This could be a bit of fun..

List your 3 favourite, fun, memorable or in your opinion most interesting/important (in any order, or however you like) car/racing games from any era on any platform. Arcade or sim or anything in between or outside- any game where you control a car or a heavy car focus is apparent. Give a short (or long!) description why you liked it. Let's see what we can come up with.

PS- let's try to keep LFS out of this discussion. We'll assume that everybody here loves LFS. Most would probably want to put it in first position. I'm trying to open things up a bit. If you really want you can put LFS. But then you only get 2 more goes... hehe.

edit:- include screenshots if you want to, descriptions or no. There's bound to be a few strange games popping up in this list...

I'll go first...

1. Pole Position. (C64)

This was the first racing game I ever played. I loved the way the cars got bigger as they approached you (awesome sprites ), the funny, pompous blimp that drifted across the screen at the beginning of a race, and how the cars just exploded(!) when you crashed into them. Watching the track curve and twist as you rounded the corners became mesmorising after a while. Oh, and it had oil slicks you had to watch out for. Not even LFS has that! File more under "memorable" than "favourite" for this one. It wasn't really a great game- too slow and repetitive, but my 7 year old brain lapped it up anyway. And it had Mount Fuji (I think).

haha, just found this on the net..

Quote :

"Beep, beep, beep, beeeeep!" (Remember that sound before the lights turn green?)

Of course we do!

2. Stunts/4D Sports Racing. (PC)

A true classic from the time when home PC's were just climbing out of the limitations of the awful CGA colour palette and the PC speaker 'beep boops'. This one was in VGA and had Soundblaster support, thereby rocking hard. It also rocked hard because it was a great, fun game. What set this one apart from the other racers of the time were the crazy tracks- jumps, loops, corkscrews, mazey bits, etc. And it had a track editor. Which was the best bit. You could have fun racing against the other opponents (anyone remember their names?) but more fun was making the most diabolically hellish track imaginable and setting the poor, hapless AI loose on it- with their inferior electronic brains it wouldn't be long before a nice and sometimes spectacular accident ensued, which always generated a few giggles. The best part was trying to be as creative as possible with the tracks- my friends and I were always trying to outdo each other in this area. And there was a funny bug in the physics where after coming off a loop from a particular angle- the car would sometimes hover above the ground and spin around in the air like it was caught in an invisible vortex. Hmmm... LFS physics are much better... File under "Fun"!

3. Trackmania Nations. (PC)

A newey and a goody. Just like 4D Sports Driving really but seriously updated. Everything about this game works and I think it's probably about the most fun you can have while staring into an LCD monitor. It's not realistic, the physics are superficial and arcadey. But that's not the point. The game is arcadey but in a way that still demands precision and intelligence from the driver. To get the best times you really need to put your brain to work- creative (and I mean creative!) shortcutting is a necessary skill here if you want to be able to ride with the best. There's a lot of joy in figuring out a track, discovering it's secrets and uncovering the hidden logic. The twin strengths of the game are the online competition racing and the track building. A third strength is the wonderful community, who have proven themselves a very talented and dedicated group when it comes to churning out insane tracks for peoples amusement. Great graphics round the whole package off nicely- lots of bump mapping of surfaces and good lighting effects throughout. A truly wild ride! File under "FUN!!!"

Formula One Grand Prix
It's the reason I bought an Amiga computer.

Stunt Car Racer
My introduction to multiplayer gaming!

Something that never got finished
I've writen a racing sim myself, partly, it was a lot of fun in multiplayer but was scrapped fairly early on because the guy making the 3D models turned out not to be making them, but stealing them .

Edit: Read the post rules and removed LFS.

Before I got into serious simulations I had 3 favorite titles I always played when I was young. So I kind of have 3 favorite "semi-sims", and 3 favorite "sims".... hehehe. Here they are:


Network Q Rac Rally Championship
Something about this game just drew me in. I loved the rally stuff, and the repairing of the cars.

