Something else to note about BeamNG is that you can make your own cars and drive them! You need to buy another game (Automation: The Car Tycoon Game), but it has a built in importer that works 99.9% of the time.
@@TheCouch-Co-Op As a guy who has owned BeamNG since 2016 I have seen it come a long long way, and I don't even think it's reached its fruition yet so putting that as the cover of "we killed racing games" really doesn't make any sense. BeamNG is going to come out on top and everybody who's driven that simulation with a force feedback setup knows it. I know how awesome it was in 2016 and how awesome it is now in 2024 and it's only going to get better.
After playing through Forza motorsport 8 I always found it dumb how the singleplayer "career" mode doesn't have a dedicated motorsport section in it despite the game literally having "motorsport" in the title.
The new Forza Motorsport "Reboot" was the final straw that made me turn my back on Microsoft and Xbox after mainly gaming on their systems since the 360, in 2007. Some would say that I am insane for hanging on, that long. The PS5 was the next one that I turned my back on, not too long after. I bought an OLED Steam Deck and haven't looked back. My next goal is to build a monster PC for Assetto Corsa.
@@LanceCorporal_Waffles Still playing AC on XB1X here. Never was a fan of Forza (Motorsport), even tho Forza Horizon was somewhat fun to play casually with some friends on the couch.
when Underground came out, us car guys were literally telling every car guy about how "i spent like 10 hours last night making my car....you can customize EVERYTHING......" Because they were car games, made by car guys, for car guys. AAA gaming is dead people. They arent into making games anymore, theyre into making money.
I felt the exact opposite about Underground. I was like "cars are so pretty when stock, why do we have to put ugly make up on them?" Because you HAD to in order to progress. (Plus the fact it didn't and still doesn't feel like a Need for Speed game at all)
what? underground was by people trying to capitalize on the popularity of fast and furious and overly decorated cars, what are you on about lol AAA was always about money, its just that at some point they realized that they don't need to make interesting games anymore, because people will just buy the next slop with a recognizable title.
My 2 cents: I consider boring games that feature ONLY supercars. I want to battle with other pilots in a Fiat Panda, in a Suzuki Alto/Swift, in a Mini Cooper. I want to update and upgrade those cars. If I only have to change tyre pressure, I will stop playing almost immediately. I hope SHs undestar that...the sooner, the better.
One of my personal favorites of all time was Big Red Racing, it was pretty nuts and in need of a sequel. From the commentary that I'm 98% sure is just out takes to the ability to race things like fan boats and helicopters to the multiple planets. It's just a shame that it's old enough that the graphics really don't hold up and is a bit of a pain to install.
I gotta give y'all some props. I usually assume that the YT channels that don't normally cover car stuff don't know shit about car stuff (from what I've experienced it tends to be true). This had some research put into it. I also appreciate that it was delivered in a way that didn't disrespect newbies and oldheads to the Racing genre.
Assetto Corsa kinda disrupted the market, the effect of it is real. It has grown so much from a barebones sim to an all encompassing hub where you can do anything youd like, no matter if gamefied highway servers or brutal realism esport racing. I am not interested in any other racing games anymore because none of them do singleplayer right and then they dare deliver a bad multiplayer experience
Yeah, I can practice my local track with street cars. Or, if something's missing, I can just hop in to the community and learn to participate, eventually being able to make the track or car I'm missing.
Doesn't help that large studios are too scared to try anything new, it's all about micro transactions and loot boxes and the same old formula every time with a few new things. It's up to the indies and small studios to revive the genre.
@@mattylatvala43 They're just poorly marketed. Take Blur for instance. If that was released today it would sell gangbusters because there's nothing else like it on the market.
What killed racing games for me is the fact that if I wish to be competitive I need a steering rig twice the price of my gaming PC. I miss the day where I can play offline, with a keyboard and waste a few hours on the weekend getting my "need for speed" in, in an environment "just realistic enough" to engage my suspension of disbelief.
This pretty much explains why I consider Project Gotham Racing 3 to be the best "simcade" racing game of all time. What I wouldn't give to have a port of that game on PC (for whatever reason Microsoft refuses to allow back compat on racing games from the Xbox 360, even the games Microsoft published themselves, nope no back compat for racing fans).
nope, things are failing because everyone got the mastrubation toys (VR goggles) and they are pretending like they are using it for something else. Nobody is putting any effort into anything. All they do is few laps and then back to faps. Nobody with the "VR" goggles really cares about anything else.
I don’t think there is a problem with people liking realism and almost wanting to live out their dream or fantasy. I just believe that many people have grown up and the stuff that interested them when they were young has now changed. Many of us enjoyed Arcady racers when we were young, but now having grown older we thirst for a bit more substance and something closer to our life now.
I recently looked at the Wikipedia page for Freespace 2 because nearly 30 years later it's still the best space combat game, and there's something in there I'd like to quote; "The game was restrained from becoming too realistic by the team's recognition that most players only want believable worlds to have a blast flying around in and blowing things up."
Terminal Velocity is the best. You've got a bunch of different planets to explore and really the only thing that I miss is that the "high def" graphics are definitely not high def by modern standards.
I will as I like to do, recommend Wreckfest. It's a game built around the insanity of demolition derbies and banger racing. Because of this, the game has very realistic driving physics that can have you cause all sorts of crashes easily. However, it is still more arcade than something like Beamng and has a great multiplayer with community servers and custom races.
Was going to shout out that one myself. Not a complex a destruction model as Beam but it does exactly what it says on the tin. Also helps that the A.I. drives like a open lobby in Forza. Keeps it interesting.
Yeah, Wreckfest really rangles the damage physics of beamng and multi-surface features of some rally games and makes it into a more streamlined racing experience that is loads of fun and more approachable for casual users.
My problem with modern racing games is that many racing games today no longer have a ‘personality’. I am a single player, almost exclusively. Unfortunately, games have been dumbed down more and more in recent years to appeal to more players. The single player experience has become more and more sacrificed for multiplayer.
I game almost exclusively online (co-op with friends rather than competitive with hoards)... and the same problem affects multiplayer... I've gone from spending hours every week with Forza 3 / 4, including shelling out big money for the Fanatec Forza racing wheel (only for MS to then break compatibility with their next console release a few months later), preordering the collectors boxsets etc... to... maybe playing for free on gamepass for a few weeks after they come out. Forza 4 was the best. Forza horizon was fun when it came out... Now... they all feel boring and repetitive clones with less and less desirability... no character... no aim... no fun... Now I barely play racing games anymore, my wheel has been sat under the desk in my office untouched for nearly 2 years... and the whole genre has nothing that really interests me... just a lot of clones of repeats of the same game...
That's why I find it interesting that when a big studio does try to give a game personality, it tends to get a lot of push back. For example, NFS Unbound, regardless of what one thinks of the physics, gameplay, etc. is trying to introduce an art style beyond just "realism," with a cast of animated characters. In that regard, it is trying something different, but one of the most common complaints I've heard about the game is how "annoying" they find it all, and how they wanted to disable all the decoration and animations that set it apart, with the result being it would just look like any other racing game visually. The NFS series in particular seems to suffer from the problem that too many people demand too many things, and it seems that every title gets criticized for having too much or too little of something, or being either too "samey" or too different. While I think that NFS has had its problems over the years, I think that the developers are in a spot where it is extremely difficult to produce something that will be widely well received as a result.
I agree with a lot of the points made but I think there is something you missed. Modern games are either a sandbox with no structure or a collectathon, but they are not really games. Beamng is great but its still just a sandbox. There is a limit to how much fun you can make yourself. I would be much more resilient to bugs and mediocre graphics if there was a modern game with actual economy and progression. If you want an example of a game that was similar to beamng but had a lot more structure, take a look at street legal racing
@@Ben-Roguedon't get it on steam, it corrupts your save file and even backing it up won't save you when it corrupts again. Not fun having a game break and constantly fixing it.
I don't want to have to have to be a mechanic to be able to be competitive. I don't want to have to drive each car 2 hours to level them up to be able to be competitive. I want to fire the game up, pick a car class, choose a car and go compete on equal footing with everyone else. PGR3 FTW.
I loved that you had to learn to drive different cars differently in PGR, in Forza you just modded everything until it felt like a racing car then drove it the same. I also loved that lap times could be compared globally because we were all driving the exact same car on the same track, the tracks were interesting because they were built in cities, the handling was just the right blend of real and arcade, it was just a great series.
The problem with racing games is that the better you get, the less the gameplay has to do with cars and racing, and the more it "degenerates" into something rather stupid. This happens with practically every game in the genre, but arcade games are more affected. After a while, when you've learned all the tricks and ways of being a good player, the theme of cars and racing is just a suggestion, and you're often playing a pretty bad arcade game full of rubber banding, bugs, broken rules, and other undesirable things. I think this partly explains why simulators and simcades have become the focus of devs and gamers, while more arcadey and stylized games have lost some of their influence. But sims also have this same problem, there's an ex-F1 driver who explains that he abandoned iRacing because as the skill of the players improved, it turned from a sport simulation into a bad video game.
yup. it becomes about exploiting the edge of the rules, about "meta" and stupid bs like that. gran turismo has a billion cars in it but there are like only 2 or 3 "viable" cars per race, the rest is garbage that makes you automatically lose. and there's a thousand ways to exploit penalties to cheese the game, etc etc.
@@GraveUypo This plagues all of modern gaming now, especially online focused games. There's always "meta" gun or perk or car or build or item or playstyle where if you even dare go outside the box either you're instantly at a disadvantage or even if you make it work your teammates complain about it. It's why a lot of people are logging off and returning to older/single player games where you paved your way.
@@GraveUypo Real racing has the same problems: the Oreca 07 was the meta car in LMP2 to the point that multiple manufacturers had no entries at Daytona or Le Mans for *years*. Live SMT data in NASCAR has drastically homogenized driving styles.
>The problem with racing games is that the better you get, the less the gameplay has to do with cars and racing, and the more it "degenerates" into something rather stupid. just about every single game in general has this issue.
@@GraveUypothis is a necessary evil. Perfect balance is never going to be possible. More spec series options would be a more obtainable fix just like how real life “balances” drivers in series like mx5 cup, radical sr10 racing, praga cup etc.
