What's the best arcade racer you ever played?

Thread: What's the best arcade racer you ever played?
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Stifler's Mom

Stifler's Mom

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Platforms
  1. Xbox
  2. PlayStation
  3. Nintendo
...and why?

One of my favorite genres ever, and currently I am looking forward to Forza Horizon 5...

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Everything I have seen so far just looks incredible, I see myself playing this to hell and back.

But if asked what my favorite arcade racer is, my #1 so far, and this will probably never change, is......

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What a crazy ride that has been with its terraforming mechanic, and lots of other hilarious stuff happening including those HUUUGE jumps.
Wish we had got a proper sequel, and not that bots nonsense that they didn't even release up here in Europe.

#2 goes to Scud Race
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So, what's your favorite Arcade Racer, and why?
 
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F-Zero X is imo the best (arcade, but since arcade is way better than sim anyway, that's redundant) racing game. I really love the super direct controls, the high speed, and the two amazing advanced techniques that are sliding (with high acceleration) and attack stabilisation (primarily for high max speed). It also has perfect track design, 60fps on N64 (!) and amazing metal music.

Runners up would be F-Zero GX and the Burnout series (except Paradise). Excite Truck is also very nice, but a bit too slow.
 
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Project Gotham Racing series games are the top of my list for arcade racers. Just real enough to have cars feel "relative" so as to make it fun. Probably spent over a 100 hours on 2 & 3 trying to beat every challenge.

Now, arcade cabinets, it would have to be Initial D. Drifting those tight corners was epic at the time.
 
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Either outrun or power drift in the arcades.

Outrun wins for music alone, but I'll always remember power drift was the first sit down hydraulic powered arcade game I played and it was epic.

Burnout 2 for consoles, the crash junctions mini game has never been bettered.
 
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Pure nostalgia here, but for me it would be Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed

This was probably the first real car racing game I'd played and, at the time, it was awesome. The roster of cars, the audio, music, and sense of speed were all amazing. I don't think I've played a racer since that has made me feel the same way.
 
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Burnout Revenge and its best mode for drunken company - Crash Party. You just launch your car into an intersection there and witness several minutes of mayhem - destroyed cars, ambulances, exploding oil tanks, while counting for points. It was like snooker with explosions.
 
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As much as I love sim racers, arcade racers have always been special when done right.

I've only played Forza Horizon 4, but their approach to the genre is excellent, cannot wait for 5.
The PGR games on Xbox and 360 were superb, finished all 4 of them. Looked amazing, great handling and a fantastic selection of cities to race around in.
Sega Rally 2 is the best arcade rally game of all time - took the original concept, added cool features like the lines in the dirt remaining for the entire race. Got tons of hours out of that one.
Rallisport Challenge 2 on the OG Xbox was also a superb arcade racer which also looked great for the time. Good memories of bombing round to custom OSTs.
I've recently been playing Virtua Racing and Outrun on Switch having never played them back in the day - both superb old school racers which amazingly still hold up very well, particularly V.R.
The Burnout series has always been good too, 3 and Revenge being the highlights for me. Paradise is ok, but I'm not a huge fan of the massive open world in that game.

From Nintendo, F-Zero X and GX both are standouts. Waverace 64 and Blue Strom were always great fun. The N64 had a ton of solid arcade racers, with Beetle Adventure Racing being the cream of the crop. Excellent concept which was executed to perfection. I got Top Gear Rally with the N64 and loved every second of that, the two sequels were quite good as well, though the SNES game (Top Gear) will always be my favourite 16-bit arcade racer. The Cruis'n games (World and Exotica in particular) and San Francisco Rush series were also good value. Kind of died off with the GameCube, but ExciteTruck was another well-executed game which controlled very well with motion, even if the sequel was pretty garbage. They added too much shit which detracted from the racing IMO. As for the Switch, I highly recommend Horizon Chase Turbo, which is a 16-bit era inspired racer with cool locations, good controls and nice visuals.
 
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Love all the old school ones like Outrun, Rollcage, Burnout etc.

