22
votes
Recommend me a racing/driving game on PC
My parameters are
- Any kind of racing - F1, Moto GP, X games, rallycross, antigravity... you name it.
- No subscriptions
- I lean away from sim/management games... I don't mind some customization, but I don't want to have to choose from 10 different types of brake pads for best performance on each track.
- Combat optional
- If it makes a difference, I'll be playing with a controller, not a racing wheel.
[Edit: I should have specified - a modern racing game. I'm pretty versed on the options pre-2010, it's the new stuff I'm looking for.]
I originally wanted a rally game to scratch a hillclimb itch but I'm open to whatever now. Trawling through Steam has made my head spin though.
Previous racing games/series I've played and liked - Rallisport Challenge (really, if I could just play this again I'd be set), Wipeout 3, Road Rash, Ridge Racer Type 4, Twisted Metal 2, Jet Moto, Wave Race, Mario Kart, Sled Storm... OutRun! Showing my age here.
Somehow I've never really liked Need For Speed.
Assetto Corsa (or newer installments), Automobilista 2 - rather racing sims, playable with controller, difficult to master. You can mess with settings or just hop in and drive.
Grid Autosport - a bit more forgiving than previous ones, but still kinda sim, not arcade at all. Not hat much content though.
GRIP - modern Rollcage to my knowledge (I own it, I didn't play it yet; fast cars with weapon pickups, can be rolled over and still drive, kinda Wipeout on wheels)
Forza Horizon 5 (too bad you missed on the chance to buy 4 for 20€ or whatever whas the price before it was pulled back from stores) - your free roam arcade racing with many different styles of cars - rally, exotics, muscle, classics, motoraport icons, but also some normal everyday cars.
Euro or American Truck Simulator - When you are towing 30+ tonnes and doing 160 kph (100 mph) on the highway, it kinda becomes racing simulator...
You could set up Playstation 2 emulator and go for Gran Turismo 4, which is kinda the most of sim yet not hardcore (for me).
I don't know if gamepass or whatever allows playing them on PC but on Xbox 360 there were Forza Motorsport 3 and 4 which were not arcades anymore but not simulators yet. The new Forza Motorsport (no number) on PC didn't have good reception to my knowledge, so maybe skip that one or read up before buying.
Oh, and BeamNG Drive - physics simulator based on driving cars. You drive a car, it slips, you crash, car ends wound up around tree - literally. It has some missions for you to do and probably free drive. You can mess with power, gravity, and million other things (even just for fun). I haven't bought it yet, so no real experience.
I'm happy someone recommended ETS2/ATS. Definitely can be thought of as a racing sim, or a destruction derby with the AI fubar fun.
There are many ways to play ETS2 or ATS. For example as proffesional driver where you drive the truck, stop at red light, stick to speed limits etc.; another is tycoon-like where you have your tricking empire buying new trucks and managing drivers and all the work they do.
And then there is Jeremy Clarkson way of playing where speed and power are the only things in the world - Gping far past speed limits, overating on the right side of the road, going around roadblocks, driving without sleeping... That's my way!
And then there is one other way you mentioned - destruction derby. If you are the heaviest thing on the road and alsonthe fastest one, you are literally king of the road! Sometimes my own gaming mode of speed andpower suddenly switches to destruction derby even if I didn't want to.
Those games are great. I believe they are great for serious players, but I take them rather lightly and they are great for that kind of play as well!
That's what I wrote.
If you haven't played the Burnout games, you're missing out! I highly recommend Burnout Paradise Remastered, it's a blast.
Cut to: Me, playing this game for hours, skipping every song that isn't Paradise City by G&R or Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne.
I low-key love the soundtrack. Some of the songs make me eyeroll but there’s something transcendent about the experience of cruising for collectibles at 1am, half asleep but 100% in the zone, when the music transitions from Alice In Chains to Claude Debussy.
I've heard good things about the Trackmania franchise, be it the older completely free Trackmania: Nations Forever that's heavily community supported, or the free to play Trackmania released in 2020. A lot of the single player content is available without having to pay, and the club access is $20/year which is pretty reasonable for what it's offering compared to other live service games.
Nations Forever is not exactly free either, iirc it has some limitations on online play. They had to nerf the features in the free version twice because people weren't buying their commercial offerings, and then they made the same mistake again with Trackmania 2020.
