Best Driving Games?

[DarthDelgado]

So I was thinking about this and decided to post a thread about it. There are tons of good driving games out there. What are some of your favorites? What are your least favorites? For me I'd have to say probably Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (2010), probably some good old fashioned Mario Kart, and Crazy Taxi, the original, because it had that kick ass sound track.

Anyway, feel free to give your opinion.

By the way, GTA doesn't count as a driving game.

[mjakob42]

I'll say it right now that I'm not all that big into racing/driving games, but I can throw in my two cents...

All the Twisted Metals prior to Black

Mario Kart

F-Zero

[Peter]

OK. Here are my top picks.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2

Need for Speed Most Wanted

Pure (ATV racing)

Mario Kart 64

Ridge Racer Series

F-Zero Series

[DarthDelgado]

I'll say it right now that I'm not all that big into racing/driving games, but I can throw in my two cents...

All the Twisted Metals prior to Black

Mario Kart

F-Zero

Yeah, I forgot about F-Zero. F-Zero X on the 64 is a very underated game IMO.

OK. Here are my top picks.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2

Need for Speed Most Wanted

Pure (ATV racing)

Mario Kart 64

Ridge Racer Series

F-Zero Series

Those are good ones too.

[CrypticQuery]

Give me a while to post; I'm currently marking up a list and trying to include videos on this one. Driving games have always been one of my favorite genres. :P

["User"]

I haven't played that many racing games at length but San Fransisco Rush 2049 I played religiously over a period of a couple of years at my home Laser Quest center. Every time you beat the "free car" you get a free game but it gets faster so it's harder to beat next time. Managed to get a whole bunch of free races for every play lol.

The original F-Zero I had a whole bunch of fun with as well. :)

[jeth]

Mario Kart and Jak X.

[Falco'sFinest]

...

[LoneWolf]

I'm a big fan of the DiRT series, I really like games like Gran Turismo 3 as well. Crash Team Racing was a favorite as a kid. Otherwise racing games aren't really my specialty.

[CrypticQuery]

Here are some of my favorites;

Driver 2 - PS1; Possibly one of the greatest, and indeed most frantic, driving games I've ever played. The sheer variety in missions as well as potential crushing difficulty and great story length makes it higher up in my book. Handling was absolutely fantastic, and the storyline was pretty decent for the time as well. The multiple cities that the career mode spanned was also a nice touch.

Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit/Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2: Though the newest remake isn't half bad, my heart will always go out to the original Need For Speed Hot Pursuit iterations. I absolutely adored NFS3: HP on PS1; the overall feel of the game was great, the police-chases were intense, and some of the cheat-codes were downright hilarious. NFSHP2 on PS2 was even better with improved graphics and a slew of new modes and challenges to partake in.

Stuntman - PS2: Another great gem of last generation; the original was much better than the sequel, Ignition, by the way. The challenge of driving exactly how the director needed you to was heart pounding, and keeping up with the time limits was fun. It could be a bit repetetive at times in harder scenes, but it always stayed fun.

The Italian Job - PS1/PC: A fantastic recreation of the original 1969 feature film; the majority of scenes were recreated faithfully and in full detail. The game has shown its age though, especially in graphics and controls. The version below is the PC version;

Super Chase HQ - SNES: I recently redisovered this game and it is an absolute blast. You play as the police attempting to track down enemies, and it plays similar to Outrun at first in the sense that you drive for quite some time without much to do but avoid other cars and manage your speed. Once you find the target vehicle, though, you've got to ram it until it is no longer driveable.

Need For Speed High Stakes: I know, Need For Speed again, but this one deserves an honorable mention for the inredible intro it had;

Also, the Cruis'n Series [Arcade/N64] and Crazy Taxi [Arcade, Dreamcast, PS2, etc], and San Francsico Rush 2049 [Arcade, and through an arcade collection on PS2] were quite good as well.

That's about it for now, if I think of anything else I'll be sure to post again. :lol:

[thunderflare]

The best driving games there are a lot, I'll just put my favorites

• motorstorm
  
• crash team racing
  
• dirt series
  
• jak x
  
• twisted metal series
  
• need for speed series
  
• gran turismo 4
  
• blur
  
• burnout series
  
• flatout
  
• mx vs. atv series
  

I'm probably missing a few but there are the ones I liked the most.

I haven't played F-zero yet, I hear it's vary good though.

[Falco'sFinest]

..

