Little-Known or Forgotten Racing/Driving Games

  • Thread starter JohnBM01
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Bopop4
I don't know what it is called but I remember renting a PS2 game when I was younger and you could make a custom car by choosing different body parts and then actually stretching and changing the shape of them. You could make a longtail supercar or a short little WRC type car. The racing was also pretty fun.
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Supercar Street Challenge. I still haz it. Everything sucks about this game big time, except the intro, the by you mentioned customuzation stuff, the sense of speed and the music. But teh grafix were horrible, the handling of the cars even more so.
 
Anyone remember this gem?

Racing Evoluzione on the original Xbox. Great game where you made your own car company basically and race your cars to the top. Great fun I had with this forgotten gem. So forgotten I found it looking for something else.

 
I still consider Enthusia Professional Racing as one of the most underrated racing games of all time. You all who mention Enthusia are not the only ones to think Enthusia is a little-known or forgotten title. I'm just sad that this game maybe could have gotten a second chance or a sequel. I didn't fall into Enthusia's allure until I started playing it more. Sometimes, a game just comes out and never gets a sequel... but you wish there was a sequel for it. Enthusia is one of them. I'm sorry- I just don't see Enthusia as a "one and done" title. It doesn't have to challenge Gran Turismo or Forza or any other franchise. Still, Enthusia is very much forgotten now unless you've actually played the game and enjoyed it fully.
 
JohnBM01
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Still, Enthusia is very much forgotten now unless you've actually played the game and enjoyed it fully.
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I see myself as one of those. I actually gave it a change, and although it started reeeally slow, and with little information on how to progress, eventually, I got the hang of it, unlocked better cars, and it was a smooth sailing from there. :)

If memory doesn't fail me...I think I nearly finish the career mode. Hard to understand, but I think the objective is to win all the events, while planing ahead. It's not too harsh if you happen to loose a race, because your car gets better, and so next time around you get a better shot at victory. 👍

Sadly, I feel more comfortable with the PS3 controller, so playing racing games on the PS2 it's impossible for me. I'll have to wait for my DFGT to be installed to get this gem out of the closet and finally complete it to 100%


And now, who can remember the original classic!?

Collin McRae Rally, PlayStation (Japanese '99, EU 98, US '00)

196948_12048_front.jpg

I really enjoyed the rally school on that one, with McRae himself giving you tips! :dopey: The championship mode was really competitive, and you could adjust your car settings according to the stage, even select the best tyres (if you made the wrong choice, you would really notice). Besides official WR cars from the current season, you could unlock classics like the Audi Quattro. :drool:
 
Mario Andretti Racing on the Sega Genesis. Thought it was so amazing then because of the 3 racing disciplines, and at the time I thought these graphics rock, lol. Had a lot of fun with it though.

 
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My first racing game was Lego Rally Extreme or something of that nature. It would do the turns for you, but you had to be going slow enough.

I then upgraded from that to this

Very Mario-Cart, but it had a neat world-type thing to navigate from race to race. I never knew anyone who had also played it but me...

One of my all-time Favorite was 4x4 Evolution. It was like Gran Turismo, but for SUV's and pickups. You could pick virtually any Truck that was available to the consumer, in whatever cab size you wanted. The downside is there was one manufacturer missing... Land Rover.
Other than that, it was fairly fun. You could do the actual races, or, if you were so inclined, you could free roam on the tracks, because they were large enough.



The career mode took a LONG time. Not like GT4 long, but still up there.. You needed to do some grinding as I recall to be able to do all of the races, because they were limited by truck. Not very realistic maps, in terms of you're on some form of Military base/Battle ship/ Oil refinery most of the time. Still highly fun. If you see it for $5 in the PS2 section, get it.
 
Someone mentioned Sports Car GT. Had it not been for both SCGT and the modding community, I don't think rFactor would have been born. That is one of many racing games I think people need to appreciate if they to call themselves ANY sort of racing game fan.
 
JohnBM01
Driving Emotion Type-S (2000, PlayStation 2)
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I remember this one, also remember it being ridiculously difficult.


Here is another great racing game that was under-rated in my opinion was Riding Spirits, it was like a poor-man's Tourist Trophy...before Tourist Trophy.
Riding_Spirits-USA.jpg


Anyone remember a game on PS1 aptly titled Racing?
racingqr8.jpg


There was also Advan Racing, which I always wanted to try and import from Japan.


Here's a pretty cool link about some PS1 Japanese racing games such as this one.
http://www.digitpress.com/archives/didyouknow_racing.htm
 
This game had it ALL for me. Cockpit view, damage, and acceptible car sounds with backfires.

V-Rally 3 PS2,Xbox,PC

 
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S.C.A.R (Squadra Corse Alfa Romeo, also known as Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano) - 2005

S.C.A.R was labelled a "CARPG" by it's developer, Milestone due to it's skills system, where you were given skill points for winning races, which enabled you to level up certain skills: you could intimidate and "KO" an opponent by drafting them, or you could use the "Tiger Effect", which would now be known as a Rewind (I'm fairly sure that SCAR introduced this to racing games). The game included a number of Alfas both modern and classics, and a selection of tracks that were either real race tracks or fantasy tracks set in Italian settings.


http://www.scar.blackbeangames.com/game.asp


Rally Fusion: Race Of Champions - 2002

Rally Fusion was a fun rally/off-road game with arcade style handling. There was a good variety of cars, despite the low number (19) of them, including the cars used in the Race of Champions, WRC/Group A cars and Group B cars, plus a few other classics. The game modes included standard point-to-point rally, rallycross (which was just a race on a point-to-point rally stage), circuit racing, hillclimb and The Race of Champions.