That said, Trackmania 2020 seems like an obvious recommendation, because this is one of the best arcade racing games ever.
The best thing about it apart from having I don't know whether tens or hundreds of thousands of player-made maps that are often excellent in quality and new are coming out every day (and there is some curation in the form of daily/weekly events, so you don't get lost in the amount) is the physics: the game doesn't try to emulate real life and yet the physics engine is more complex than in any other "full arcade" game I've seen and imo is on par with semi-realistic racing games, despite the fact that it can be played with four buttons (though more buttons or a controller help nowadays). It has its own quirks that are completely unrealistic but were left in the game because they increase complexity and are fun.
No car damage and a fast respawn cycle (you can always immediately respawn in the last checkpoint with the press of a button) means that very difficult and interesting maps can be used and are fun to play.
Brilliant game, and the community is decent too. There aren't really any ways in which to grief outside of 3vs3 ranked play since there are no collisions and everything is just about getting the best time.
Normally I hate subscription-based games, but in here the deal is not terrible. The game has been out for over 4 years and the developer keeps adding new features - some of their decisions are controversial and they are famous for it, but you do get a sense that you are actually paying for continued development.
Trackmania United Forever is basically an extended version of Nations Forever, and Ubisoft are themselves hosting a download link for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/comments/u5nup5/where_to_download_trackmania_united_forever/i536rxg/
It's a huge flag that it links to an .exe but I used it and there is nothing dangerous about it. Free!
That's quite funny. I'd still recommend Trackmania 2020 because that's where almost all of the community is, and the free version is by far sufficient to decide whether to buy (subscribe) or not.
Oh yeah, I totally agree with that. It's by quite some distance the better game
+1 for Trackmania 2020. I never play ranked or cup of the day vs other players, but I really-really enjoy slowly going through all cup of the day tracks for silver medals on each. I had gold and even author medals on some tracks but hehe never intentionally. Tracks is super different, mechanics (if you wish to learn) is complex and interesting, so, can recommend.
If you want to try some games without breaking the bank, Fanatical’s current Build Your Own Pedal to the Metal Bundle is a good deal. I gave my thoughts on some of its titles here.
I also did a pretty extensive racing game breakdown here. It’s far from exhaustive, but hopefully gives you some stuff to chew on. If you have any further questions, ask away!
If I’m asked to cut through the noise of ALL of those choices and give my top three, I’d say:
Free to try, with a very fair (IMO) paid option should you like it. I’ve gotten thousands of hours out of the Trackmania series and hundreds of hours out of this game specifically.
A retro racing game with modern sensibilities. Tons of content and replayability. Gradually skilling up in the game is satisfying.
It’s hard to innovate in the racing game genre, but this does it well. It uses a unique dual-stick drifting control scheme that’s a bit clunky at first but feels REALLY good once you get it under your thumbs. Each car handles very differently, so changing cars is almost like doing a whole new campaign in the game. Definitely the most interesting racing game I’ve played in a good long while.
Inertial Drift sounds entertaining. That's exceedingly obviously a reference to Initial D, with the visual style and the Eurobeat.
The driving in the game is pretty fun, definitely wish more driving games would try out more unique control schemes.
For those who don't know in inertial drift you control your car with both analog sticks where hour left stick controls the steering and the right your drifting.
Just bought it (sale!), it's fun, thanks for the tip!
Ok I never knew that existed
Reading the reviews on Steam, it seems to be fairly punishing and gets difficult very quickly though.
Also @ your writeup thing I bought Hot Wheels to play with a friend(still didn’t do that) months ago, wasn’t aware of mtx
If you were a fan of the old Genki Tokyo Xtreme Racer games, it's worth noting that they have a new, and pretty well polished, Tokyo Xtreme Racer game in early access on Steam right now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2634950/Tokyo_Xtreme_Racer/
Seconded this, it scratches a very specific itch and it does it very well.
Oh nice! The old Dreamcast games were awesome, I had no idea there was a new one though.
