Hey all!
Moving away from the “angry man shakes fist at clouds” types of rants I’ve been on lately, I’m here to talk about some racing games that I’ve truly loved!
Need for Speed Underground/Underground 2
Not only was the theme song to NFSU2 banger, but the game play and customization in both was amazing. NFS Heat seemed to try to bring some of that back, but no other racing game I’ve played has had that same kind of “Fast and Furious first movie drag race”. I’ve tried many other NFS games (and one will be mentioned again later), but Underground/Underground 2 is still cream of the crop for me.
Stuntman
Some might say this isn’t really a ‘racing’ game as much as a ‘driving’ game, but man was this game fun. Working your way through more and more difficult “stunts” while against the clock was frustrating at times.. especially when a stunt kept failing.. but when you finally hit all your marks and you got to see the finished result, it made it all worth while.
Forza Horizon 4
My first foray into Forza and I was hooked. The British scenery, the race types, the cars.. for a first time Forza player it was epic in scope and done to near perfection. Being a fan of Top Gear, some of the challenges were extra fun, and the movie based story challenged harkened back to the above mentioned “Stuntman”. All in all, an amazing game that I still play and enjoy, even more than the most recent incarnation.
The Need for Speed
Released in 1994, and later ported to MS-DOS in ’95, I first played this game on my friend’s Panasonic 3DO system. Do the graphics hold up? No. Was the game play fun and addictive? Absolutely, and it did it through some very interesting means… the game had a sometimes supportive, sometimes trash-talking FMV character that would either praise you or burn you depending on how well you did. “Yeah man.. top of the hill, buried the needle you OWNED that road!” was great.. but when you’ve had enough and can’t quite get the race beat… just as you’re about to put the controller down and he hits you with “That loud sucking sound you hear is all the cute girls leaving you for the guy with the really fast car…” always seemed to get you to play one more race. Without this one, there might very well have not been any others.
– PCR
