Obviously I'm not including burnout as the fun in that is trashing opponent cars while you're racing; for myself I enjoyed some of the earlier entries in need for speed (never played the later ones) cause I could crash into other cars and knock them off cliffs and beat them around to give myself an advantage; I just don't know what draws people to say for example Gran Turismo vs.....I don't know, I don't know any other racing games. Other than the 'crashing into other cars' factor, I don't know what the draw to one racing game vs another is.
Some games definitely have better, idk, road feel? Like the sense of being in control of the vehicle, and that the world behaves in ways you can predict and make sense of.
Like i've played games where the vehicles are very floaty, skidding and sliding is unpredictable and hard to control, and sometimes you'll bounce off terrain in weird directions. And then there's other games where the vehicle behaves exactly the way i expect it too and I am one with the road (or air, or whatever). In those games if something goes wrong I'mm be able to identify why and what mistake I made.
I was playing cyberpunk a while back and really didn't like the default car handling. Very floaty, terrible breaks, hard to control. A installed a mod that let me adjust the down forcen torque, weight, and braking response of the vehicle and it felt night and day better, turning moving around the city from a dreaded chore to an "i am cool cyber guy" experience. Well, cyber girl.
I think with the realistic games there's a lot of strategy in how you interact with other cars and the track. Like where to position yourself so you can accelerate and pull ahead in the next straight away, how you conserve speed in a turn, how you change your racing to account for different track conditions. I think that white nuckle, on the fly combination of skill and problem solving appeals to people.
Ah, fair; I've never been good enough at racing games to truly grasp the different feel of how cars handle, though I do also usually specifically choose cars with good 'handling' stats. I've been meaning to get to cyberpunk as well; if I find I hate how the driving works I'll keep in mind I can mod it to be better.
I've never been good at racing games though; I could never grasp the 'feel' of it like I do with FPSes and roleplaying games (also racing really wasn't for me).
Word. I'm no good at them, either. I never put enough time to really get it. I can do races in non-racing games with mandatory racing sections but i wouldn't know what to do with GT.
This is my thread! It was made for me!
Disclaimer: I'm the kind of guy who's been a fan of motorsports my whole life, and into sim racing on and off for the past 20 years or so.
I'm an active iRacing subscriber, and if you don't know what that means, it's basically the world's #1 online racing simulator. Real life racers like Max Verstappen are part of it, even though the average person will probably never race against them. The most important difference between iRacing and other "simulators" like Gran Turismo and Forza is that if you crash on purpose, you'll actually get punished.
Other than the whole simulation factor, IMO asking what the draw to one racing game vs another is is kind of like asking what the difference between different fighting games is. In Samurai Shodown you use weapons, in Tekken or Virtua Fighter you usually just have your hands and feet. Or what the difference between different shmups is, since in those to the layperson you just shoot everything you see, but there's a pretty major difference between different subgenres, just like there are major differences between different racing subgenres.
Ah, I could never get that 'feel' for the difference between racing games; I guess it takes a genuine interest in game genre to truly grasp the important and sometimes subtle differences between subgenres in a game genre.
For myself crashing to give myself an edge was always my favorite part (probably came from the fact that I played the original death rally game (not the remake) and destroying and attacking other cars was awesome); sending cars flying off cliffs or hitting them from behind as we go up a rise in the road to send them flying in NFS2 was awesome, and burnout was just mad fun for that.
There's also I recall like I think a truck racing game that came out ages ago, and lots of motorbike racing games, but I can imagine those most likely play very differently as well (motorbikes for obvious reasons).
Honestly, to the layperson when it comes to what the most realistic racing simulator is, it doesn't really matter. Some real life drivers have complained about iRacing's physics, but at the end of the day, that's where the majority of the competition is, including real life drivers.
To me, there's also a pretty massive difference in various arcade/less realistic games. Daytona USA, Sega Rally and Burnout 3 are all going to feel completely different to each other, and all three of those are some of my all time favorite games. It just depends of whether the focus is on wrecking other cars, racing other cars or trying to get through a route as fast as possible, all of those are going to feel different and have completely different objectives.
GT is supreme driving slop with countless hours of slop content and I haven't played any others. Every GT knockoff just doesn't feel as good tbh and everyone wants to be a GT knockoff these days.
Bring back arcade racers bring back burnout
For me burnout was probably the only racing game I could get into, and had burnout 2 (I think it was 2) been out on PC, I would've spent countless hours NOT on the racing, but on the challenge levels where the idea was to rack up the highest bill with a major traffic accident.
I still also played burnout 3 for quite a bit because just driving around the city and doing.....something, can't recall what specifically, and was a nice way to just chill out for a half hour when I'm not in the mood to get invested in something like total war or stellaris.
I dumped ungoldly hours going completionist on burnout revenge. But also yeah the car crash mode was a lot of fun
Arcade racers are back, check out Victory Heat Rally for example.
Just not Burnout unfortunately, 3 is one of my all time favorite games, but Dangerous Driving by the same developers is just not it