Wreckfest!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/Wreckfest/
This one is a charming demo-derby game with an actual racer under the hood. I actually false-started on this with a racing wheel years ago, and picked it back up on SteamDeck. It regularly goes on sale down to like $10
https://steamdb.info/app/228380/
Two entries from a bit of an unexpected angle, pun intended: Super Woden GP 2 (and for that matter the prequel, both can be bought as a bundle for ~15€) and art of rally, two racing games played from a top-down perspective. The former is thoroughly an arcade game (including in the "deliberately retro aesthetics in the likeness of games played on actual physical arcade machines" sense) that takes cues from the first couple Gran Turismo games and Micro Machines, the latter melds an otherwise pretty realistically simulated rally driving experience with very simple graphics and a polished atmosphere.
Super Woden GP 2 is one weird game! It is just as you described. It's great game, something you wouldn't see coming, probably.
Super Woden GP 2 was a lot of run and reminded me a lot of the arcade game Super Sprint. Man I loved that game as a kid and the sequel "Ironman's" Super Offroad.
I'm not deep into racing games generally, but art of rally is a really fun racing game with a really good aesthetic feel.
Car customization comes down to picking a car and picking its paint job.
I love old-school simple racing games and Horizon Chase Turbo is one of the few racing games I've completed. I played it on Android first and then on PC with keyboard, but the controls are straightforward enough that I don't see it having any issues with controller.
Horizon Chase Turbo is a lot of fun. It reminds me a lot of the SNES racing series Top Gear (not related to the television show at all).
Emulators and R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (PS1) or Ridge Racer 2 (PSP). I prefer R4, but Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) is a ridge racer "greatest hits" type thing. Focuses on clean lines and drifting though Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) also has NFS type nitrous (R4 does not).
There is Ridge Racer Unbound on steam but I haven't played it. I hear it is more of a burnout style vehicular combat thing.
Ridge Racer Unbounded felt like a casting error. I like Bugbear Entertainment's games but their wheelhouse is focusing on very aggressive racing, and the Ridge Racer series doesn't fit that niche at all. The result of assigning them to a Ridge Racer title was a game that would have held up just fine outside of the IP, but with its name attached ended up being the catalyst that arguably killed the entire series, which is a crying shame for everyone involved. Wreckfest, which was also mentioned in this thread, is a much better example of what they're capable of.
Back to the topic at hand, I would recommend exploring emulation in general. There is an enormous library of excellent racing games that came out on the retro consoles, and if you're playing on a controller you already have a device well suited to experience them. The Gran Turismo series, the Ridge Racer games themselves as you mentioned yourself for that matter, the Burnout series, Rumble Racing, ToCa (the series that would eventually become GRID, itself a pretty great "simcade" game), and that's just the more straightforward car racing games that happen to be coming to mind right now.
I forgot to include R4 in my list! Had tons of fun with that.
Im a big fan of AG racers, so I encourage you to try Redout, Redout 2, and BallisticNG. All of them are essentially rocket propelled hovercraft racers. High speed, you really have to know the course.
For some added Detail-
Redout is a little more akin to things like the horizon series. Bulky machines that you upgrade as you play, with a focus on chaining your different types of boost to always be boosting.
BallisiticNG is my favorite AG racer, period, and is basically a modern wipeout. Lots of little detail in how you control, but as you really get going it's just great. A ton of different race types that are scattered throughout the various campaigns, with easy unlock conditions and a decent difficulty curve escalation.
More like "you buy then immediately max out all the upgrades", IMO. Once you get to tier 2 races you need to buy a tier 2 ship, but frankly the money is completely busted and there's never ever a reason you wouldn't have enough money to get the 4 upgrades for the ship you just bought.
(Tiers are basically like 50cc/100cc/150cc/200cc)
Honestly, they could just remove money from Redout (1) and you wouldn't even notice. It's important if you want to buy every ship immediately I suppose (but honestly, why would you do that? It takes time to learn a new ship, and they're all sidegrades that are basically just as good anyway (except Koennigswerth).
How does Redout compare with Redout 2? (I've only played the original)
I haven't played 1 but have probably 20-30 hours on 2 and based on what I've read here, upgrades are entirely earned via races in 2, no money involved. Vehicles are less bulky and more streamlined (possibly). Controls I don't know about but I do like the simplicity of 2 on controller - accelerate, brake, steer, side-steer/flight on right stick, two boost buttons and that's it.