The whole reason why I begged my mom one day as a little kid to put in a certain CD into the CD player of our vehicle, bc that CD had GT4's "Panama" song as one of its tracks 😆😆
I just don't see myself enjoying any of the newer AAA racers when I could just go back and play all the good old shit. One new game I'm excited for is night runners since ive played the demo, and that was really good
I will never fully understand the in-depth complaints, ending on "I still buy those AAA games" - hating them and still buying them just makes sure the companies behind those will never change. Why the hell should they? And with them - the industry itself will never change. It just means digging your own pit. As well as for everybody else.
I do market research for games. I see that when it comes to AAA, sports games or mega franchises like cod you have what's called a seasonal buyer. It's someone who's not super involved but wants to play the game they will pre-order the deluxe editions and play for probably a week at most. They may be the ones that complain but we'll do it all over again when they have the craving. It is very weird but can you blame them for the longest time you could buy the newest sports game and it was a sure bet that it was going to have better graphics and features in the last. The problem comes when you have that person who wants to play an F1 game but there's only one game with the drivers and cars he knows and likes. It's the same with 2K monopolizing the NBA license. The solution is to not buy but they feel compelled too in thus we get this cycle
Yep, I personally still play racing games, but the ones that I play are much older. Just the other day, I pulled out the 32x version of Virtua Racer for another go. And I love the Moto Racer games. The most recent racing game that I own is Nitronic Rush and that was definitely not a AAA studio game, even though you really wouldn't notice.
The last AAA racing game I bought at full price was Forza 7. I bought Horizon 4 during a steam sale years after it came out tried it and got bored in about 30 minutes. I was almost tempted with GT7 but I remembered being burnt by GT5/6 buying a ps3 just for them and just hating what they had become. The last racing games I ever put decent hours into are Forza 4 and the first Horizon game. After that really nothing ever made me wanna play as much. Like I've pretty much dropped racing games completely now and the only thing close to it that I play is ETS2/ATS. During the PS1/PS2 eras I played so many racing games and even that continued on when I got an Xbox 360 with Forza2/3/4/Horizon. Genki recently announced they are making a new TXR game and I'm gonna be honest thats the most excited I've been for a racing game in years. I've never really liked the NFS games at all, but like every Genki Racing Project game I've loved. I've still got japanese copies of TXR3, the kaido battle games and the lesser known C1 Racing battle. All have slightly wonky physics but have a great gameplay loop and amazing car customistaion. So I honestly can't wait to get back onto the wangan again to battle some wanderers. Really the gutting of the AA industry killed a lot of the smaller more interesting racing games. Even Capcom had Automobelista which was such a cool game with great car customistaion and a unique artstyle for a racing game. Now all you really have is AAA Slop full of MTX and fomo. Or just full on sim racing that requires a wheel setup to even enjoy. I know there are some indie projects both for touge and highway racing but none of them seem to be developing at a decent pace. I know AC is also meant to be amazing for being almost a big sandbox in what you want to do but again the wheel is a hard requirement. I know this as I attempted to try using a controller with it and just could never get it to a decent point.
I think what people miss is the fact that racing games much like other genres became a victim of Esports thought. Where if the player makes money streaming these games, well the developer will make money from that free exposure and focus on that player base. So its become a game of exposure. The majority will be excluded from these choices because in the eyes of devs the majority doesnt bring in money.
That's just a subset of player retention. They lean into esports aspects because it drives (no pun intended) player retention and playtime. Esports are far too volatile and expensive for any corporation to actually want to be invested in them. It's ultimately just advertising and "inspiration" for casual players to play the game more to feel like they have a shot at making gaming a career. More playtime = bigger numbers to show to happy shareholders and more chance at you clicking on the store to buy a skin or seasonal pass.
That's probably it, ever since Star Craft companies have been delivering games with that intention. Star Craft 2 was absolutely horrible if you weren't into esports or multiplayer as they completely destroyed the singleplayer experience for the sake of having it balanced for competitive multiplayer. Not to mention that Diablo 3 didn't even have an offline singleplayer option because they wanted you to play online so badly. Personally, I still love playing the older game, although they can be somewhat hard to get your hands on due to the licensing agreements for the cars often times expiring and needing to be renegotiated. I'm not sure the studios really want to do it as they'd rather sell a new game
@@SALEENS7GTR5 You should tell Blizzard, they pretty much completely destroyed the singleplayer campaign for Star Craft 2 just to have something that would be useful for esports.
Good video. I'm 42 and played mostly racing games in the 90's. I would softly argue that the original Nascar Racing from papyrus and Need For Speed 1 games are the actual catalysts for mainstream simcade titles. What Grand Turismo did was legitimized them on consoles by basically being better in almost every way, and NOT on PC.
@@TheCouch-Co-Op Dude, you're missing out if you like racing games and you haven't played Wreckfest. It's a pretty modest game in terms of scope, but the handling is a perfect blend of arcade and simulation, and the damage modelling is very good. Online races are very fun and it's still pretty easy to find active servers.
Also, as an avid car guy and Beamng fan, the graphics in the game are amazing, it gets updated every 3 (ish) months and theres plenty of amazing community made mods (a lot are free), the graphics are okay by modern standerds (the clips you saw in the video were mostly from the trailers taken 4 years ago) and the best part is the vehicle damage. It is THE most realisitic damage simulator, allowing the frame and body to be seperated, the entire body crunches and bends with every crash, theres simulated technical damage (piston rings can get damage due to a lack of oil) and driveshafts/axles can get obliterated, paralyzing your car. The driving physics are really good too, besides a lack of drafting and tire thermals (tires heating up giving more traction) but there are community made mods for that, the devs are also car guys and they listen to the community, plus theres a huge range of cars to choose from (each car has different variations, such as a hatchback having an electric version, race/rally versions and sport versions/AWD and FWD versions). I really recommend Beamng.Drive, but it is very hard to run.
screw damage, the physics are fully simulated. Turning the wheel actually moves the steering linkage which in turn moves the wheel. Clutch slippage, ABS simulation, power steering simulation, industry leading automatic transmission simulation, the list goes on.
Ah, WRC. i bought that game, they announced the kernel anti cheat the next day, i refunded the game. i run linux so the game would stop working when that came online. i just found my copy of richard burns rally and played that instead.
Looks like you never played Grand Turismo 7. The game has drastically changed since release. The micotransactions are only limited to 4 different credit amounts, and you dont need to buy anything. All DLC has been free and playing it on VR is one of the most incredible racing experiences you can have.
@wafflemale That was only for the first few months of release, and it was mostly bashed for its poor payout amounts pre race. It's now easier than ever to earn credits. The game is amazing now, and the VR mode has to be seen to be believed.
even none racing game players played the games from the 6th generation, i played Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition Remix for so many hours yet i was never a car guy
@@TheCouch-Co-Op I personally think it's really odd that you're playing up the car culture thing when that's a much more recent aspect of the genre. Most of the early games and through much of the '90s didn't have recognizable cars. I think a lot of that had to do with a combination of resources to model cars in a way that varied between the models and the attention to sign the deals. There probably was some element of that, but for most of the time frame that these games existed, it was playing at home against yourself or whichever buddies had time to come over. A lot of these systems couldn't even do network gaming, so no LAN parties either.
Along with BeamNG, i think Assetto Corsa (heavily modded of course) is one of the best examples of racing games BY the community, the ammount of FREE content (quality may vary) you can download with mods (along with obv CSP and Sol), greatly increses the game experience, physics, weather (the rain mod is absolutely amazing btw, almost feels like DriveClub) unlike any other game. I think Assetto Corsa Evo will be fine (if they keep their promise with modding).
Great video, spot on. As an indie racing game developer, this hits extremely close to home. I'm working on a simcade game but it's been painful to balance because I get an incredible amount of mixed feedback, both from racing veterans and from newbies: now it's realistic, now it's arcade. Now it's good, now it's bad. First and last simcade game I'm working on in my life. After this one, I'll be back to hyper arcade and as far from realistic as possible.
I feel like we are living in a “Twilight Zone” episode. There is no way I’m watching a video documenting Midnight Club LA like it’s history. Blows my mind. I remember beating it over a weekend when I was in high school.
Just the fact that FM4 seems, even today, like something more appealing that FM8 tells you all you need to know about the industry. I stopped buying racing games from big studios about 6 years ago. I now play BeamNG, Assetto corsa, RBR, and whatever's good in indie territory (and there's plenty these days). I started playing older games again too, dusting off my ps3 for GT5/6, plannin to buy a RGH Xbox 360 for FM4. I think sims are fun, i think arcade games are fun. A game that's shaped by corporate people, that's not even capable of outperforming now decade old, previous installments of itself, AND has the audacity to be listed for more money, *WHILE HAVING MORE THINGS TO BUY* to get the complete experience is indeed, UNfun. That's unfortunately not limited to games, and it's really reminding me of Dankpods "tech that let me down" series. The general enshittification of products these days is global, and i can't believe things havent already gone to shit.
I feel the need to point out two honourable mentions. Assetto Corsa is a proper sim, ie realistic physics, but with content manager it’s pretty accessible and the modding community is insane, keeping the game alive for over 10 years now - thousands of cars and tracks. And on the other side, secondly, project cars 2. More accessible physics but still realistic yet more forgiving (ie simcade) but with arguably the best single player experience with a wonderful career mode.
@@user-ez3sj8hm8i It's particularly wonderful if you're on the fence about sims. First thing I played on my wheel other than Forza and I couldn't go back. Ended up building a PC to get a full sim experience
I beat Toca Race Driver 2. And I agree. It is hard. I got rammed so hard by one of the opponents at the final race in the final lap when I braked, and I lost my entire Back Wheel on my F1 car. I was so mad
I beat Toca 2 with a keyboard as a kid. For the time, graphics were awesome. I learnt about the existence of Surfers Paradise there, and never found again in a game. But I'll remember a thing forever: the game often proposed two different race to choose from to proceed. At one point, race A was Aston Martin 1 vs 1 on the snow, and race B was a truck race. Me, already a car addicted, jumped on race A. And found that... snow was EXTREMELY slippery for my skill (and keyboard control). After countless retrays, I've chosen the truck race and won with ease... still disappointed though.
"Casual vs competitive gaming hit the racing genre first." You know what other video game issue hit the racing game genre first? Buying a game not meaning owning it (The Crew).