[thunderflare]

I did forget a few, how could I have missed mario cart I feel like an idiot and I forgot the midnight club series.

[Luminous-red]

While not the best of those mentioned above, "Carmageddon" for Play Station is still pretty fun.

[sniper]

If you want an amazing racing game and don't care about amazing graphics, get NFS Porsche Unleashed! 2 amazing story modes (factory driver, where you drive for a testing company and get to participate in many different challenges as you move up in the company, and era (not sure if that's the name) where you start back in the 30s cars and move up through the decades until cars from the late 90's and early 2000's (customizing and buying cars as you go)).

For great racing games with great graphics, get Burnout Paradise City and NFS Carbon (avoid gamecube version due to terrible graphics). Paradise and carbon are both great free roam games, however, burnout doesn't have much of a storyline (it's mostly just go around the city and participate in races to unlock cars (In its plus, it is a huge city that's a ton of fun to drive in)). Carbon's storyline is pretty good and allows for a TON of customization on the cars you own.

[Falco'sFinest]

..

[Icy]

My absolute top picks. Must-have racing games right here.

Burnout Paradise (PS3, 360, PC) (Open-world racing. A lot of stuff to find, cars to unlock, races to… race, stunts to complete, etc, etc… There's some DLC with good value as well to make the game last longer. Online is very, very, fun. It has bikes, cars, trucks, etc. Day-night cycle. Amazing game and my favorite racing game of all time)

Split/Second (PS3, 360, PC, PSP) (Explosive linear racing, complete with shortcuts, hard-to-beat opponents, awesome tracks, plenty of cars to choose from, online, different game modes that are all very good. Extremely underrated game and my second favorite in the racing genre.)

Driver: San Francisco (PS3, 360, PC) (Open world, any car on the road is yours for the taking. You can "shift" into any car and drive it as much as you want. It has cop chases, (you can even play as the police and chase down others) plenty of side-missions, plenty of freedom, a huge world to explore with lots of things to collect, missions to complete, etc, etc… A good story as well.)

And let me just say, before you think I only play modern racing games, I do know of and play quite a few older racing games. Such as the old Midtown Madness series from Microsoft. They were great games for their time and are still fun to this day. I know of plenty of others as well but a lot of them have been posted already, so yeah.

But here is one… This game is a rare GEM, I tell you.

Cruis'n Exotica for N64. That game is/was a masterpiece and it just never gets old for me. Probably nostalgia, but you know. Worth a look.

And of course, I agree with a lot of the suggestions above. You should definitely check these out, though.

[Furygun81]

Depends what you mean by Driving Games. If you mean a game in which you drive a car and participate in races, Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3. Really realistic, especially when used alongside a steering wheel with force feedback. The biggest choice of cars in video game history and a bunch of circuits, and the ability to create your own circuits. There are original circuits (Trial Mountain, High Speed Ring), real circuits (Laguna Seca, the Top Gear Test Track) and Snow & Dirt tracks!

In the 'adventure' mode there are Formula One races, NASCAR races, 24 hour races and more besides! In the beginning you have to get a driver's licence to start racing!!

I'd recommend it.

[CrypticQuery]

Oh I deserve to die. How did I forget Stuntman? It was a little irritating having to memorize all the levels through trial-and-error, but that game was so much fun. I still get addicted to it these days trying to make the PERFECT highlight.

It was pure trial-and-error hell, but once things went right the game was a complete blast to play. I especially loved the specially-edited replays and the ending cinematic/filmography. :P

[Geo Stelar]

Need for Speed, Hot Pursuit (2010)

Gran Turismo 5

Burnout series

Mario Karts Double Dash!!, DS, Wii, and 7

Crazy Taxi

Forza Motorsport series

[someguy63-]

To me, It would be F-Zero GX for the GameCube.

If this was to include other racing games and not just driving games, I would put in Wipeout HD (PSN) and the Wipeout PSone trilogy.

[Rin]

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 was a blast to play. My dad and I would go at it for hours on that game. Huh, I remember my mother was still around then; she used to laugh when one of us got caught by the cops on the race, haha,

The only other driving game that I've played often enough is Super Mario: Double Dash. S'not bad, though I did find it more frustrating than NFS. Yoshi and Birdo were always my picks.

And for the record, I tried one of the Gran Turismo games while at the International Car Show in NYC a few years ago, and I completely hated it. For me, the controls were way too touchy, almost slipdshod. /: