanSpirit]

FFX Racing, some browser racing thing I kept playing when I was 12 and could never understand why. You drive a red car across a countryside. You beat your opponents by jumping across ramps. The game also had 2 different menus depending on what site you played it on. Also the physics were all over the place so if you went upside down your car would slide across the map. I think you press r to flip the car over. Was probably a physics test game for FFX runner/On the run rather than an actual game.

This reminds me of a ton of other browser racers I used to play when I was younger. Think there was one that had cel-shaded graphics, stunts and a surprisingly good damage model, but can't remember what it's called.

Another was this 'gem' which I remember playing a lot on the official Cartoon Network website when I was about 6-7 years old (yes, I used to watch their shows a lot during that time):



Side-scrolling, Micro Machines-style powerups and engine noises that would make PD's sound department jealous (). 6-7 year old me didn't realise that this was meant to tie-in with their real life NASCAR sponsorship deals at the time, or that there was another version with the later Powerpuff Girls livery run by Galaxy Motorsports during the 2000 season:

 

[BKGlover]

Another was this 'gem' which I remember playing a lot on the official Cartoon Network website when I was about 6-7 years old (yes, I used to watch their shows a lot during that time):



Side-scrolling, Micro Machines-style powerups and engine noises that would make PD's sound department jealous (). 6-7 year old me didn't realise that this was meant to tie-in with their real life NASCAR sponsorship deals at the time, or that there was another version with the later Powerpuff Girls livery run by Galaxy Motorsports during the 2000 season:

My God...the hours I put into that game.
Was always fun. CN had a number of games back then that I can remember fondly. Thank you for bringing this back from the depths.

 

[Yarf]

Hard Drivin, A very difficult driving game where you can go through big loops. Also on PS2 and XBOX as part of Midway Arcade Treasures 2

Redline Rumble 2
Man drives black impreza very fast or the impreza will explode. The game show aspect of it was probably the inspiration for the movie Saw and the game Split Second, or something like that.

 

[VulcanSpirit]

This reminds me of a ton of other browser racers I used to play when I was younger. Think there was one that had cel-shaded graphics, stunts and a surprisingly good damage model, but can't remember what it's called.

Just remembered the title for it: Need For Madness!

 

[c172fccc]

Just remembered the title for it: Need For Madness!

Oh my god... yes, I used to play that. Thank you!

 

[FerrariF1GT]

In light of the bidding war between Take Two and EA for Codemasters, I'll remind you of a time when Codemasters teamed up with SEGA for some arcade games.

I know that Grid isn't very 'forgotten' (and for good reason, IMO), but this arcade version certainly is. It's just the game but much more slimmed down to be more arcade-friendly, with options only for a single race or a three-tier championship. There's 12 cars and eight tracks total. Here's some gameplay:



There's also a game based on Dirt Showdown that came out of this, but it's simply called Showdown for some reason. I couldn't find any good-quality footage of it. I honestly would have liked to have seen an F1 arcade game out of this, even if the monkey's paw curled and it was based on Race Stars. And yes, I mentioned this so I could have an excuse to bring up F1 Race Stars.

 

[TheCracker]

Hard Drivin, A very difficult driving game where you can go through big loops. Also on PS2 and XBOX as part of Midway Arcade Treasures 2

Hard Drivin. Hard by name, hard by nature if i remember rightly! It was probably one of the first polygon 3D driving games and at the time felt really advanced compared to the 2D linear nature of Outrun etc. I guess in a way it was early sandbox in that the whole 'map' was there, even if you couldn't just drive where you wanted as you were time-restricted to the amount of time you were allowed off road before being stopped and placed back on the track at a standstill. You felt like you were in a 3D environment, it felt like you could just cut across the infield, even if you weren't able to. It was the first game that i remember that tried to model under and overstear and if i recall it also had a form of strong force feedback through the wheel which wouldn't allow for quick reactions but i guess made for the 'hard' part of Hard Drivin. It really was difficult to make much progress in it - but rewarding if you did. In some ways it felt more like a simulator than a game.

I had the Spectrum port for it, which considering how advanced the arcade version was, was pretty accurate given the ZX Spectrum's lack of power. With no wheel and no force feedback it made it even harder though.

 

[kowalski__1]

"Motor City Online", Not sure if this game has been mentioned but it was great.
Came out in 2001 and EA simply blew it, decided to go with the sims online instead and they pulled the plug on it about 2 years later.
It advertised that you could race anyone in the world but never made it out of North America, unfortunately.
Had an auction house , in game chat, dealerships, new and old cars ,was basically all Ford and Chev with a few Dodges.
You could buy a used beater and replace everything, all engine parts, tires, exhaust, etc, paint it and then re-sell it.
No official race tracks but had really fun city and country racing and there was multiple ways you could do some courses.
I would Love to see some company do a new and improved version of this game, it was so much fun!

 

[dragster666]

Not sure if this game was shown on here before but dang did i had an blast with it!
GTI Racing 2006

The game had an interesting Volkswagen car list some were different models of the same car but still it had an huge car list. Would love to see one of these in a modern racing game.

The game had a lot of events to play these are:
normal events:
circuit racing
knockout
sprint
drag
drift
Checkpoint racing across the map
and bonus challenges like
avoiding civilians while trying to break the time as a reward you would unlock a samba bus
Maps were pretty memorable nothing groundbreaking but good enough to be memorable. There were like Italy,Germany,UK,US and a few fantasy track maps.
Customization was pretty good actually you could customize your Volks quite a bit actually as far as i remember this included:
pre made vinyls,front/rear bumper customization,different rims,different exhausts,hood scoops,spoilers, body kit presets and some misc stuff.
The physics were alright. The game even had an interior view however it was pretty bad.
The soundtrack was dope IMO the early 2000s trance were pretty good for this game.
Car sounds were meh.

Also this was technically THE FIRST RACING GAME THAT WAS RELEASED ON STEAM...
Sadly the game was pulled from the steam store back in 2014 or 2015 i think? because of licensing issues i guess....