Official Formula 1 Racing
This game was the beginning of my interest in F1 driving games. Because I was so noob at the time, the game gladly came with a feature that allowed you to race an entire race while it was recording a replay, and you could actually go into instant replay mode while you were driving, REWIND the replay, and the click "DRIVE" or whatever and you could startoff wherever you rewound too. That means you could have perfect laps everytime, and never have a mistake. If you messed up in a turn, you would just rewind and start over before that turn . And even going back into some old replays that you saved, you could go in and click drive at anytime to interrupt the replay and drive whenever you want. It was one of the coolest features, and I abused it way too much, hehehe

Soda Off-Road Racing
This was a crappy looking game, but the physics were the most challenging I had come across at the time. The tracks and surfaces were all kind of like polygon shaped, so jumps and dips would all be very sharp. Still it was really a nice driving game, and you could make your own courses, and I got really crazy with that. For a stadium truck game, I have found no other off-road racing game that is as good as this one. My friend later asked me if he could borrow the CD to install it, and that was the last I ever saw of that game I still wish I had it to be honest.

I was of course into the NFS:2 and earlier series, but when I got into real simulations and the respect for challenging racing titles, it all start with these games... in order....

Grand Prix Legends
A classic everyone knows about in here I am sure. I remember I was at a video game store and I had the choice of two Formula 1 games. Having driven that F1 game I mentioned above, I wanted to get this one just called "Formula 1". But reading the system requirements, it could've been risky since it might not have worked on my junky PC. The graphics were too nice, and I really wanted it. But then I saw Grand Prix Legends, and only 1 box on the shelf. I looked at it for a while, and I am not really sure what made me choose it over the other one.... but I said oh well, bought it and went home to try it and as it puts me out on the track at Kyalami, man I was all over the place. I was terrible. But I never gave up, and this game pretty much taught all I needed to know about a simulation and the basics of racing and controlling a car -- with my FF joystick.

Nascar 2002 & 2003
I was into this only because of how nice it felt to drive the cars. However, it did get boring because I could never play Multiplayer and I was stuck with trying to race some AI, which got boring, because I'd either beat them, crash too much, or lose against them. So I got my friends into the game, and that was the point where we were all lanning and we all went out and bought ourselves cheap-o Logitech wheels. We mostly did crazy slipstreaming on ovals and it was (and still is) the best oval racing I've ever done.

LFS
Of course, and there is really no in-depth explanation for this. I had a bit faster internet, and was really into multiplayer gaming, and was searching around for nice simulations, and being around RSC and other areas because of GPL, I found LFS and tried their really early demo. Been loving it ever since, and LFS is the most played simulation (or even game) I have ever played.

Around the time I would play GPL and NR2003, I was of course playing CMR2 (only best CMR game in my opinion), and NFS:Porsche Unleashed (this game got me my name, friends would tell me to stop 'tweaking' my setup and join the damn race!!) Heheh. Of course, I kicked their arses cuz they never cared about their setup

long post

Defo Super Mario Kart, playing that game on the N64 with 3 other people was amazing at the time! Sorry for copying Kev but this game was L33T! Would be crap now but when you can drive go karts while shooting mad turtles out of the front of it when ur 7 year old it was great fun!

Granturismo 1, loved that game, my 1st real racing game, I just loved playing it I guess, real cars and real tracks.

And for the up to date one I guess it's Richard Burns Rally, just a class game, does everything a real Rally fan would want a rallying game do to (Unlike Colin McRae Rally, even though the 1st one was a good game) And it's also a fitting tribute to Mr Burns himself.

No particulour order here, just picked out random games from my very useless memory.

Indianapolis 500 was the first racing game I played. I still remember having to input words from the manual to make it play properly...

Stunts was another gold one for me. Many hours of fun with that little gem.

Sport Car GT (SCGT) was the first game that I really played a lot. Tonnes of fun with that title, and it was also the first one that I really got into painting cars publicly. I had released a paint for GP2 before hand, and had been painting cars for the Papy NASCAR and INDYCAR series long before, but that was mostly private stuff I never showed to anyone outside of my household.

MAG

Pole Position, Atari 2600. Played that for quite a while before I realized the "pieces of a picket fence" that I was dodging around the track were actually other cars? I still have it, but both of my Atari's have a different problem with them. I wish I had the ability to put the two together and have one working one

Spy Hunter, NES. Not exactly a racing game, but definitely one of my favorite driving a car fast games. Top down view, blow up the "spies," drive into the back of a semi truck to upgrade your weapons/oil slicks/smoke screens. Great game, played the hell out of it.

Grand Turismo 2, PSX. My first racing "sim." Loved it, especially after I got a cheapo Mad Catz wheel. I loved how it was so... difficult. I could tell people, "it's not a game, it's a sim." I played that game so much, it's ridiculous. I had a lot of fun with GT4 too, but that was short lived as I then found LFS.

Mario Kart also gets an honorable mention. Not only was it a mega-fun racing game, it was probably the best multiplayer console game I've ever played. That kept me up many many nights at friends' houses and stuff back in the day. *sigh*

Quote from Tweaker :

Network Q Rac Rally Championship
Something about this game just drew me in. I loved the rally stuff, and the repairing of the cars.

That is a classic. I would call that a rally sim ancestor. It also got a sequel "Tommi Mäkinen Rally" but it was just a crappy effort to make money... but it had the same graphics (or "physics" ) engine. And years later the same guys made Rally Championship...

---

1. Grammond's GP1
Probably the first racing game that I played. I was so young that I had to play it with automatic braking and all the other aids, so all I had to do was to steer. I played Monaco in it so much that I got really bored of the track and since I have hated Monaco.

2. Stunts/4D Sports Racing
I played this a lot on IBM 386 super computer. For the time pretty realistic handling and a great concept. If some game would need a decent sequel it would be this. Trackmania isn't exactly the same thing and Crashday that was released this year was supposed to be "a sequel" but it unfortunately turned out to be very crappy game in general.

3. Need For Speed or Gran Turismo 1

If the year would be now 2010, I would list Richard Burns Rally. I just have a bad feeling that it won't get "a replacement" anytime soon and that's why it becomes a similar classic than GPL that will be played for years.

Grand Prix Legends - this venerable old classic was my intro to online racing and online gaming in general. After I got past the "OMFG this is WAY too hard" stage and could actually put down some laps without crashing I simply couldn't stop. Overpowered beasts with no grip, an indescribable immersive quality, a great depiction of several legendary seasons (thanks to the unstoppable and incomparable modders), 500+ user-made tracks as well as many tools & utilities and infinite track, sound, car addons/upgrades... I've also met some really top people through leagues and in the GPL community in general :up: It's still my unquestionable favourite (1966 Mod coming, sweeet). GPL led me to LFS and I'm still playing both...

Gran Turismo 1 & 2 - best racing games for the PS1 (Ridge Racer couldn't even get close). Rented GT1, hated it straight away but it grew on me after a week and had me completely addicted. Spent months unlocking everything and racing my best mate, who was (and still is) the only guy who could ever beat me (and vice versa). One time, during a 2-player day, I accidentally saved my GT2 game over his, to much anguished screaming from both of us...I started from scratch in solidarity and we had even more fun. Many fond memories of stock Viper battles at Trial Mountain & Deep Forest :up: I loved the Need for Speed series but never owned a copy, so have only been an occasionaly player. I'd mention Colin McRae Rally (PS1) as well but then this post would never end..

Test Drive, C64. First game I ever played where the cars had manual transmission and each car was noticably different to the others. They were all fun to drive but the Countach was the one to beat, no question. I was never faster than my brother at this game but it left a real impact on me nonetheless. After that, everything was arcadey. For the record, my bro's useless at GPL Grand Prix Circuit came a close second to Test Drive, but at the time I was more into outrunning cops than outrunning Prost

There were loads of others like Outrun, Chase HQ, Power Drift, Pitstop & Interstate '76 that kept me addicted for a while but those top three had the greatest impact on me.

