February 1, 2007
Friday Top 5: Car Racing Games
This week's top 5 is all about the racing genre of video games, and specifically, car racing. I make the distinction of car racing because the entire racing genre could include a myriad of games from snowboarding to hovercraft, and I'm not going to leave myself that wide open.1) Rallisport Challenge II
No competition. This game is the most fun that I've ever had in a racing game. The graphics are top-notch, the cars are all a blast, and the settings are awe-inspiring. Being a rally-centered game, the races are all about sliding and careening around corners, making it a blast to race. The tracks are easy to start with, and amazingly difficult at the end. Everything about this game screams "Masterpiece."
2) Top Gear
Almost tied with Burnout for the number 2 slot, I gave this game the second place because it was the first real racing game that I was impressed with. All the earlier games were too flat and uninteresting, but Top Gear changed all that. The graphics were good for its day, and the gameplay was out of this world. Not only were you racing against competitors for first place, you could choose your car! PLUS, the cars that you could choose from changed over time! 16-bit fun times.
3) Burnout 3
The racing in burnout is all about speed. Everything in this game is set up to make your brain twist around in your head. During the races, the edges of the screen stretch and blur to give the effect of supersonic speed, and the races themselves are centered around crashing, which is the title's main selling point. The Crash Mode is what really sets this game apart. Smashing a fire truck into a slew of Monday morning traffic is just rewarding, I don't care who you are.
4) Carmageddon 2
Carmageddon 2 was what Grand Theft Auto got it's 3D ideas from. Smooshing pedestrians for 'credits' and having a sandbox-like atmosphere to do it in makes this the first real open-ended racing game that I'd played. I guess the point is to get through all the levels and buy up all the cars but I never got too much further than the first few stages (not to say that I didn't play it a lot, I played it a LOT), they were just that entertaining. I believe that it was the "Cunning Stunt Bonus" that brought me back each time.
5) Powerslide
The precursor to good rally games, this game was just about its namesake. Powerslide around corners, powerslide up the side of a dam... Fun fun fun. No point really, I never played anything more than the demo, but the demo was more than enough powersliding for me. Even the one level in the demo was far better than the super-deep racing games like Need For Speed and Gran Turismo. Maybe I'm a sliding junkie, who knows.
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