Genre of the Month (MAY 2024 TR) - Really Rad Racers

[o.pwuaioc]

Sega GT was my first racing game outside of cart racing. It was the first one I played using realistic licensed cars. I moved on to GameCube with Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 after that. And ended that generation with Most Wanted, skipping the Undergroud series completely.

Nowadays, I’ve been hoping on racing sims like Forza 6 & 7 and lighter sims like Forza Horizon 3 & 4. I’m pointing those out because they are the only racing games I have quick access to.

I still think the two Sonic cart racers are fantastic alternatives to Mario Kart. To me, they’re the only ones that came pretty close to that series.

I still think Hot Pursuit 2 is the peak. I lost interest in racers for the most part after that as they shifted from cool vistas and classic cars to tinkering, cosmetics, and driving beaters until you win races. It became too much work. I just want to drive!

For that reason, I also can't get into older sims either. I don't mind upgradeable parts so long as it's not too much of a focus.

[Gucci]

After HP2, they went heavy into the tuner stuff because of the rising popularity of the Fast and Furious movies at the time. The Underground and Most Wanted games were pretty much a product of their time.

While Forza has a lot of customization options, and some pretty refined tuning, it just wasn’t the same as those games.

It was nighttime setting (Underground), drag racing, running from the cops, cars they used like the Nissan Skyline and the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, and the music. Some great tunes for early 2000s! I still listen to a couple of tracks from Most Wanted from and old group called Styles of Beyond. They ended up being feature on Mike Shinoda’s Fort Minor album.

Now my time is spent on Forza. I don’t touch the tuner stuff but I do upgrades to increase or decrease my car class for a specific race. They even have a one button auto upgrade thing where it does the work for you to automatically qualify for the a race, assuming you have the cash for the upgrades. Might be a better option for those who don’t want to deal with that stuff and just wanna race.