Geoff Crammond's F1GP,
Need for Speed (the first, original one ONLY. I'd love for it to be recoded with modern graphics and physics :nod
Mmh, I'm tempted to say Stunts, I used to be addicted to the track editor =)
That or LFS.

Difficult to pick three, but I guess at the moment I'd go for:
- Need for Speed
- Test Drive II
- Lotus III

Others great ones I can think of right now:
- No Second Prize (Still the best motorbike racing game there is imo )
- Stunt Car Racer
- Super Cars II
- Revs+ (First "real" sim I played, and with analog paddles. I recently tried it with my Momo Racing and it still is damn hard to keep the car on the track)
- Nitro
- Vroom
- The Last V8
- Racing Destruction Set
- GP1
- Stunts
- Lego Racers (Dunno why but I loved it :P)
- Colin McRae Rally

edit: ooh, and Carmageddon 2 of course
edit2: And SuperKarts!

1. Lombard RAC Rally
2. Chequered Flag
3. Test Drive (the first one)


AAAhhh those were the days!!!

Ahem
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2836

If talking about racing games/sims only, I'd say the first Need for speed, Gran turismo 1 and Grand prix legends.

I was a bit younger when I got my playstation1 and pretty soon after it one my mates got it also. He also bought the game, Need for speed which has left so many good memories. We just drove it in 2 player mode for hours sometimes. I remember that once I beat him in the Supra while he was driving the Ferrari . Of course he then beat me in the RX-7 whike I was driving the Lambo . But usually we came pretty close and because there was that time based 3-stage thing, you could win 2 out of three but still lose the "championship". It was just hilarious at times when then other had spinned in front and tried to do everything so that the other couldn't pass. Just pure golden memories.

Pretty much the same with the GT1, but in a way it wasn' so much fun anymore. He insisted driving the Subaru WRX GTR (or whatever it was) and I drove my supra, RX7 or FTO GTR LM. Subaru had only 5 gears, while all the others had six so he had better acceleration and worse highspeed. But still, the races were more uneven and not as fun...

After I had played the GT2 for some time I tried GPL for the first time. It wasn't so direct move from PS1 to PC, I played the Sports car GT quite a while in the between, even bought a wheel for it (MS sidewinder precision racing wheel, still in use ). It felt at the time pretty much the same as the GTR1&2 today. Snap spins & all. At the same time I played viper racing, but that was before the wheel, and actually haven't really played viper racing with a wheel. Never really saw Sportscar GT as a realistic sim, it was more of a ultimate arcade racing experience, with some sim gimmicks.

GPL was fun, and still is. Haven't really played it much recently, but still driving around the old Laguna seca is pure fun. Only game that I can hotlap

EDIT: Probably my first or second racing game: http://www.gamespot.com/nes/driving/superoffroad/index.html

Heh the first ever racing game that i have laid my eyes on was:

1. Need for Speed: My brother who is older than me use to play it and taunt me with it and never let me have a go on it.. git! Then when i got my first playstation I bought the pxs version of nfs. It wasnt as good as the PC version but was good enough.

I then got hold of

2. Destruction Derby 2 or Grand Turismo 1: Destruction Derby 2 was the second racing game that i have ever played and man was that fun. Ok so it wasnt proper racing but the destruction and mayhem during some of the races and not to mention the death bowls. Grand Turismo one which i have completed was probably the first serious racing game that i had and man wasnt it goooooooooooood. GT2 that followed wasnt bad either especially with the escudo.