I think one sub-genre of racing games that is often missed out, that technically doesn't have cars but is still about racing, is the anti-gravity racing genre (Wipeout, Redout, BallisticNG, etc.).
I like how you included Mario Kart to this video as well, a lot of racing games UA-camrs are very dismissive of that game since it was essentially a "Mario" game whatever that means.
Entire video and not once a mention of Assetto Corsa. Even without mods, it's a better racing game than Forza Motorsport on console. And before that, there was Test Drive Unlimited on PC. I feel like you have ignored them to fit you narrative for this video. But I can't hate any promotion for BeamNG.
AC is born as an hardcore sim, something made to be experienced with decent wheel and pedals. Apart for iRacing and ACC, there are a ton of sim games not mentioned in the video. rF (the AC before AC), rF2, LMU, AMS/AMS2, the older GTR/GTR2, RACE07, NetkarPro, and sure I'm missing others. But this is ok: sim racing is a niche of racing games. If racing games in general would be better, more people will do the jump to try a more focused sim.
I remember when I got my Xbox One, Forza Motorsport 5 came with it. The game was fun, had some of the best graphics for the time, and I thought it was cool as hell. Then Forza Horizon 3 came out, and I loved that game. Over time, it became the thing of just... it's the same game year in, year out. It's the same thing as Madden, 2K, or the UFC games, but at least those have significant roster changes (usually). Hopefully racing game devs start figuring out how to make them feel interesting again, I'd actually love to see good new flying or boating racing game.
I honestly feel like, Gran Turismo really paved the way for not just games, but also car culture in general. It’s like the Top Gear of video games. It even clashed nicely with Top Gear, which was very British/Eurocentric, and Gran Turismo (especially 1 and 2) was very Japanese-centric, but both had a huge profitable American market. This is why I know what a Lagonda is, or a Cappuccino, or a Calsonic Skyline, or that the ‘Austin Princess was the first vehicle with concealed windscreen wiper spindles,” or that a Gen 1 Viper was impossible to control if the only options are full throttle and no throttle.
3:41 Gran Turismo was a game about cars. Racing games were about racing back then, as they are now. iRacing isn't about cars, it's about racing. And the same goes for all the simulation games out there. It's about racing.
Holy crap, a "racing games suck" video that actually explains stuff in depth instead of moping for 30 minutes like they're trying to be SomeOrdinaryClickbait? thank you.
Iv just spent a year trying sim racing full on. The community is completely asinine. They are never happy, constantly fighting, full of whales, and generally the worst of the gaming community.
Thats all genre of games 😂 this whole internet age is people that are never satisfied, always want what they dont have, and just plain cry about everything from graphics, physics, the development…everything
The funny thing about drawing the distinction between "racing games" and "motorsports games" is the same divide exists in real life. There's plenty of overlap, of course, but lots of car guys who enjoy modding cars and going to meets don't care about organized racing, and lots of professional racers don't care about street cars, no matter how fast.
great video and i hope game studios see this. i feel like racing games have steered away from arcade-y fun because mario kart dominates that market but the problem is that mario kart only exists on one platform so the majority of gamers can't even play it. there are tons of indie racing games that are fun but just lack in content and budget to really make an awesome game. im looking forward to test drive unlimited solar crown, i hope it is good
Gran Turismo 7 had a terrible economy at launch. But future updates upped the pay for a lot of events, so you can get decent amounts of money grinding events. There's even weekly challenges that often give out a lot of money and rewards for doing them. Still, $20,000,000 cars are still bullshit and I don't care how Polyphony justifies it. That being said, I still highly recommend GT7 even on the PS4. Or if you want a classic, then play Gran Turismo 4 on PCSX2 and there's a mod coming out soon called Spec II. It's basically an overhaul of the entire game. Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit on the computer was one of my first games. It had an R129 SL600 and my parents have the same generation model, but it was an SL500. Since then, I was enamored by racing games and cars. Then I got a PS2 and played Midnight Club, Gran Turismo, Burnout, and Tokyo Xtreme Racer. They really shaped my preferences in things like music. I love electronic music because of the early Need for Speed games. Racing games were basically all I ever played until I made a Steam account. I never really wanted to be a professional driver, but fantasized about street races in exotics or tuner cars. Midnight Club: Los Angeles really was the peak of arcade racers. The street racing vibe was there, and there were all kinds of car classes so you get to try out different types of cars at least once. The customization was also spectacular, only really matched by GTA Online. MC:LA's handling model is also one of my favorites in an arcade racer. It's weighty and grippy. I really want another Midnight Club game, but GTA just makes too much money for them to care. Midnight Club still canceled soz. 12:43 My Supra :) I really miss mid-range racing games. There was a lot more creativity and variety in the PS2 days and Xbox 360 days. Some indie games do capture the magic of that era, like Night-Runners. I love the atmosphere of 90s street racing in Japan like Tokyo Xtreme Racer. NR also has amazing customization and soundtrack. I definitely recommend anyone try it out. The Prologue is free, so literally anyone can play it, but you better add it to your Steam library before the dev unlists it and releases another demo. I backed up NR on Kickstarter because I liked what I played. Need for Speed: Unbound is a very good arcade racer and I do highly recommend the game. It got a lot of flak for its artstyle and soundtrack, but it's trying to do something unique and set a tone. It doesn't help that it's not Most Wanted 2005 or Underground, and there is no pleasing that crowd no matter what. Unfortunately, EA keeps cannibalizing Criterion for Battlefield, but the team that remains are actually improving the game a lot with updates. The most recent one added drag racing and a whole new drift handling model. Usually the modern NFS games don't get much support (RIP Heat). The Burnout series probably really shaped what I wanted in games: figuring out the best way to destroy things. My first Burnout game was Takedown. It features a crash mode (first introduced in 2: Point of Impact) where you are given an intersection to crash into and cause the most damage. It was a destruction puzzler, and I wanted more games like that not just limited to Burnout. Online only games shouldn't die because a bean counter says they should. stopkillinggames(dot)com
@TheCouch-Co-Op A new update for NFS Unbound just came out, a new Tokyo Xtreme Racer game just got announced, Night-Runners Prologue is free on Steam right now, and some other indie racing games are being made/already came out. I'd say racing games aren't quite dead yet.
im suprised you didnt mention Wreckfest,it is an arcade racer but definetely one of the most fun games i've played in years,pretty cheap and a seemingly even better sequel on the way,while it is more focused on destruction,the feel of being in first place on the final lap while there is a bus heading straight towards you and someone behind you constantly trying to smash you off the road is very enjoyable,while the multiplayer is center between casual and competitive,there is no ranking or matchmaking,you just find a good server and roll with it,trying to drive as good as you can,or taking a bus,doing a 180 at the start and destroying the people driving normally,not for the sake of winning,but for fun.
nothing beats the feeling of sitting on your sofa, driving around the corner and seeing nothing but the fronted of a reinforced american school bus and by nothing beats the feeling i mean that wreckfest should be categorized as a horror game
I fully support calling motor-sports racism and motor sport athletes racists. "Welcome back to the Indy 500 in the world of Racism!" "Yes Tom, we have quite the diverse crowd of racists here tonight!" "And quite the large crowd of racism fans in the audience, Jim!" "A beautiful warm sunny day, perfect for racism!"
As an owner of Gran Turismo 7, a lot of work has been done w/r/t making the game much more enjoyable, especially when it comes to making cash. It's reached the point where I firmly believe GT7 is better compared to every major racing title released since. Yet despite all that, you can find a good number of people, reviewers, youtubers, etc. who still think it's an awful game, even with all the patches and balance changes. If that's not an indication of how far this genre has sunk, I don't know what is.
I think one thing about racing games and car culture is that car culture itself is in severe decline. Cars aren't cool anymore. They're anonymous egg-shaped pods with wheezy turbo fours that spy on you or even more anonymous egg-shaped pods with EV platforms that are shared between multiple automakers. They're too heavy, they're too expensive, they're too complicated, traffic keeps getting worse, their controls have been numbed by electronic interference, the things that make them safer for the people inside them make them less safe for the people outside them, and every time people work on one way they pollute it exacerbates another way they pollute. Cars are increasingly disliked nowadays--how many normal people still want to play a game about them? Likewise, combat flight sims have become increasingly obscure and obtuse games for neckbeards, at the same time the romance has drained out of real combat aviation and fighter jets are more known for killing babies in the Middle East than chivalrous dogfights between officers. Do kids who grow up on news reports on Israeli atrocities in Palestine think "I want to fly an F-35 one day"? Of course not! I haven't really played GTA though I have played Saints Row, but the whole GTA style of game never seemed like a "racing game" to me, but rather a "crime game", or a "gangster game", where cars were only one part of the fantasy of being an organized crime kingpin.
Car culture as a whole is a dying culture. Even videos games recognize this, as why they’ve abandoned the fans and the grassroots racing scene as a whole and all racing games have focused on open world super car driving, f1/HyperCard and chasing laps with them and graphics. Racing games have been catering to casuals who arent car people, and drool allover Hyper cars for a decade now.
Racing Games where always about the public image of those Racing scenes not the Racing Scene with the excemption of SimRacing. And that simple ran it's course with the Fast and Furious overexposure. Like in Forza Horizion the enthusiast hype is all about the Miatas and affordable Tuner cars. Not boring hyper cars. Sim Racing should be it's separate Video not mixed in here with Mario Cart and F-Zero.
The problem with modern racing games is that they're all trying to be realistic simulators, whereas only handful that come out are just arcade racers with simplistic (or non-existent) damage model, i.e. those that are actually fun to play. If I wanted to drive a real car, I'd just get behind the wheel and drive. That's why I'm happy that there are quite a few Outrun-style games lately as well as seemingly top down racers (think Micro Machines) make come back as well. We should go back to making fun arcade racers where physics is secondary to the raw fun of driving.
This man mentioned everything, from midnight to NASCAR to even small details and how corporate meddling ruined the racing genre. And I love it. He went into so much detail that even I, someone who plays a lot of racing games, not to mention a fan of a lot of kinds of motorsport, didn’t even know. Thanks for making such a masterpiece.
I'm being playing gt7 for the las year and a half, and never feel the need to spend any money on it. What is exactly the reason people complain so much about the micro transactions in the game??
midnight club, burnout, split second, blur there is still is a desire for arcade racers but get neglected regardless need for speed is now on there third studio (criterion) after closing both black box and ghost forza motorsport was garbage the crew games are online only and get delisted gt7 is solid but no pc port forza horizon has no actual single player progression since 1 I miss my racing games mannnn
try wreckfest, second game was recently announced and the online scene of the frist game is still pretty active while the offline mode gave me a good 60h of entertainment
beamng has PLENTY of catches. it's a barren sandbox playground first, a crash simulator second, and i don't know if you can even ever call it a racing game. it's just a car game. i bought it, and i couldn't enjoy it because of that.
I don't know what you are talking about. I am 50 years old, been gaming for about 40 years now. GT7 is the best racing game i played in my life. Even nostalgia doesn't do it for me. I cringe when looking at old racing games i liked. It's all about the physics of the driving and yes the graphics. I don't care about micro transactions and content. Content for me is: different races created weekly on the same 20-30 tracks. Racing has never been better in the racing games history.
I'm 40, I recently started playing around with psx emulation on the steam deck. I started playing news for speed high stakes all over again and am having more fun with it than I did with fh5. It has something that I find lacking with modern racing games. Also most racing games have become SLOW!
I worked on _Need For Speed (PS1)_ and this is a _very_ well done mini-documentary! You've summarized all the main the issues perfectly. i.e. The heart and soul of racing games got sold out for microtransactions.
A couple of minor thoughts: * I would have liked to seen a slight discussion on rubberbanding and how it: a) positively impacts Mario Kart (everyone has a chance of catching up) and b) negatively impacts simcades like _Gran Turismo_ (the AI cheats) I asked Wei (our physics programmer) at the time about why there was rubberbanding for both AI and Players in NFS 1. His answer was: _"Because you could just ram the AI cars off the road and easily win. So we give a slight boost to the players behind to always make the game interesting."_ * You've briefly touched up THE reason Need For Speed was so popular and I agree with that: NFS, pardon the pun, *took the middle of the road between arcade on left and simulation on the right.* Simulations have never really sold well due to their high learning curve. We've seen several genres die over the decades -- the latest causality would probably be the Flight Simulators. * Car Licensing has played a huge part in the decline of developers making racing games. Small studios can't afford the licensing fees. * Casual gamers usually don't have the patience to patience to practice over and over unless it is in niche genres like rogue-likes and Souls-like games.
When we did the car interiors for Need For Speed PS1 there was a bit of an internal discussion about how much time should be spent on them. The team was pretty divided! * Some people LOVED the extra detail, * Some people NEVER view the interiors. We were too busy using the bumper cam and racing. 🙂
The problem is simple: studios want you to buy the game that meets their business plan, versus a game you actually want. Reenforcing their desire is the reality that consumers have participated in their schemes, especially the “whale syndrome” of a small number of obsessive individuals who make up a significant portion of micro-transaction revenue. The model distorts everything because even if the normal consumer hates micro-transactions, they still make money, so they aren’t going away. Triple A gaming is in a bad place right now, and it’s getting worse. The technology has gotten better, but the cost of building complex games on complex platforms has skyrocketed. One bad release can sink a smaller studio, and larger studios have become exceedingly risk averse. Throw in a lot of toxic ideological nonsense being festooned into games, and the near-term prospects for the games industry looks pretty terrible.
funny that richard burns rally flopped but is still one the most highly regarded rally "sims" of all time for it's physics and has an active community to this day. Definitely appealed to them enthusiasts.
Your low-key super smart, I like the way you present everything and its not just "oh I hate modern games" is really a "each game has its purpose and purposeful games we are now losing those games leading to a decrease of quality games"
GT7 is honestly amazing, All the micro transactions stuff is click bait, yes you can buy in game money but idk how lazy you would need to be to do that. 10/10 game will be remembered as one of the greats.
I think one of the biggest problems with new racing games is the obsession with simulation. A good sim is fun but it's extremely hard to develop and not everyone wants to learn how to drive a sim/buy a wheel. Even the arcade games like need for speed have tried to take more sim focused handling changes that have resulted in confusing and bizarre handling models that are stuck in between sim and arcade. As a whole, a lot of arcade games have terrible handling models as a result and a lot of studios have attempted to create sims without the proper resources or time
0:21 Should've put this clip on a slow-mo repeat, that car didn't "Just" hit the breaks, it teleported in place with it's momentum instantaneously set to 0. Like a prop losing it's controller rather than a legitimate entity, which is reinforced by the way the other vehicles just... clip right through it. That's not how you program racing opponents on modern hardware, that's how you program racing opponents in a 1980s early 3D game running on an Intel 8086 where giving non-player cars physics would set your CPU on fire.
OG driver/racer here. Grew up playing Test Drive, Outrun and Need For Speed. I am into ALL of the above mentioned car games. Where I feel this genre fell of course was when they introduced the open-world dynamic. Sure, the freedom was nice, but what (else) was the point? NFS & Midnight Club started it, and somewhere along the way, these games lost their way. Arguably FH4 was when the open world concept finally came full circle. FH4 reminded me of the original NFS games. To your point, now the devs are resting on selling graphics rather than fun car/driving/racing games or simulators. The peak for NFS for me was High Stakes and Porsche Unleashed. Gran Turismo was AMAZING when it first debuted, but are you really going to make me spend hours getting a license every single time???? If devs focussed on the WHY of their game rather than the what & how, these new games would have a better purpose.
No game has quite hit the vibe of Need For Speed Underground 2 ever since it came out. Forza Horizon games have come somewhat close, but at this point I'm just waiting for the RTX Remix mod for Underground 2 to get done...
For me personally, Wreckfest semi-clean C-class servers are just about the best door to door racing you can get and I have tried it all and with Wreckfest 2 coming out, the servers are full!
@ 19:40 "so, you can pick your poison," you only gave us two choices, and they both stink. There IS a third choice: you can run emulation and play all the best classic, monetization free, race car games out there...
Racing games peaked in 2000s, you want good racing game play any racing game from the 2000s I can list up to 100 of good 2000s racing games that are better than every racing game we have today
honestly? it sucks. everything is either hyper arcade or trying to be a sim- no "Games" that are in the middle like forza, project gotham, gran turismo used to be. PGR is dead, forza and gt are larping as esports, competitive nerds sucked the fun out of asphalt, mario kart, etc. everything else is a sim that has 0 fun in it like ACC, beamNG, and so forth. beamng in particular is basically undrivable without a racing wheel setup thats several hundreds (or thousands depending on currency) of your hard earned money. assetto corsa can be a players game to be almost anything- but the fact its a sim ruins it for anyone without a super fancy setup. imo? it isnt the corporate greed, it isnt bad devs, its streaming and content creator culture. theyve made everything and i mean EVERYTHING heavily compettive and ruined not just racing games but FPS and other genres too.
Word of mouth is very powerful. Just as an example NFS Heat when it initially came out did have some positive reception but the grand majority despised it because that was the popular opinion to have at the time. Months after Unbound's release it is now regarded as one of the greatest Need For Speed titles to have ever come out. Sure Heat has better quality of life features and its no bs user experience is something that Unbound shouldn't have messed with, but the game hasn't changed after 4 years. Unbound is simply the new target.
@@ToaGresh300 never met a single person to like unbound. More dlc than there is game. Not to mention online is impossible to start in as a newbie since none does low class races
Just a tip regarding beamng, there's a lot of controller options that make it actually easier to play with a controller than with an actual wheel. Source: I play a lot of sim racing titles on a full setup but actually find beamng to be more fun on a controller as a laid-back couch game 😅
Once nfs goes back to its glory days. We’ll have some amazing racing games. Example being nfsmw 2005, hot pursuit, rivals, and almost every old nfs games. This could be said to any team that makes racing games. You should have customization and modification for cars, but… it shouldn’t be so complex to make it unnecessary to even play any other cars. Maybe you could change the paint, spoiler, or rims, but now we have full fledged customization and modification. Now don’t get me wrong, I know there’s people out there that love that, but there’s people that want a reason to try different cars. If you can just modify a car to another car, then what’s the point of trying the other car?
this is by far one of the best videos documenting the decline of racing games without the necessant whining about certain things like the music choices in nfs unbound. however i will say majority of the community at this point has gone delusional about the things they want in games and it's become more of a pyschological thing that companies have to take into consideration now.
Most fun racing game today that i have played is Wreckfest!! Realistic? No not so much, but the cars handling and dynamic is fun. Never had so much fun crashing and losing 😆
Microtransactions , DLC, DLC, update update patch patch patch... Online only, cannot access the main game OFFLINE (looking at you GT) It's a mundane drag (excuse the pun) these days I miss the old days, of just popping in the disc and Bobs your uncle
Something else to note about BeamNG is that you can make your own cars and drive them! You need to buy another game (Automation: The Car Tycoon Game), but it has a built in importer that works 99.9% of the time.
That's sick!
That's the relatively easy way the other way is what the beaming forums usually at
That 0.1% was someone trying to make a double-double-double-double decker bus. I forgot which streamer did it though, but that was sad boi hours.
@@CaptPatrick01shinyodd?
@@TheCouch-Co-Op As a guy who has owned BeamNG since 2016 I have seen it come a long long way, and I don't even think it's reached its fruition yet so putting that as the cover of "we killed racing games" really doesn't make any sense. BeamNG is going to come out on top and everybody who's driven that simulation with a force feedback setup knows it. I know how awesome it was in 2016 and how awesome it is now in 2024 and it's only going to get better.
After playing through Forza motorsport 8 I always found it dumb how the singleplayer "career" mode doesn't have a dedicated motorsport section in it despite the game literally having "motorsport" in the title.
It's wack. And mainly centered around street legal production cars.
It's more like Forza than Forza Motorsport.
Haha money
The new Forza Motorsport "Reboot" was the final straw that made me turn my back on Microsoft and Xbox after mainly gaming on their systems since the 360, in 2007. Some would say that I am insane for hanging on, that long. The PS5 was the next one that I turned my back on, not too long after. I bought an OLED Steam Deck and haven't looked back. My next goal is to build a monster PC for Assetto Corsa.