From the modern ones, I really like the futuristic racers.

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Redout looks great plays great

Then there's GRIP, spiritual Rollcage successor which I also really like.

 
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For newer I'll second Grip. That is really a blast to play.

Also for newer I really enjoyed Rise: Race the Future on Switch.

I'll go with the classics though

San Francisco Rush
Cruisin' World (can't wait for Blast on the Switch)
Hydro Thunder
Daytona USA
 
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Oh and back in the days, I absolutely loved Wave Race 64. I would put down an obscene amount of money to support a modern remake for PC with all the bells and whistles.
 
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Hopefully it's the upcoming Cruis'n Blast.

To this point I think Mario Kart 8 takes the cake in terms of raw hours. 100s of hours on the Wii U version between me, my wife, our kids, and the friends who came over to play. And then we've invested 100s more hours on the Switch version. Prior to that, I think one of the Need for Speeds or maybe even Midnight Club Racing may have been my most-played in terms of hours.

I like 'em all. It's hard to pick a best because the great ones have mutually-exclusive things that make them special. Outrun's drifting is absurd, but not everyone wants to play an arcade racer like that. Excite Truck and San Fransisco Rush's massive hills are absurd, but not every wants to launch over hills like that. I think Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe) is a good all-around arcade racer that includes anything you might want.
 
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Horizon 4

Burnout 1 & 2

Excite Truck

SF Rush 2

These are the arcade racers that have my highest playtime. All very replayable.
 
Blur - (Dumbass Activision cancelled the sequel)
Forza Horizon 1
Real Racing Roots '99 iiiin: Helter Skelter! (Ridge Racer 4)

Does Gran Turismo count too? If so then I'd like to pinpoint Gran Turismo 4(not because of Van Halen ' Panama intro) as toppest above all.


I play all the racing games on chase cam only
 
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This thread has me wanting to play OutRun 2 again... but it does not appear to be available on any current platform. Best I can find is that if I can get ahold of a Xbox Disc of it I can play it on one of my 360s.... thats kinda lame to have to do that.
 
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Arkam said:
This thread has me wanting to play OutRun 2 again... but it does not appear to be available on any current platform. Best I can find is that if I can get ahold of a Xbox Disc of it I can play it on one of my 360s.... thats kinda lame to have to do that.
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I have Outrun 2 on X Box but want to kick my own ass for never picking up Coast 2 Coast. The price on that on X Box is insane.
 
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farmerboy said:
Driveclub, easily. Had no right feeling as fast as it did at 30fps but Evolution managed it. Sensational game.
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I loved that game so much, it was amazing. But I don't know if I'd take it into the arcade racer catergory, because I feel like it was right in the middle of arcade and sim. With some of the assists off, it was a pretty godlike racing game.
 
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lock2k said:
Did anyone get the new Hot Wheels? I'm playing it right now and it satisfies my needs for a modern arcade/slash kart racer. Really good stuff and cool drift physics.
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I was eyeballing it but I picked up Cruis'N Blast instead (Christmas present for kids). What version did you get?

If it's a solid arcade racer I'll probably put this one under the tree too.
 
DonDonDonPata said:
I was eyeballing it but I picked up Cruis'N Blast instead (Christmas present for kids). What version did you get?

If it's a solid arcade racer I'll probably put this one under the tree too.
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I bought the regular one on PC and I played it for a bit today. The cars are really cool, varied and the physics are really satisfying. I wish I could play Cruisn as well but I still don't have a Switch.
 
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Thanks for the impressions @lock2k ! If you have more thoughts drop em because I'd be interested to know how the game unfolds as you sink more time into it.

Maybe I'll get Hot Wheels and later I'll make an official d_pad 10/10 review + comparison thread for the two titles, because that's what the world needs a lot more of, review scores.

Would you say performance makes a difference? It won't be that much nicer but I may go PS4 (Pro) version instead of Switch. The split screen 2p mode will get a lot of usage so performance > portability in this case, I reckon.
 
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