And finally

3. Live for Speed: LFS for me is the best racing game ever and one of my favourite games to date. When i bought it back in 2003 i didnt take to it too much but over the few years it grew on me and now i regard it as the best racing game on the pc available.

mad

1. TT Superbikes (Jester Interactive)

This game for me has always been my favourite. The physics can be a bit weird at times but the sense of speed in this game is just brilliant, I also got this game because it is based around the Isle Of Man TT circuit (IOMTT) for which I've always loved to play a game from it. I give a thumbs up to Jester for this game just hope they bring out a TT2.

2. Tourist Trophy (Polyphony Digital)

The creator of the GT series, felt that he needed to switch to the 2-wheel variety after the release of GT4, and I have to say this is probably one of the best games I've played, and Polyphony have done well to switch for 4 to 2-wheels. The physics on this game are superb of a real superbike, there are plenty of bikes (from the 125 variety to the big monsters of the 1600cc kind) and tracks ranging from real life tracks of the infamous Nurburgring, to the original tracks of GT of Grand Valley speedway and many others). One thing that has a downside on this game is the lack of tracks, but I'm sure there will be alot more in the next game.

3. PGR3 - Project Gotham Racing 3

Now I don't have the pleasure of owning this game (or an Xbox360) but I have played this alot in shops. The graphic detail in this game is beyond belief. Going 160mph through the streets of london and you get that sense of speed with the blurred buildings and people, and the one thing I loved was the interior and graphics of the cars, each car had its own detailed replica interior of the real car with working dials, hand movements of changing gear, just a stunning piece of work.

Now that's the top 3 for me...

Xaid0n

GP2

Network Q Rally

Need For Speed

1st Live for Speed
sounds strange for some...but i never invested that much time in a racing game so far.

2nd Grand Prix 3
Geoff Crammond for TeH win!
a very nice simulator especialy all the mods which came where a hell lot of fun...

3rd Grand Prix 2
Geoff Crammond for TeH win!
my first real Racing Simulator and one of the best...im still sometimes thinking of it...driving 360km/h with the williams on the Hockenheimring and nearly loosing the car every second

This is tough one, gotta strecth my memory a bit.. What saddens me is that I actually have to leave Pit Stop out from the three-list, since the three others affected me more.

Indy500 - This was propably the first racing game which I played for hours and hours non-stop. Never finished the long races, because of crashing. Ten-lappers were easy and 30-lappers too. I played this with 8088, with really low frame rates. You wouldn't believe. It was really hard to make clean laps with full grid. Later I played it with better computers, but by then I already had a new favourite:

F1GP - The original Crammond one. I had it on 386 pc and my friend had it on his Amiga. We did some "hotlapping" where we kept a score on lap records. Huge fun. Wet weather was the thing, it just happened so rarely. But when it did.. wow.

CMR2.0 - I tried the demo and liked it, so I bought it and fell in love with it. First rally game I ever played more than once or twice. Played it with keyboard and quite quickly learned to master it. Only the tarmac in France was pain. Random weather was very nice. Oh, the joy of foggy RAC. However it was clear that those two to three minutes long stages were disappointing in their shortness. The hunger for full-length rallying became huge. I'm still waiting..


Edit:
Didn't forget Stunt Car Racer. Never made higher than Div 2, but spent lots of hours with it. And Stunts.. And SkidMarks.. And...

Quote from mrfell :

1. Lombard RAC Rally
2. Chequered Flag
3. Test Drive (the first one)


AAAhhh those were the days!!!

Lombard RAC Rally: was there a Ford Sierra Cosworth on the packing? I loved that Game until Colin McRae Rally came out. The Test Drive picture is from the second part right (cause i have not seen TD1 with EGA graphics so far)?

My very first game was TD1 and F1 followed by Stunts and 4D Sports Driving, Lotus Challenge, Lombard RAC Rally and so on.

my 3 FAV Games:

- Indycar Racing & Nascar Racing (Series) (both had the same engine i think, at least they have been released in the same decade) followed by GPL

- Need for Speed I - The only real "Need for Speed" everything else was just crap, ok Motorcity Online was a blast as well but its not available anymore.