@@LanceCorporal_Waffles Still playing AC on XB1X here. Never was a fan of Forza (Motorsport), even tho Forza Horizon was somewhat fun to play casually with some friends on the couch.
when Underground came out, us car guys were literally telling every car guy about how "i spent like 10 hours last night making my car....you can customize EVERYTHING......"
Because they were car games, made by car guys, for car guys. AAA gaming is dead people. They arent into making games anymore, theyre into making money.
I felt the exact opposite about Underground. I was like "cars are so pretty when stock, why do we have to put ugly make up on them?" Because you HAD to in order to progress.
(Plus the fact it didn't and still doesn't feel like a Need for Speed game at all)
what? underground was by people trying to capitalize on the popularity of fast and furious and overly decorated cars, what are you on about lol
AAA was always about money, its just that at some point they realized that they don't need to make interesting games anymore, because people will just buy the next slop with a recognizable title.
@@llSuperSnivyll I had a pimp car just to pass those missions, i keptr my garage mostly stock.
I've been wanting another underground
@@myvideosetc.8271 Which is clearly not what the game expects you to do. It shows how bad it is.
My 2 cents: I consider boring games that feature ONLY supercars. I want to battle with other pilots in a Fiat Panda, in a Suzuki Alto/Swift, in a Mini Cooper. I want to update and upgrade those cars. If I only have to change tyre pressure, I will stop playing almost immediately. I hope SHs undestar that...the sooner, the better.
One of my personal favorites of all time was Big Red Racing, it was pretty nuts and in need of a sequel. From the commentary that I'm 98% sure is just out takes to the ability to race things like fan boats and helicopters to the multiple planets. It's just a shame that it's old enough that the graphics really don't hold up and is a bit of a pain to install.
I also loved secret unlockables like Pirhana in Wipeout 2097 and Wipeout 3 challenge unlocks tough as nails but getting the Icarus craft so rewarding.
I gotta give y'all some props. I usually assume that the YT channels that don't normally cover car stuff don't know shit about car stuff (from what I've experienced it tends to be true). This had some research put into it. I also appreciate that it was delivered in a way that didn't disrespect newbies and oldheads to the Racing genre.
Appreciated!
exactly.
when they showed the clip of fernando alonso i immediately knew that this guy knows what hes talking about.
"guy" about that 😅
@@TheCouch-Co-Opu are a grill?
Big Green Egg
Assetto Corsa kinda disrupted the market, the effect of it is real. It has grown so much from a barebones sim to an all encompassing hub where you can do anything youd like, no matter if gamefied highway servers or brutal realism esport racing.
I am not interested in any other racing games anymore because none of them do singleplayer right and then they dare deliver a bad multiplayer experience
Well said.
Yeah, I can practice my local track with street cars.
Or, if something's missing, I can just hop in to the community and learn to participate, eventually being able to make the track or car I'm missing.
AC is very good, yes. However the crash damage is not there. And the multiplayer could do with tightening up.
@@AutoAndChill Crash damage isn't necessary at all... and the multiplayer is fine, just don't join a server on the other side of the world from you.
@@gitrekt-gudson the thumbnail to the video is crash damage dude. It's cool if you don't wanna crash I guess
Doesn't help that large studios are too scared to try anything new, it's all about micro transactions and loot boxes and the same old formula every time with a few new things. It's up to the indies and small studios to revive the genre.
Real. Check out Old School Rally.
@@TheCouch-Co-Op And Trail Out
Bc they don't sell enough ain't that hard
@@mattylatvala43 They're just poorly marketed. Take Blur for instance. If that was released today it would sell gangbusters because there's nothing else like it on the market.
@@markisaki979 sure buddy but the only racing game that generate money is Forza horizon,blur and horizon are similar mark?
What killed racing games for me is the fact that if I wish to be competitive I need a steering rig twice the price of my gaming PC. I miss the day where I can play offline, with a keyboard and waste a few hours on the weekend getting my "need for speed" in, in an environment "just realistic enough" to engage my suspension of disbelief.
You can hit A+ level on Gran Turismo 7 with a controller
This pretty much explains why I consider Project Gotham Racing 3 to be the best "simcade" racing game of all time.
What I wouldn't give to have a port of that game on PC (for whatever reason Microsoft refuses to allow back compat on racing games from the Xbox 360, even the games Microsoft published themselves, nope no back compat for racing fans).
not true at all, some pros use entry level wheels....
WHAT WAS THE GOAL IN NFS MOST WANTED?? TO GET BACK THE M3!! We don't ever have a goal like that in any newer racing games.
Very good point
@@_PHIZM_ i didn't think anyone would get what i was saying!?!
@@theguyinthere ..ITS very specific.. yes
The M3 GT car brings back a lot of feeling for so many of us across the planet
@@Peanutdenver many times agreed😁😁
And the racing games that do have character always fail because everyone's obsessed with hyperrealism instead of art Deco style graphics
Those games need sauce.
Not true I love racing games with character and style
nope, things are failing because everyone got the mastrubation toys (VR goggles) and they are pretending like they are using it for something else. Nobody is putting any effort into anything. All they do is few laps and then back to faps. Nobody with the "VR" goggles really cares about anything else.
Problem is majority of games with theses graphics often dont have a good handling feel imo
I don’t think there is a problem with people liking realism and almost wanting to live out their dream or fantasy. I just believe that many people have grown up and the stuff that interested them when they were young has now changed. Many of us enjoyed Arcady racers when we were young, but now having grown older we thirst for a bit more substance and something closer to our life now.
I recently looked at the Wikipedia page for Freespace 2 because nearly 30 years later it's still the best space combat game, and there's something in there I'd like to quote;
"The game was restrained from becoming too realistic by the team's recognition that most players only want believable worlds to have a blast flying around in and blowing things up."
One of me and my friends all time favorite games. A tragedy that there will never be a Freespace 3.
Terminal Velocity is the best. You've got a bunch of different planets to explore and really the only thing that I miss is that the "high def" graphics are definitely not high def by modern standards.
I will as I like to do, recommend Wreckfest. It's a game built around the insanity of demolition derbies and banger racing. Because of this, the game has very realistic driving physics that can have you cause all sorts of crashes easily. However, it is still more arcade than something like Beamng and has a great multiplayer with community servers and custom races.
Was going to shout out that one myself. Not a complex a destruction model as Beam but it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Also helps that the A.I. drives like a open lobby in Forza. Keeps it interesting.
Trail Out>>>>>>Shitfest
Yeah, Wreckfest really rangles the damage physics of beamng and multi-surface features of some rally games and makes it into a more streamlined racing experience that is loads of fun and more approachable for casual users.
And driving into another now is a fun part of the game instead of a ragequit hate on all other players
Never have given the 1st game a try, but I'm very interested in potentially buying the second game now that it was announced a month ago or so.
My problem with modern racing games is that many racing games today no longer have a ‘personality’. I am a single player, almost exclusively. Unfortunately, games have been dumbed down more and more in recent years to appeal to more players. The single player experience has become more and more sacrificed for multiplayer.
I game almost exclusively online (co-op with friends rather than competitive with hoards)... and the same problem affects multiplayer...
I've gone from spending hours every week with Forza 3 / 4, including shelling out big money for the Fanatec Forza racing wheel (only for MS to then break compatibility with their next console release a few months later), preordering the collectors boxsets etc... to... maybe playing for free on gamepass for a few weeks after they come out.
Forza 4 was the best.
Forza horizon was fun when it came out...
Now... they all feel boring and repetitive clones with less and less desirability... no character... no aim... no fun...
Now I barely play racing games anymore, my wheel has been sat under the desk in my office untouched for nearly 2 years... and the whole genre has nothing that really interests me... just a lot of clones of repeats of the same game...
That's why I find it interesting that when a big studio does try to give a game personality, it tends to get a lot of push back. For example, NFS Unbound, regardless of what one thinks of the physics, gameplay, etc. is trying to introduce an art style beyond just "realism," with a cast of animated characters. In that regard, it is trying something different, but one of the most common complaints I've heard about the game is how "annoying" they find it all, and how they wanted to disable all the decoration and animations that set it apart, with the result being it would just look like any other racing game visually. The NFS series in particular seems to suffer from the problem that too many people demand too many things, and it seems that every title gets criticized for having too much or too little of something, or being either too "samey" or too different. While I think that NFS has had its problems over the years, I think that the developers are in a spot where it is extremely difficult to produce something that will be widely well received as a result.
I agree with a lot of the points made but I think there is something you missed. Modern games are either a sandbox with no structure or a collectathon, but they are not really games. Beamng is great but its still just a sandbox. There is a limit to how much fun you can make yourself. I would be much more resilient to bugs and mediocre graphics if there was a modern game with actual economy and progression.
If you want an example of a game that was similar to beamng but had a lot more structure, take a look at street legal racing
Good point.
Wreckfest is pretty good.
BeamNG has W.I.P. career which you can play by spam clicking the icon and it's very fun, you should try it
I really agree with most you say. That being said, I have a lot of sympathy for Reiza. They really try without exploiting their customer base.
@@ethanwayne6973 Also all the maps have a ton of scenarios, time trials, etc. for people to play.
I miss split second that game had so much sauce
Michael Bay would have loved Split Second
I'll never forgive Disney for not giving us Split/Second 2.
It's still available for purchase on Steam
@@Ben-Roguedon't get it on steam, it corrupts your save file and even backing it up won't save you when it corrupts again. Not fun having a game break and constantly fixing it.
I have never been able to find a game that scratches that itch that Blur used to have covered. Genuinely one of the best arcade racers ever made imo.
I don't want to have to have to be a mechanic to be able to be competitive. I don't want to have to drive each car 2 hours to level them up to be able to be competitive. I want to fire the game up, pick a car class, choose a car and go compete on equal footing with everyone else. PGR3 FTW.
I miss PGR
I loved that you had to learn to drive different cars differently in PGR, in Forza you just modded everything until it felt like a racing car then drove it the same. I also loved that lap times could be compared globally because we were all driving the exact same car on the same track, the tracks were interesting because they were built in cities, the handling was just the right blend of real and arcade, it was just a great series.
Trackmania? I mean it is literally the most streamlined way to have perfectly equal competition
@@sleepdeep305 I play Trackmania every day :-). It's not quite the same as roaring around "realistic" courses however. Thanks for the recommendation.