 
Indy Heat for Amiga 500 (I think). Skip to about two minutes in to see gameplay.

 
Seeing Rally Fusion up there reminded me of Rally Masters: Race of Champions, definiitely a forgotten gem, made by DICE, might have heard of some of their other titles, NASCAR Heat, Midtown MAdness 3 and some small series called Battlefield.

 
Driven To Destruction (Test Drive: Eve of Destruction) - 2004

A hugely fun demolition derby/banger racing game with a number of crazy race types including the Figure 8 Jump Race, Suicide Race (half the pack goes one way, the other half goes the other way), Chain Race (two cars are chained together), Trailer Race and many more, including the traditional demo derby. Compared to other demo derby games this is the most realistic of the bunch, as there are no crazy power-ups, boosts or arenas (the races are all set at speedway tracks). This is easily one of the best split-screen multiplayer games I've ever played, but sadly this game was not well known enough to get a sequel with online multiplayer.




Mayhem 3D - 2011

Mayhem is quite a strange game, as it's a demo derby game, however it has film noir/comic book graphics that look to have been nicked from MadWorld. Oh, and the 3D in the title doesn't mean that you have to have a 3D TV to play in 3D. No, there's two sets of the classic red/blue lens 3D glasses included, but you shouldn't bother using them, as the 3D is as you'd expect (not that great). This could have been good for the occasional bit of smash-em-up fun, however the vehicle handling is fairly shabby and the events get fairly repetitive quite quickly, though if you're a trophy hunter, you'll get a fairly easy Platinum provided you can get someone else to play online. I'm fairly sure this was only released in North America (I had to import my copy of it).

 
Stiggy
Driven To Destruction (Test Drive: Eve of Destruction) - 2004

A hugely fun demolition derby/banger racing game with a number of crazy race types including the Figure 8 Jump Race, Suicide Race (half the pack goes one way, the other half goes the other way), Chain Race (two cars are chained together), Trailer Race and many more, including the traditional demo derby. Compared to other demo derby games this is the most realistic of the bunch, as there are no crazy power-ups, boosts or arenas (the races are all set at speedway tracks). This is easily one of the best split-screen multiplayer games I've ever played, but sadly this game was not well known enough to get a sequel with online multiplayer.
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I was going to post that! :D

They also had one called Red Rover, where two teams of 8 had to get to the other side of a straight road and stay in that box for a certain amount on time. Great crashes.. The football event was one of my favorites. I also liked the career aspect, and that environment you could drive around. If I remember correctly, the shop for buying a new / used car was at the bottom. And an awesome quarry was in the middle. You often raced your opponent down some roads, and try to beat them to the back of the queue. The flagpole race was tricky, just took a bit of practice, and you always had to take a wide line or you'd get hit.

One of my favorite games!
 
Alex p.
Supercar Street Challenge. I still haz it. Everything sucks about this game big time, except the intro, the by you mentioned customuzation stuff, the sense of speed and the music. But teh grafix were horrible, the handling of the cars even more so.
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Ths customization Autosculpt thing was the only thing I ever wanted to play the game for... too bad most of the rear fenders were so ugly..
I really liked how they allowed bone structure of the parts to be warped like that. I also really like the big range of colours you could paint it. The physics really ticked me off in that one. You couldn't accelerate while making a hairpin, and to get the best amount of steering, you had to turn immediately after braking which meant if your braking point wasn't right, you'd either understeer or smack into the wall.
 
I remember Driving Emotion Type-S for the PS2, by Squaresoft...

I could NEVER get over the odd controls in the game; I couldn't keep the car stable at times...

...but that in-car cockpit camera view! It was great, and actually didn't look bad at all!
 
I came back to this old thread I started and decided to give it a bump. It is still so surprising how many racing games have come and gone. I actually saw some of the old YouTube videos posted. I sort of have been drawn to the menu music of the PS1 game "Porsche Challenge." Really, Porsche Challenge has lots of good music from what I've heard in videos.

In terms of simulation-type racing games, maybe one of the most forgotten is Racer. I had it on my former PC and basically just let it "collect dust," so to speak. I learned it is referred to as "Dolphinity Racer," not just "Racer." Racer was sort of a free simulation racing game that allowed you to add on more cars and tracks. However, it wasn't like rFactor or anything in terms of sim racing. I basically saw it as you on a track going for a little drive. Not much in the way of racing. More info on this old PC sim racing game: http://www.racer.nl/ .

Since this is now the PlayStation 4 and XBOX One era of racing games, this may well be a chance to update this post with some of the little-known or forgotten racing/driving games of the PlayStation 3 and XBOX One games. So are there any little-known or forgotten games you want to share even as we head into 2016 (as of this post)?
 
Played Ridge Racer Type 4 last weekend. The entire weekend! I collected almost every car in the game. This game is still absolutely fantastic.

But my totally forgotten gem was wacky wheels. An apogee kart game (like mario kart) where you have to race as an animal in a kart. Hilarious fun.
 
JohnBM01
I came back to this old thread I started and decided to give it a bump. It is still so surprising how many racing games have come and gone. I actually saw some of the old YouTube videos posted. I sort of have been drawn to the menu music of the PS1 game "Porsche Challenge." Really, Porsche Challenge has lots of good music from what I've heard in videos.
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I adored that game. It was one of the games i got bundled with the PS1 along with Adidas Power Soccer and Crash Bandicoot.
Not sure if it's been mentioned earlier in the thread but Motorhead was another fun PS1 game. I think it's main selling point was the game engine which offered advanced graphics, but the actual gameplay was really good too.
 

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