- Colin McRae Rally 1 & 2 - best Rally games these day and i really enjoyed em.

GT is playstation but i would like to add this here as well as a sidenote. Sportscar GT was great as well but i had to change to lfs demo these days

And well, of course, LFS is my favorit game right now, has been for around 3 years (demo time included) now and will be for a long time i think

Edit: allmost forgot about GTL & GTR (2), fun to drive but LFS is way better in many ways

Stuntcar racer - as a kid id be addicted to it on the Amiga

GTR2 - Got the demo and im hooked to it

Need For Speed Road Challenge - The PC one, the racing was fun, and the police chases were immense.

Without any doubt my alltime-fave so far is GPL..great F1-cars, a great community and the first racing-game ever I could race online..
Another racing-sim I liked very much was Indycar Racing2, from Papyrus as well..
LFS and GTL are equal on 3rd on my personal rank..GTL contains some great historic Touring-Cars and provides good and solid offline-fun against the AI and LFS has, imho, the best pyhsics and netcode of all the up-to-date racesims..

Stunt Car Racer - Amiga and AtariST - I had Amiga and we played on splitscreen (2 joys = 2 players) while also connected with Atari for another 2 players => 4 players multiplayer. I remember we played whole night as kids, and few had serious trouble with parents, LOL.

NFS Porsche Unleashed - the best title from NFS series ever. Pay for a new car, pay an entry fee to race, win it, and find out that you pay more than you won on repairs because you raced like an idiot. I loved it!

Collin McRae Rally 2.0 - another best one from CMR series, I only own this one.

Richard Burns Rally - no comment

Live for Speed - the "rally" part is there, but once you tried RBR... simply put, this game made me love the road racing. Yeah LFS is really the best.

Richard Burn Rally

Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix

Mashed Unleashed (Micro Machines but better!)


No comments needed really, 1 amazing rally game, 1 ground breaking game, and 1 party games that gets even better when drunk!!!!

Quote from 510N3D :

Lombard RAC Rally: was there a Ford Sierra Cosworth on the packing? I loved that Game until Colin McRae Rally came out. The Test Drive picture is from the second part right (cause i have not seen TD1 with EGA graphics so far)?

Yes it was the Cosworth!!
I thought this was the muts nuts, heck the driver actually changed gear!!
You're probably right about TD1, I can't seem to find any in game shots. I can't remember how many times I wanted to punch the screen because I over-revved the damm thing.
As for chequered flag, if it never happened, would we all be here today

Quote from Tweaker :

Network Q Rac Rally Championship
Something about this game just drew me in. I loved the rally stuff, and the repairing of the cars.

I reinstalled this a few weeks ago to revisit older days. This game was quite good for it's time and inspired me to ditch the joystick and buy my first wheel. Screamer Rally, Andretti Racing, and others spring to mind and memories of good times come flooding back, but my three all-time faves are as follows:

Grand Prix2
GPL
LFS

These three all appealed to me because they never tried to be everything to everybody, the challenge focuses on car knowledge (setup), track knowledge and driving skill, not compromise, bling or hype. Real sims always please the driver in me. My goal isn't "fun", any old game can deliver that. To be good at a sim you need to put some work and thought into it. Most other gaming is on some lower level of satisfaction and achievement.

This is tough, there's a lot...

I've gotta say Grand Prix Legends, there's nothing like it. For 1998 it was absolutely mindblowing. It still is very very impressive, and so much fun to play.

Cart Precision Racing. This was my first "Sim" or at least tried to be a sim. This game introduced me to setting up a car.

Monster Truck Madness 2. I spent more time on this game than I care to admit. Not a sim, not even close, although the physics actually felt pretty good. Just a blast to play

Honorable Mentions
Richard Burns Rally. I don't actually own this game, and I haven't been playing it very long at all, so I can't really put it in this list, I know it will be though.

Geoff Crammond's original Grand Prix. This was my very very first racing game, so it has to be here

Crap, I forgot Sportscar GT, too