Best and worst tracks in racing games?

[JR98]

Searched and didn't find anything like this.

What is your favourite and least favourite racing tracks in racing games? Tracks can be real or original tracks for that game. If the track is made up, state which game it is from

Best:
Midfield Raceway (Gran Turismo)
Trial Mountain (Gran Turismo)
Deep Forest (Gran Turismo)
Spa
Nurburgring Nordschleife
Donington Park
Brands Hatch
Silverstone (2005)
Zolder
Laguna Seca
Sebring
Indianapolis
Daytona
Road America
Road Atlanta
Seattle (Gran Turismo)
Hockenheimring (1999)
Circuit De La Sarthe

Worst:
Enna Pergusa
Fujimi Kaido (Forza)
Anderstorp

 

[PletdeKoe]

Best:
Oulton Park!
Sonoma Raceway

Worst:
Silverstone (just hate what they did with it a couple of years ago)
Shanghai circuit

 

[JR98]

Best:
Oulton Park!
Sonoma Raceway

Worst:
Silverstone (just hate what they did with it a couple of years ago)
Shanghai circuit

I'm not a huge fan of the new layout either. I much prefer the way it was back in 2005

 

[Janteag]

Best:
Special Stage Route 5 - Gran Turismo
Maple Valley Long - Forza Motorsport
Grand Valley Speedway - Gran Turismo
Midfield Raceway - Gran Turismo
Brightest Nite - Ridge Racer Type 4
Nurburgring Nordschliefe
Bathurst
Brands Hatch Indy Circuit
Top Gear Test Track
Daytona Road Course & Superspeedway
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Willow Springs - Big Willow, Streets of Willow & Horse Thief Mile
Tokyo Expressway - C1 Loop
Sears Point/Sonoma
Monza
Goodwood Hillclimb
Silverstone Pre-2010
Phoenix International Raceway Pre-2011

Worst:
Phantomile - Ridge Racer Type 4
London - Gran Turismo
Sedona Club - Forza Motorsport
Brands Hatch GP
Nurburgring GP
Silverstone Post-2010
Phoenix International Raceway Post-2011

 

[FT-1]

Best:
Spa-Francorchamps - Favourite real life circuit to drive on
Bathurst - Speeeed
Monza - Speeeed x2
Yas Marina Circuit - Am I weird for actually liking this course?
Red Bull Ring - Interesting layouts
Apricot Hill Raceway - One of my favourite original circuits in a racing game
Midfield Raceway - Brings back memories, great track to drive on
Bernese Alps (Forza 5/6) - Eye candy, swooping corners
Prague (Forza 5/6) - Same as above
Westhill (Live For Speed S2) - Don't play this game much but it recently got a makeover, so much detail outside the course too!

Tbh I'm fine with any other track which is not on my worst list....

Worst:
Cote D'azur (NOT Monaco, GT5/GT6) - Has the potential to be so much better, looks so dated in both games.
Cape Ring (GT5/6)... Especially the longest variation. Boooring!
Melbourne (Real Racing 3) - When I used to play it overtaking was frustratingly hard

 

[The Stig Farmer]

Iberian International Circuit (Forza Motorsport)



Probably one of the best fictional courses of all time.

 

[Earth]

Need for Speed 2's Outback is my favorite video game track

You start off racing through downtown Sydney, then you race out into the desert past a small village.

The entire track is extremely high speed and full of jumps and just enough twists and turns to keep your attention.

 

[JR98]

I hate Estoril. I hate it so much.

Trying to record a 3 lap race of it in the Ferrari 360 GTC on GTR2 and something ALWAYS happens during the race when I'm doing well. Either the car will spin or it'll just go off track. Already tried it 10 times

 

[VXR]

Deep Forest is my absolute favourite fictional track in any game.

 

[jujunosuke]

Pretty much all the fictional tracks of Ridge Racer Type 4.
The Level Design of each track was insanely good.

Not sure to have any track the i don't like in a racing game...

 

[Cowboy]

Best:

• SSR11
• SSR5
• Nürburgring
• Sarthe
• Grindlwald
• Red Rock Valley
• Pretty much any track in NFS Porsche Unleashed (PS1 version)
• El Capitan
• Chamonix (GT4)
• Complex String
• Opera Paris

Worst:

• Toscana
• Inner City from NFS Underground
• Beginner Course
• Motorsports Land

 

[Fryto]

Best:
Spa-Francorchamps
Nürburgring Nordschleife
La Sarthe
Oulton Park
London (Gran Turismo)
London (NFS Shift 2)
Macau
Monaco
Trial Mountain
Bathurst