The original is a bit more floaty, which in my opinion, gives it more of a sense of speed. Additionally, The equipment and boost system has been overhauled, you no longer equip an active and a passive. There are no active items, the only use for energy is to use the large boost (the normal boost only builds up your heat). The passive items have been replaced by a component system, allowing you to swap pieces of your ships for ones with different stats. Its a very different experience, and IMO, its better in some ways, worse in others, but still worth grabbing on sale.
check out NightRunners on steam! its only got a demo release right now, but 1.0 is coming this year, and a lot of indie devs are trying their damndest to... take influence from it. its the only game ive preordered in a decade and makes me feel like im playing nfsu2 on the floor again.
also stock>hydra handbrake upgrade changes the keybind button from toggle to hold. its FULL of tiny details like that.
sorry for the lack of details and no links, i took a short break from work and just had to mouth off my favorite arcade racer of the decade. ill be happy to talk about it further later and/or edit some links in when im at the keyboard.
I can recommend both original Dirt Rally and Dirt Rally 2.0. The original Dirt Rally even has a Hillclimb mode! Dirt Rally 2.0 is available on Steam while Dirt Rally is not sold anymore as far as I can tell, but you can get still buy Steam Keys for ~5 $.
You mentioned that you are not into simulation/management... These games are rally simulations, but the management options are completely optional in my experience - at least I never made any adjustments to my car apart from setting it to manual. There are tons of options, settings, even team managment, etc. but again, I never used those and still had a blast. My recommendation when playing these games is not to try and win every race by restarting after a crash. Just go slow and controlled, it's ok to be 20th place, you will eventually get better.
Then, for a more arcade style experience, there are also the "Dirt" games (without "Rally"). I had much fun with Dirt 4, but personally I prefer the "Rally" games.
I really like blur, I've been playing it a lot lately, it's so fun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blur_(video_game)
It's from 2010, so not exactly modern, but in my opinion the graphics still hold up, with all its colours and flashy effects. It has combat with mario kart style power ups, and gamepad support. One of my favourite racing games of all time.
Sadly Activision abandoned it, so it's not on steam anymore, but there's still enough people racing on amax-emu, made by the community.
A few that I have on my Steam Wishlist (so bear in mind I haven't played them but they seem interesting):
Parking Garage Rally Circuit - Arcade drifting mechanics on tight circuits with a Sega Saturn aesthetic
New Star GP - Arcade F1 racing with a clean art style and not too crazy car upgrade/tuning mechanics
Airframe Ultra - Not released yet - Looks like some demon baby between F-Zero and Road Rash, by the same dev that made Rain World
These aren't hill climbing, rather the opposite.
Slackers - Carts of Glory is downhill racing mayhem. Mostly fun for the slams.
Descenders is a very tight physics-based downhill biking game.
Also, a couple zero-G style deep cuts;
Neodash is a stylish blend of rocket league physics with some time attack maps. I had a ton of fun with it, although it doesn't have a ton of content.
DEATHSPRINT 66 - I've heard good things about it, but it's very combat and multiplayer focused.
Both RalliSport Challenge 1 & 2 are payable in Xemu original Xbox emulator for PC (Win, Mac, Linux): https://xemu.app
Does Xemu work yet?
Yes.
https://docs.tildes.net/policies/code-of-conduct
I enjoyed the single player in Exocross.
The multiplayer and AI aren't very good but the difficult tracks and physics make it a pretty fun challenge.
Hotshot Racing is a pretty fun arcade racer. It's got racing against NPCs and time trails, which are good fun to get your time up on.
The DIRT: Rally series are also pretty decent. I have the first one and it really scratched an itch I didn't know I had for gritty, realistic rally.
Carmageddon, yeah the one from 1997.
More on the OutRun side of things: Slipstream. Not a very deep game but I had a ton of fun with it. It has the branching mechanic and sprite scaling/bendy road kind of graphics of OutRun.
I know you explicitly stated that you don't like management-style games. But for anyone that happens to stumble into this thread looking for racing game recommendations to check out: F1 Manager 24 is currently free this week on the Epic Games Store.
This might scrape the barrel a little on the definition of "driving game", but I like all of:
Im pretty sure the pacific in pacific drive comes from the fact that its set in the pacific northwest of the US.
I know, but that doesn't make it an appropriate choice of name.