You want to be able to be competitive in a specific car without having to spend two hours learning how the car behaves ? Skill issue, git gud
The problem with racing games is that the better you get, the less the gameplay has to do with cars and racing, and the more it "degenerates" into something rather stupid. This happens with practically every game in the genre, but arcade games are more affected. After a while, when you've learned all the tricks and ways of being a good player, the theme of cars and racing is just a suggestion, and you're often playing a pretty bad arcade game full of rubber banding, bugs, broken rules, and other undesirable things.
I think this partly explains why simulators and simcades have become the focus of devs and gamers, while more arcadey and stylized games have lost some of their influence. But sims also have this same problem, there's an ex-F1 driver who explains that he abandoned iRacing because as the skill of the players improved, it turned from a sport simulation into a bad video game.
yup. it becomes about exploiting the edge of the rules, about "meta" and stupid bs like that. gran turismo has a billion cars in it but there are like only 2 or 3 "viable" cars per race, the rest is garbage that makes you automatically lose. and there's a thousand ways to exploit penalties to cheese the game, etc etc.
@@GraveUypo This plagues all of modern gaming now, especially online focused games. There's always "meta" gun or perk or car or build or item or playstyle where if you even dare go outside the box either you're instantly at a disadvantage or even if you make it work your teammates complain about it. It's why a lot of people are logging off and returning to older/single player games where you paved your way.
@@GraveUypo Real racing has the same problems: the Oreca 07 was the meta car in LMP2 to the point that multiple manufacturers had no entries at Daytona or Le Mans for *years*. Live SMT data in NASCAR has drastically homogenized driving styles.
>The problem with racing games is that the better you get, the less the gameplay has to do with cars and racing, and the more it "degenerates" into something rather stupid.
just about every single game in general has this issue.
@@GraveUypothis is a necessary evil. Perfect balance is never going to be possible. More spec series options would be a more obtainable fix just like how real life “balances” drivers in series like mx5 cup, radical sr10 racing, praga cup etc.
Still play GT4 on a PS2 sometimes with the same safe since 2004 or so i started with it. Now i never skip the intro, the song is pure gold.
Those games always had phenomenal music.
The whole reason why I begged my mom one day as a little kid to put in a certain CD into the CD player of our vehicle, bc that CD had GT4's "Panama" song as one of its tracks 😆😆
I just don't see myself enjoying any of the newer AAA racers when I could just go back and play all the good old shit. One new game I'm excited for is night runners since ive played the demo, and that was really good
I'll have to check that out
@@TheCouch-Co-Op It's a spiritual successor to the Tokyo Xtreme Racer games.
Remember Ridge Racer, nfs pro street and shift 1 & 2?
I will never fully understand the in-depth complaints, ending on "I still buy those AAA games" - hating them and still buying them just makes sure the companies behind those will never change. Why the hell should they? And with them - the industry itself will never change. It just means digging your own pit. As well as for everybody else.
they are an idiot who can't help themselves.
I do market research for games. I see that when it comes to AAA, sports games or mega franchises like cod you have what's called a seasonal buyer. It's someone who's not super involved but wants to play the game they will pre-order the deluxe editions and play for probably a week at most. They may be the ones that complain but we'll do it all over again when they have the craving.
It is very weird but can you blame them for the longest time you could buy the newest sports game and it was a sure bet that it was going to have better graphics and features in the last.
The problem comes when you have that person who wants to play an F1 game but there's only one game with the drivers and cars he knows and likes. It's the same with 2K monopolizing the NBA license. The solution is to not buy but they feel compelled too in thus we get this cycle
Yep, I personally still play racing games, but the ones that I play are much older. Just the other day, I pulled out the 32x version of Virtua Racer for another go. And I love the Moto Racer games. The most recent racing game that I own is Nitronic Rush and that was definitely not a AAA studio game, even though you really wouldn't notice.
I've been saying that for a decade.
The last AAA racing game I bought at full price was Forza 7. I bought Horizon 4 during a steam sale years after it came out tried it and got bored in about 30 minutes. I was almost tempted with GT7 but I remembered being burnt by GT5/6 buying a ps3 just for them and just hating what they had become.
The last racing games I ever put decent hours into are Forza 4 and the first Horizon game. After that really nothing ever made me wanna play as much. Like I've pretty much dropped racing games completely now and the only thing close to it that I play is ETS2/ATS.
During the PS1/PS2 eras I played so many racing games and even that continued on when I got an Xbox 360 with Forza2/3/4/Horizon.
Genki recently announced they are making a new TXR game and I'm gonna be honest thats the most excited I've been for a racing game in years. I've never really liked the NFS games at all, but like every Genki Racing Project game I've loved. I've still got japanese copies of TXR3, the kaido battle games and the lesser known C1 Racing battle. All have slightly wonky physics but have a great gameplay loop and amazing car customistaion. So I honestly can't wait to get back onto the wangan again to battle some wanderers.
Really the gutting of the AA industry killed a lot of the smaller more interesting racing games. Even Capcom had Automobelista which was such a cool game with great car customistaion and a unique artstyle for a racing game.
Now all you really have is AAA Slop full of MTX and fomo. Or just full on sim racing that requires a wheel setup to even enjoy. I know there are some indie projects both for touge and highway racing but none of them seem to be developing at a decent pace. I know AC is also meant to be amazing for being almost a big sandbox in what you want to do but again the wheel is a hard requirement. I know this as I attempted to try using a controller with it and just could never get it to a decent point.
I think what people miss is the fact that racing games much like other genres became a victim of Esports thought. Where if the player makes money streaming these games, well the developer will make money from that free exposure and focus on that player base. So its become a game of exposure. The majority will be excluded from these choices because in the eyes of devs the majority doesnt bring in money.
That's just a subset of player retention. They lean into esports aspects because it drives (no pun intended) player retention and playtime. Esports are far too volatile and expensive for any corporation to actually want to be invested in them. It's ultimately just advertising and "inspiration" for casual players to play the game more to feel like they have a shot at making gaming a career. More playtime = bigger numbers to show to happy shareholders and more chance at you clicking on the store to buy a skin or seasonal pass.
That's probably it, ever since Star Craft companies have been delivering games with that intention. Star Craft 2 was absolutely horrible if you weren't into esports or multiplayer as they completely destroyed the singleplayer experience for the sake of having it balanced for competitive multiplayer. Not to mention that Diablo 3 didn't even have an offline singleplayer option because they wanted you to play online so badly.
Personally, I still love playing the older game, although they can be somewhat hard to get your hands on due to the licensing agreements for the cars often times expiring and needing to be renegotiated. I'm not sure the studios really want to do it as they'd rather sell a new game
@@SALEENS7GTR5 You should tell Blizzard, they pretty much completely destroyed the singleplayer campaign for Star Craft 2 just to have something that would be useful for esports.
BeamNG Drive truly is a game made with passion for people who have passion.
Profile pic made me to a double take.
Its great at what it does but its a sandbox, not a game. Not even in 2024
assetto corsa is a better exemple
Good video. I'm 42 and played mostly racing games in the 90's.
I would softly argue that the original Nascar Racing from papyrus and Need For Speed 1 games are the actual catalysts for mainstream simcade titles. What Grand Turismo did was legitimized them on consoles by basically being better in almost every way, and NOT on PC.
True!
I still play nascar 1. Doing a championship with 100% race length with all the extra tracks and names/team colours.
Man, Im so glad they're making Wreckfest 2
Gotta play Wreckfest.
ANOTHER WREKCFEST PLAYER SPOTTED, I HAVE TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE SUCH NICE TASTE IN RACING GAMES AND I APPRECIATE THAT 🔥🔥🔥
@@Pepe_theFrog404
@@TheCouch-Co-Op Dude, you're missing out if you like racing games and you haven't played Wreckfest. It's a pretty modest game in terms of scope, but the handling is a perfect blend of arcade and simulation, and the damage modelling is very good. Online races are very fun and it's still pretty easy to find active servers.
@@Pepe_theFrog404wanna play wreckfest togheter?
Also, as an avid car guy and Beamng fan, the graphics in the game are amazing, it gets updated every 3 (ish) months and theres plenty of amazing community made mods (a lot are free), the graphics are okay by modern standerds (the clips you saw in the video were mostly from the trailers taken 4 years ago) and the best part is the vehicle damage. It is THE most realisitic damage simulator, allowing the frame and body to be seperated, the entire body crunches and bends with every crash, theres simulated technical damage (piston rings can get damage due to a lack of oil) and driveshafts/axles can get obliterated, paralyzing your car. The driving physics are really good too, besides a lack of drafting and tire thermals (tires heating up giving more traction) but there are community made mods for that, the devs are also car guys and they listen to the community, plus theres a huge range of cars to choose from (each car has different variations, such as a hatchback having an electric version, race/rally versions and sport versions/AWD and FWD versions). I really recommend Beamng.Drive, but it is very hard to run.
That's an insane amount of detail for sure.
Also every car actually handles differently in a noticeable way, unlike games like GTA V.
It isnt that hard to run, i think its just a bit annoying with all the missing textures and stuff
screw damage, the physics are fully simulated. Turning the wheel actually moves the steering linkage which in turn moves the wheel. Clutch slippage, ABS simulation, power steering simulation, industry leading automatic transmission simulation, the list goes on.
Ah, WRC. i bought that game, they announced the kernel anti cheat the next day, i refunded the game. i run linux so the game would stop working when that came online. i just found my copy of richard burns rally and played that instead.
Looks like you never played Grand Turismo 7. The game has drastically changed since release. The micotransactions are only limited to 4 different credit amounts, and you dont need to buy anything. All DLC has been free and playing it on VR is one of the most incredible racing experiences you can have.
Yeah I agree, I don't think he has tried it. GT7 is actually amazing.
Really? They've improved it that much? I remember EVERYBODY complaining about it
@wafflemale That was only for the first few months of release, and it was mostly bashed for its poor payout amounts pre race. It's now easier than ever to earn credits.
The game is amazing now, and the VR mode has to be seen to be believed.
I guess first impression matters
even none racing game players played the games from the 6th generation, i played Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition Remix for so many hours yet i was never a car guy
Exactly !