Worst:
Tsukuba
Test Track (Gran Turismo 4)
Sepang
Shanghai
Dubai
Silverstone
Indianapolis Road Course

 

[sesselpupser]

My favourites:
- Tsukuba
- Brands Hatch Indy
- Nürburgring Nordschleife (both modern and '67 from Grand Prix Legends)
- Macau
- Machwerk
- Kyalami '67
- Osterreichring '67
- Pikes Peak (Dirt Rally)
- Petersberg Hillclimb (a mod for rFactor, GTR2 and Assetto Corsa that @G.T.Ace made)

Least favourite:
- Almost all of Tilke's boring, soulless dreck (one of the many valid reasons I stopped watching F1)
- Circuit of the Americas
- Ascari
- Monza '67 (probably because I'm too used to modern Monza so it confuses me)
- That one from one of the old Micro Machines games where you had dragsters and the course was just a toilet seat. It was fun but very difficult, so... Yeah.

 

[G.T.Ace]

D'awwww, thanks.

 

[Pallie]

Favs-

Imola
Blackwood (AC)
Barbagallo (AC)
Bridgehampton (AC)
The Alps (Forza)
Gen Track 1 (AC)
Road Atlanta
Brno (PCars/AC)
Trial Mountain (GT)
Autumn Ring (GT)
Mugello (Forza/AC)
Watkins Glen (PCars/AC)
KGB Corner (PGR2)
Suzuka (GT/Forza)
Spa (PCars/AC)

And last but not least, the best track in any video game ever- Maple Valley Long from Forza (reg. and reverse).

Least Favs-

Any track with excessive hairpins that exist just to be "challenging". I'll take flowing tracks where you can establish a rhythm over technical tracks all day, every day.

 

[Com Fox]

Best:

Cape Ring (Long version especially)
Oran Park (TOCA Race Driver 3)
Twin Ring Motegi (All)
Seoul (GT4)

Worst:

Grand Valley Speedway (hugely overrated IMO)
Road America (TOCA Race Driver 2)

 

[The Stig Farmer]

Incoming on the list of Worst Tracks Of All Time...

Yokohama Docks in Race Driver: GRID. As a course for drifting and single car runs it's fine, and quite fun, but then they make you race a over a dozen other cars on it...

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Always liked Costa di Amalfi and El Capitan in GT4. It was very easy to get into a rhythm. The Barcelona and shorter Paris circuits in Grid Autosport were also good, because you had to be brave to get a good time.

I hated Grindelwald in GT2 and Chamonix in GT4, though. They were all over the place.

 

[Tyger]

Have played GT and Forza the most, and pretty much like every track, even got into Fuji once I got the hang of it. The only exceptions are probably the rally circuits in GT4, but more because of the weird physics, which made them a real chore to drive. There was absolutely nil traction unless you were going in a dead straight line. Grand Canyon would have been a blast if they'd nailed this.

Fave of all GT and Forza tracks is most likely Trial Mountain.

As for other games and circuits, my favourite "real life" circuits are pretty much represented in various iterations of GT and Forza, but one of my favourite fictional tracks is Redrock Ridge in NSF3, happy memories of racing my dad, me in the Vette (slowest car) and him in an F1 or whatnot, made for a real tortoise and hare race:

 

[CarreraGT]

Best:
Spa-Francorchamps
Nürburgring Nordschleife
La Sarthe
Oulton Park
London (Gran Turismo)
London (NFS Shift 2)
Macau
Monaco
Trial Mountain
Bathurst

Worst:
Tsukuba
Test Track (Gran Turismo 4)
Sepang
Shanghai
Dubai
Silverstone
Indianapolis Road Course

How can you not like Tsukuba?? Agree with you best though

 

[CarreraGT]

I would say:

Best:
Nordschleife
Spa-Francorchamps
Bathurst
Suzuka
Tsukuba
Laguna Seca
Midfield Raceway
Apricot Hill
Monaco

Worst:
Fuji
Willow Springs
Most fictional road circuits (e.g. California Highway, Matterhorn)

 

[Fryto]

How can you not like Tsukuba?? Agree with you best though

I don't like any of its corners and doesn't have a nice flow or nice scenery. I just never feel like I want to race on it

 

[Carlos]

I have a real hate for street circuits It's just....


My favorite 10:
1. The Nordschleife
2. Spa-Francorchamps
3. Suzuka
4. Zolder
5. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
6. Road Atlanta
7. Road America
8. Interlagos
9. Twin Ring Motegi
10. Silverstone

 

[The Stig Farmer]

The various iterations of Barcelona in Blur never agreed with me... the track designs didn't work with the gameplay and handling.

