F1 Games

Racing games

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  • #133924
    raymondu999
    Participant

    What racing games do you play and why? Any good new games around?

    #245426
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Forza Motorsport 4 on the Xbox. Massive range of cars, decent selection of circuits, although coming to the end of it’s life now. Decent semi-sim.

    Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3. As above, with with a massiver range of cars and circuits, as well as wet and night options for endurance racing. However, the loading times are long, the menus are clunky, and the feel of the driving itself doesn’t sit too well with me. Another decent semi-sim.

    Gran Turismo 6 on the PS3 is shaping up to be excellent, fixing what was wrong with GT5 hopefully. We’ll see in a couple of week’s time.

    Race 07 on the PC. Can’t recommend this game enough. Even though it’s 7 years old now, the driving feels great, especially with a wheel, there’s a good range of proper racing cars (it holds the official WTCC licence, as well as other cars like Formula BMW, F3000, Formula Master, Caterhams, Radicals & GT) really good selection of tracks, plus it’s moddable. Infinite possibilities.

    iRacing on PC. Subscription based, but many say the most realistic and accurate of the lot. Tracks and cars are entirely laser scanned for accuracy, the cars have all the data from the real thing pumped into the simulation, constant updates what with it being web-based, and no AI drivers, you’re always racing other people from around the world in seasons lasting 12 weeks before starting over. Each car and circuit has to be bought seperately though, on top of subscription (US$8 per month) and it’s damn hard to get good unless you have a really good wheel and hours and hours to practice.

    Need For Speed Shift 2 Unlimited on the PC. Bought it in the steam sale in the summer because it was cheap. Main appeal to me was that it had the FIA GT1 World Championship licence from 2011, and I love those cars. It’s very arcadey, but has very nice graphics and a good range of cars and tracks with wet and night racing.

    Trials Evolution on Xbox Live Arcade. Dirt bike racing game that’s painfully addictive and a hell of a lot of fun with friends, either online or in the same room.

    Grand Theft Auto Online. Even dedicated street racing games don’t do street racing as well as GTA 5’s online multiplayer counterpart does. Even if the location and vehicles are fictional, the racing certainly isn’t.

    F-Zero GX on Nintendo Gamecube (or Wii). I still play this from time to time. Futuristic zero gravity racing at 1000mph. Still better than the WipEout series in my opinion.

    #245427
    fangio85
    Participant

    Rfactor is another really good one. Rfactor two and project cars are shaping up to be pretty great when they’re finished.

    #245428
    MuzzleFlash
    Participant

    Race07; Gran Turismo hasn’t been played since I bought that.

    Game Stock Car, absolutely fantastic, my current favourite, I love the Mini Cooper and F3 car in it.

    Richard Burns Rally, pretty ancient now but leagues ahead of any other rally game I’ve ever played.

    And watching the development of Assetto Corsa with great interest.

    #245429
    MatK77
    Participant

    I’m going to second @muzzleflash and give a big thumbs up to Game Stock Car. Driving feel and force feedback is spot on and the computer AI is remarkable. Love the F3’s, and the Formula ‘Classics’ (read MP4/4), and for $25 you can’t lose.

    #245430
    Yaya Ishaq
    Participant

    I for one really enjoyed the NFS SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED game. It’s far from a proper simulator but there are so many awesome cars to choose from as well as there being both the FIA GT1 and GT3 World championship series included. I actually had more fun playing this game than I did on GT5 to be honest.

    Where this game really scores for me is the driver’s experience. In other racing games you tend to control the car whereas on SHIFT you actually get to be the driver in that there is an innovative “helmet cam” whereby a player would get this awesome sense of speed and damage when you crash rather than the simple “THUD” you would get on GT5. The car noises are way more realistic and menacing as well. A V12 sounds like a V12!

    #245431
    Malthe Villumsen
    Participant

    I have been playing a lot of Iracing, and i simply love it.
    It requires a lot of patience, you won’t just jump into a car and be fast instantly like most racing games. Then it also got a very good rating system which will match you with ppl on your skill level for very close racing.
    After i started playing it i don’t get the same thrill from playing other racing games anymore. I know it’s a bit on the expensive time, but i think that it’s worth it!

    #245432
    Iestyn Davies
    Participant

    A lot of racing drivers have used or use iRacing – Richie Stanaway was the iRacing Pro Series winner while he recovered from his broken back vertebrae from FR3.5 last year. Dale Earnhardt Jr was rated as the best oval driver for a long time even after ending his sim time to concentrate on real like NASCAR again (his ‘slump’ kinda coincided with his heavy gaming time haha). Numerous IndyCar and other professional category drivers have accounts too. There’s a professional driver race coming up on December 12th (annual event). Justin Wilson practiced for Watkins Glen on iRacing then won the IndyCar event! As the tyre model improves every 3 months or so, in bursts, things get more accurate. But there are competitors of course and Assetto Corsa by Kunos looks promising. He has done work with Ferrari, as their sim stuff was totally lacking until recently. He’s a great guy and comments in the iRacing forums concerning physics and both games etc. A lot of these top sim guys are like that really.

    If you time it right, you can get the starting 3 month offer for one month, then get the cut price deals for yearly membership, if you wish to continue, for the cheapest way to play. We’re coming up to ‘Black Friday’ in the USA – then and June are the times for the deals (a lot of people are yearly subbed from June like me, who flocked to the sim at public launch 5 years ago). Usually they are like $49 per year or $99 for two years etc. On content, just be careful to buy things you will regularly use, like the best tracks and cars (Skip Barber if into open wheelers, regularly used tracks you like, say Watkins Glen etc.). £30 a year I feel is comparable to getting the other series usual releases per year (F1 2013 etc.), with add-ons gradually as you progress through the ladder.

    Used to love driving GPL for the driving challenge of it – came mightily close to an 8 minute lap of the Nordschleife in it’s old format. The driving style can be somewhat reminiscent of the EBD era.. maybe Vettel has played it, while Webber hasn’t.. There’s also speculation on the account at iRacing called ‘Lewis Hamilton’, which tried the sim for a few tries last year, and obviously won it’s only official Mazda MX-5 race after starting at the back of the grid, which did have another professional Mazda MX-5 racing driver in it.. who he seemed to know.. also the guy was instantly quick in the F1 car (2009 Williams).. co-incidentally this was around Hamilton’s slump time mid-2012, haha..

    These sim games are really all about pure driving and competition. I’ve tried the F1 game demos on Xbox and did enjoy the experience (it relates directly to F1), and of course you can have competition online. Same for all the console games (mainly around other cars), and I grew up playing the old F1 games and Gran Turismo, Colin McRae Rally etc. along with PC sims. So it depends on what experience you are primarily looking for.

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