@@TheCouch-Co-Op I personally think it's really odd that you're playing up the car culture thing when that's a much more recent aspect of the genre. Most of the early games and through much of the '90s didn't have recognizable cars. I think a lot of that had to do with a combination of resources to model cars in a way that varied between the models and the attention to sign the deals.
There probably was some element of that, but for most of the time frame that these games existed, it was playing at home against yourself or whichever buddies had time to come over. A lot of these systems couldn't even do network gaming, so no LAN parties either.
Along with BeamNG, i think Assetto Corsa (heavily modded of course) is one of the best examples of racing games BY the community, the ammount of FREE content (quality may vary) you can download with mods (along with obv CSP and Sol), greatly increses the game experience, physics, weather (the rain mod is absolutely amazing btw, almost feels like DriveClub) unlike any other game. I think Assetto Corsa Evo will be fine (if they keep their promise with modding).
DriveClub has such great graphics too.
SONY made a huge mistake closing DriveClub!!! The launch was rough but they turned it around! Still play the game on my PS5.
He was a real racist 😂 and a racer 😂
Top 5 Racists
facts
The fastest racist
casual or competitive?
@@ChandlerMakesVidya PROFESSIONAL RACIST
Great video, spot on. As an indie racing game developer, this hits extremely close to home. I'm working on a simcade game but it's been painful to balance because I get an incredible amount of mixed feedback, both from racing veterans and from newbies: now it's realistic, now it's arcade. Now it's good, now it's bad.
First and last simcade game I'm working on in my life. After this one, I'll be back to hyper arcade and as far from realistic as possible.
Godspeed soldier
have two selectable physics engines i believe the old need for speed games had cheat codes for rail driving.
I feel like we are living in a “Twilight Zone” episode. There is no way I’m watching a video documenting Midnight Club LA like it’s history. Blows my mind. I remember beating it over a weekend when I was in high school.
Just the fact that FM4 seems, even today, like something more appealing that FM8 tells you all you need to know about the industry.
I stopped buying racing games from big studios about 6 years ago. I now play BeamNG, Assetto corsa, RBR, and whatever's good in indie territory (and there's plenty these days).
I started playing older games again too, dusting off my ps3 for GT5/6, plannin to buy a RGH Xbox 360 for FM4.
I think sims are fun, i think arcade games are fun. A game that's shaped by corporate people, that's not even capable of outperforming now decade old, previous installments of itself, AND has the audacity to be listed for more money, *WHILE HAVING MORE THINGS TO BUY* to get the complete experience is indeed, UNfun.
That's unfortunately not limited to games, and it's really reminding me of Dankpods "tech that let me down" series. The general enshittification of products these days is global, and i can't believe things havent already gone to shit.
It's a shame
Another Recommendation for the PS3 is Sly Collection.
"enshittification" will be added to my vernacular lol
I feel the need to point out two honourable mentions. Assetto Corsa is a proper sim, ie realistic physics, but with content manager it’s pretty accessible and the modding community is insane, keeping the game alive for over 10 years now - thousands of cars and tracks.
And on the other side, secondly, project cars 2. More accessible physics but still realistic yet more forgiving (ie simcade) but with arguably the best single player experience with a wonderful career mode.
PC2 has been so slandered but it was actually a great all-round general purpose sim
@@user-ez3sj8hm8i It's particularly wonderful if you're on the fence about sims. First thing I played on my wheel other than Forza and I couldn't go back. Ended up building a PC to get a full sim experience
I played McRae 04 and TOCA 2 extensively in my childhood. They were HARD but finally passing the championships and unlocking cars felt so good.
I beat Toca Race Driver 2. And I agree. It is hard. I got rammed so hard by one of the opponents at the final race in the final lap when I braked, and I lost my entire Back Wheel on my F1 car. I was so mad
I beat Toca 2 with a keyboard as a kid. For the time, graphics were awesome.
I learnt about the existence of Surfers Paradise there, and never found again in a game.
But I'll remember a thing forever: the game often proposed two different race to choose from to proceed. At one point, race A was Aston Martin 1 vs 1 on the snow, and race B was a truck race. Me, already a car addicted, jumped on race A. And found that... snow was EXTREMELY slippery for my skill (and keyboard control). After countless retrays, I've chosen the truck race and won with ease... still disappointed though.
RIP drive club & GRID 1 , criminally underrated and forgotten about games that were so insanely innovative and made with pure passion
Micro machine's was a brilliant little racer
So many fun games from that period.
"Casual vs competitive gaming hit the racing genre first." You know what other video game issue hit the racing game genre first? Buying a game not meaning owning it (The Crew).
I think one sub-genre of racing games that is often missed out, that technically doesn't have cars but is still about racing, is the anti-gravity racing genre (Wipeout, Redout, BallisticNG, etc.).
I like how you included Mario Kart to this video as well, a lot of racing games UA-camrs are very dismissive of that game since it was essentially a "Mario" game whatever that means.
Yeah it's gotta have some at least passing mention
Entire video and not once a mention of Assetto Corsa. Even without mods, it's a better racing game than Forza Motorsport on console. And before that, there was Test Drive Unlimited on PC. I feel like you have ignored them to fit you narrative for this video. But I can't hate any promotion for BeamNG.
THIS! ^
You might even try iRacing, but AC is a bit better and a better value
AC is born as an hardcore sim, something made to be experienced with decent wheel and pedals. Apart for iRacing and ACC, there are a ton of sim games not mentioned in the video.
rF (the AC before AC), rF2, LMU, AMS/AMS2, the older GTR/GTR2, RACE07, NetkarPro, and sure I'm missing others.
But this is ok: sim racing is a niche of racing games. If racing games in general would be better, more people will do the jump to try a more focused sim.
Bro first TDU came out in 2006. That's 18 years ago.
Always sad when one of the most unique ones, Trackmania is never mentioned in these retrospectives.
Me and plenty of simmers just play Assetto Corsa with the endless available mods and it's better than most modern stuff releasing.
Remember when some of the greatest racers of all time werent even car games? Sled Storm, Wipeout, ATV offroad fury, Pure.
Yes!
WipEout HD Fury, great anti-grav racer
Hydro Thunder, those boating beauties!
Mx vs ATV.
I remember when I got my Xbox One, Forza Motorsport 5 came with it. The game was fun, had some of the best graphics for the time, and I thought it was cool as hell. Then Forza Horizon 3 came out, and I loved that game. Over time, it became the thing of just... it's the same game year in, year out. It's the same thing as Madden, 2K, or the UFC games, but at least those have significant roster changes (usually). Hopefully racing game devs start figuring out how to make them feel interesting again, I'd actually love to see good new flying or boating racing game.
A new Hydro Thunder would go crazy
The games are boring because there is no goal. There is lacking a campaign or something like that. If there is no purpose why bother keeping playing?
I honestly feel like, Gran Turismo really paved the way for not just games, but also car culture in general. It’s like the Top Gear of video games.
It even clashed nicely with Top Gear, which was very British/Eurocentric, and Gran Turismo (especially 1 and 2) was very Japanese-centric, but both had a huge profitable American market.
This is why I know what a Lagonda is, or a Cappuccino, or a Calsonic Skyline, or that the ‘Austin Princess was the first vehicle with concealed windscreen wiper spindles,” or that a Gen 1 Viper was impossible to control if the only options are full throttle and no throttle.
I tend to revisit Wreckfest from time to time because it’s a breath of fresh air for me in the racing game genre
3:41 Gran Turismo was a game about cars.
Racing games were about racing back then, as they are now. iRacing isn't about cars, it's about racing. And the same goes for all the simulation games out there. It's about racing.
people gotta give more love and attention to funselektor, he's been carrying car games for a while now with the hidden gem that is art of rally.
Holy crap, a "racing games suck" video that actually explains stuff in depth instead of moping for 30 minutes like they're trying to be SomeOrdinaryClickbait?
thank you.
Iv just spent a year trying sim racing full on.
The community is completely asinine.
They are never happy, constantly fighting, full of whales, and generally the worst of the gaming community.
Sim communities can be a mixed bag.
Thats all genre of games 😂 this whole internet age is people that are never satisfied, always want what they dont have, and just plain cry about everything from graphics, physics, the development…everything
If a community/fandom is talked about on the internet, it'll have all these said issues except the Smash Bros community. They got pedos lol
The funny thing about drawing the distinction between "racing games" and "motorsports games" is the same divide exists in real life. There's plenty of overlap, of course, but lots of car guys who enjoy modding cars and going to meets don't care about organized racing, and lots of professional racers don't care about street cars, no matter how fast.
great video and i hope game studios see this. i feel like racing games have steered away from arcade-y fun because mario kart dominates that market but the problem is that mario kart only exists on one platform so the majority of gamers can't even play it. there are tons of indie racing games that are fun but just lack in content and budget to really make an awesome game. im looking forward to test drive unlimited solar crown, i hope it is good
it's a real shame. I just want old OG racing games to be refreshed and remastered tbh everything else nowadays is the same old lol
Gran Turismo 7 had a terrible economy at launch. But future updates upped the pay for a lot of events, so you can get decent amounts of money grinding events. There's even weekly challenges that often give out a lot of money and rewards for doing them. Still, $20,000,000 cars are still bullshit and I don't care how Polyphony justifies it. That being said, I still highly recommend GT7 even on the PS4. Or if you want a classic, then play Gran Turismo 4 on PCSX2 and there's a mod coming out soon called Spec II. It's basically an overhaul of the entire game.
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit on the computer was one of my first games. It had an R129 SL600 and my parents have the same generation model, but it was an SL500. Since then, I was enamored by racing games and cars. Then I got a PS2 and played Midnight Club, Gran Turismo, Burnout, and Tokyo Xtreme Racer. They really shaped my preferences in things like music. I love electronic music because of the early Need for Speed games. Racing games were basically all I ever played until I made a Steam account. I never really wanted to be a professional driver, but fantasized about street races in exotics or tuner cars.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles really was the peak of arcade racers. The street racing vibe was there, and there were all kinds of car classes so you get to try out different types of cars at least once. The customization was also spectacular, only really matched by GTA Online. MC:LA's handling model is also one of my favorites in an arcade racer. It's weighty and grippy. I really want another Midnight Club game, but GTA just makes too much money for them to care. Midnight Club still canceled soz.