"Mainline" from MotorStorm: Apocalypse is deliciously hectic. Very fast and satisfying to get a quick lap on. Not to mention the Harriers and flying trains and angry shooty men

 

[CarreraGT]

I don't like any of its corners and doesn't have a nice flow or nice scenery. I just never feel like I want to race on it

Fair enough. To be fair I do prefer it as a test circuit rather than a race track, and I suppose I get that from watching so much Best Motoring.

I find it good for comparing cars since it's nice and short

 

[Roger the Horse]

Real circuits are real circuits. We hear about them often and in modern racing games they're increasingly dominant. The best ones are more likely to make it into games, although some well represented real world tracks (Motegi, Silverstone), I am less than fond of. I'm also not so big on Suzuka, it's fun in slower cars but in faster cars I find Degner damn near impossible to get right, which ruins my rhythm for the rest of the lap.

Otherwise, for real world tracks, Tsukuba, Brands Hatch, the Nürburgring (both the GP-Strecke and Nordschleife), Spa, and Laguna Seca are probably my favourites. Not an atypical list, to be honest.

In terms of fictional circuits Gran Turismo has always stood out. Trial Mountain, Deep Forest, Grand Valley, Autumn Ring, Route 5, Apricot Hill, Rome-Night, Red Rock Valley, and Tahiti Road are all small masterpieces; however I feel the quality of the track designs featured dropped off after GT2, though a shout out must be given to the versions of Cape Ring that didn't feature the silly jump.

People seem to love Mid-Field a lot, and while I think it's a great track, I wouldn't rank it alongside some of the aforementioned GT tracks. I just find it kind of bland in comparison. Harmless, but bland. Route 11, while fun, is also bogged down by the way it tries to be the most difficult track in the game, compared to a more naturally challenging track like Grand Valley.

Away from Gran Turismo, surprisingly few games seem to have cracked the fictional track formula, all though I've far from played every game. Many games seem to fall into the trap of making their circuits either overly technical or needlessly wide, fast, and unchallenging. Iberian Circuit from Forza stands out as a truly superb track, and I guess Ridge Racer has some nice tracks too which might be nice to see replicated in a sim.

 

[Com Fox]

I'll share my Mario Kart track list

Favourite:
SNES Vanilla Lake 2
N64 Yoshi Valley
N64 Royal Raceway
GBA Bowser Castle 4
GCN Baby Park
GCN Mario Circuit
GCN Daisy Cruiser
GCN Mushroom City
GCN Yoshi Circuit
GCN Wario Colosseum
GCN Bowser's Castle
GCN Rainbow Road
DS Figure-8-Circuit
DS Mario Circuit
Wii Coconut Mall
Wii Daisy Circuit
Wii Koopa Cape
3DS Cheep Cheep Cape
3DS Mario Circuit
3DS Wario's Galleon
3DS Wuhu Mountain Loop
3DS Rainbow Road
Wii U Dolphin Shoals
Wii U Mario Circuit
Wii U Super Bell Subway

Tracks I hate:
SNES Mario Circuit 3
N64 Luigi Raceway
N64 Moo Moo Farm
N64 Frappe Snowland
N64 Choco Mountain
N64 Mario Raceway
N64 Wario Stadium
N64 Sherbet Land
N64 Bowser's Castle
N64 DK Jungle Parkway
N64 Rainbow Road
N64 Rainbow Road
N64 Rainbow Road
N64 Rainbow Road
N64 Rainbow Road
Wii Luigi Circuit
Wii Mario Circuit
Wii Maple Treeway

 

[FerrariF1GT]

Likes:

Basically anything in Gran Turismo
Basically anything in Forza (besides Kaido, not because it is bad, but just over-rated by the drifting community)
Basically all real-world tracks

Dislikes:
None that I can think of!

 

[YayoiGT2]

I'll share my Mario Kart track list
Tracks I hate:
N64 Sherbet Land
N64 Bowser's Castle

Funny, because N64!Sherbet Land and N64!Bowser's Castle are my favorite tracks wherever they appear. Probably helps that those are the two tracks I'd be able to beat my mates at on the Wii version.

I'm also the same guy that thinks the only way to play, for example, Wip3out, is to race at a horrendously technical circuit (like Manortop or Stanza Inter) at the fastest speed class in anything ill-handling, fragile, or both, so I'm probably mentally ill.

 

[DurWinning]

My favorites:
Laguna Seca
Swiss Alps (GT3)
Lime Rock
Silver Lake (Burnout 3)
Vineyard (Burnout 3)

My most hated:
Monaco/Cote D Azur
Chamonix (GT4)
Eastern Bay (Burnout Revenge)
Prague (Forza 5/6)
Spa Francorchamps
Nurburgring 24H