12:43 My Supra :)
I really miss mid-range racing games. There was a lot more creativity and variety in the PS2 days and Xbox 360 days. Some indie games do capture the magic of that era, like Night-Runners. I love the atmosphere of 90s street racing in Japan like Tokyo Xtreme Racer. NR also has amazing customization and soundtrack. I definitely recommend anyone try it out. The Prologue is free, so literally anyone can play it, but you better add it to your Steam library before the dev unlists it and releases another demo. I backed up NR on Kickstarter because I liked what I played.
Need for Speed: Unbound is a very good arcade racer and I do highly recommend the game. It got a lot of flak for its artstyle and soundtrack, but it's trying to do something unique and set a tone. It doesn't help that it's not Most Wanted 2005 or Underground, and there is no pleasing that crowd no matter what. Unfortunately, EA keeps cannibalizing Criterion for Battlefield, but the team that remains are actually improving the game a lot with updates. The most recent one added drag racing and a whole new drift handling model. Usually the modern NFS games don't get much support (RIP Heat).
The Burnout series probably really shaped what I wanted in games: figuring out the best way to destroy things. My first Burnout game was Takedown. It features a crash mode (first introduced in 2: Point of Impact) where you are given an intersection to crash into and cause the most damage. It was a destruction puzzler, and I wanted more games like that not just limited to Burnout.
Online only games shouldn't die because a bean counter says they should. stopkillinggames(dot)com
Real!
@@TheCouch-Co-Opyeah I have too much to say about racing games lol
I love me some car games
@TheCouch-Co-Op A new update for NFS Unbound just came out, a new Tokyo Xtreme Racer game just got announced, Night-Runners Prologue is free on Steam right now, and some other indie racing games are being made/already came out. I'd say racing games aren't quite dead yet.
I miss Blur. I remember the commercial that would play during the NBA playoffs, mocking Mario Kart as a Baby's game
im suprised you didnt mention Wreckfest,it is an arcade racer but definetely one of the most fun games i've played in years,pretty cheap and a seemingly even better sequel on the way,while it is more focused on destruction,the feel of being in first place on the final lap while there is a bus heading straight towards you and someone behind you constantly trying to smash you off the road is very enjoyable,while the multiplayer is center between casual and competitive,there is no ranking or matchmaking,you just find a good server and roll with it,trying to drive as good as you can,or taking a bus,doing a 180 at the start and destroying the people driving normally,not for the sake of winning,but for fun.
nothing beats the feeling of sitting on your sofa, driving around the corner and seeing nothing but the fronted of a reinforced american school bus
and by nothing beats the feeling i mean that wreckfest should be categorized as a horror game
I fully support calling motor-sports racism and motor sport athletes racists.
"Welcome back to the Indy 500 in the world of Racism!"
"Yes Tom, we have quite the diverse crowd of racists here tonight!"
"And quite the large crowd of racism fans in the audience, Jim!"
"A beautiful warm sunny day, perfect for racism!"
As an owner of Gran Turismo 7, a lot of work has been done w/r/t making the game much more enjoyable, especially when it comes to making cash. It's reached the point where I firmly believe GT7 is better compared to every major racing title released since. Yet despite all that, you can find a good number of people, reviewers, youtubers, etc. who still think it's an awful game, even with all the patches and balance changes. If that's not an indication of how far this genre has sunk, I don't know what is.
I think one thing about racing games and car culture is that car culture itself is in severe decline. Cars aren't cool anymore. They're anonymous egg-shaped pods with wheezy turbo fours that spy on you or even more anonymous egg-shaped pods with EV platforms that are shared between multiple automakers. They're too heavy, they're too expensive, they're too complicated, traffic keeps getting worse, their controls have been numbed by electronic interference, the things that make them safer for the people inside them make them less safe for the people outside them, and every time people work on one way they pollute it exacerbates another way they pollute. Cars are increasingly disliked nowadays--how many normal people still want to play a game about them? Likewise, combat flight sims have become increasingly obscure and obtuse games for neckbeards, at the same time the romance has drained out of real combat aviation and fighter jets are more known for killing babies in the Middle East than chivalrous dogfights between officers. Do kids who grow up on news reports on Israeli atrocities in Palestine think "I want to fly an F-35 one day"? Of course not!
I haven't really played GTA though I have played Saints Row, but the whole GTA style of game never seemed like a "racing game" to me, but rather a "crime game", or a "gangster game", where cars were only one part of the fantasy of being an organized crime kingpin.
Car culture as a whole is a dying culture. Even videos games recognize this, as why they’ve abandoned the fans and the grassroots racing scene as a whole and all racing games have focused on open world super car driving, f1/HyperCard and chasing laps with them and graphics. Racing games have been catering to casuals who arent car people, and drool allover Hyper cars for a decade now.
Racing Games where always about the public image of those Racing scenes not the Racing Scene with the excemption of SimRacing. And that simple ran it's course with the Fast and Furious overexposure. Like in Forza Horizion the enthusiast hype is all about the Miatas and affordable Tuner cars. Not boring hyper cars. Sim Racing should be it's separate Video not mixed in here with Mario Cart and F-Zero.
The problem with modern racing games is that they're all trying to be realistic simulators, whereas only handful that come out are just arcade racers with simplistic (or non-existent) damage model, i.e. those that are actually fun to play. If I wanted to drive a real car, I'd just get behind the wheel and drive.
That's why I'm happy that there are quite a few Outrun-style games lately as well as seemingly top down racers (think Micro Machines) make come back as well. We should go back to making fun arcade racers where physics is secondary to the raw fun of driving.
GT7. Haven’t spent a penny since I bought it. My only issues with the game are the suboptimal AI we have right now.
Real
This man mentioned everything, from midnight to NASCAR to even small details and how corporate meddling ruined the racing genre. And I love it. He went into so much detail that even I, someone who plays a lot of racing games, not to mention a fan of a lot of kinds of motorsport, didn’t even know. Thanks for making such a masterpiece.
woman*
Don’t forget about the NASCAR video game downfall… let’s hope iracing makes a good game for 2025
Hope that Indycar game is good
I'm being playing gt7 for the las year and a half, and never feel the need to spend any money on it. What is exactly the reason people complain so much about the micro transactions in the game??
Because they don't actually play the game
9:54 this will haunt Wirtual till the end of his life, is it?
I'd take fun over realism any day with video games. Racing games went hard into the 'realism' angle.
midnight club, burnout, split second, blur
there is still is a desire for arcade racers but get neglected regardless
need for speed is now on there third studio (criterion) after closing both black box and ghost
forza motorsport was garbage
the crew games are online only and get delisted
gt7 is solid but no pc port
forza horizon has no actual single player progression since 1
I miss my racing games mannnn
Rip The Crew
And MotorStorm and Driveclub, dead because Evolution Studios was shut down by Sony
try wreckfest, second game was recently announced and the online scene of the frist game is still pretty active while the offline mode gave me a good 60h of entertainment
Blur was so much fun, I bought an external dvd-rom for my modern(ish) pc just so I can fire it up once in a while.
beamng has PLENTY of catches. it's a barren sandbox playground first, a crash simulator second, and i don't know if you can even ever call it a racing game. it's just a car game. i bought it, and i couldn't enjoy it because of that.
There are literally AI races in the game, and the vehicle handling is very satisfying. It may not be a racing game, but you can make it one.
I don't know what you are talking about. I am 50 years old, been gaming for about 40 years now. GT7 is the best racing game i played in my life. Even nostalgia doesn't do it for me. I cringe when looking at old racing games i liked. It's all about the physics of the driving and yes the graphics. I don't care about micro transactions and content. Content for me is: different races created weekly on the same 20-30 tracks. Racing has never been better in the racing games history.
I'm 40, I recently started playing around with psx emulation on the steam deck. I started playing news for speed high stakes all over again and am having more fun with it than I did with fh5. It has something that I find lacking with modern racing games. Also most racing games have become SLOW!
I think the biggest problem with racing games, the more realistic ones anyway, is licensing contesting game preservation & availability.
Blur was one of my favorite games !
Blur was so slept on it's a shame
Ah Blur, my first PS3 game
I worked on _Need For Speed (PS1)_ and this is a _very_ well done mini-documentary! You've summarized all the main the issues perfectly.
i.e. The heart and soul of racing games got sold out for microtransactions.
A couple of minor thoughts:
* I would have liked to seen a slight discussion on rubberbanding and how it:
a) positively impacts Mario Kart (everyone has a chance of catching up) and
b) negatively impacts simcades like _Gran Turismo_ (the AI cheats)
I asked Wei (our physics programmer) at the time about why there was rubberbanding for both AI and Players in NFS 1. His answer was: _"Because you could just ram the AI cars off the road and easily win. So we give a slight boost to the players behind to always make the game interesting."_
* You've briefly touched up THE reason Need For Speed was so popular and I agree with that: NFS, pardon the pun, *took the middle of the road between arcade on left and simulation on the right.* Simulations have never really sold well due to their high learning curve. We've seen several genres die over the decades -- the latest causality would probably be the Flight Simulators.
* Car Licensing has played a huge part in the decline of developers making racing games. Small studios can't afford the licensing fees.
* Casual gamers usually don't have the patience to patience to practice over and over unless it is in niche genres like rogue-likes and Souls-like games.
When we did the car interiors for Need For Speed PS1 there was a bit of an internal discussion about how much time should be spent on them. The team was pretty divided!
* Some people LOVED the extra detail,
* Some people NEVER view the interiors. We were too busy using the bumper cam and racing. 🙂
Minor Point: 25:30 Verstappen was talking about RF2, not iRacing
yes
What puts me off 99% of racing games is multiplayer is filled with idiots that ram you off track the instant you pass them.
The problem is simple: studios want you to buy the game that meets their business plan, versus a game you actually want. Reenforcing their desire is the reality that consumers have participated in their schemes, especially the “whale syndrome” of a small number of obsessive individuals who make up a significant portion of micro-transaction revenue. The model distorts everything because even if the normal consumer hates micro-transactions, they still make money, so they aren’t going away.
Triple A gaming is in a bad place right now, and it’s getting worse. The technology has gotten better, but the cost of building complex games on complex platforms has skyrocketed. One bad release can sink a smaller studio, and larger studios have become exceedingly risk averse. Throw in a lot of toxic ideological nonsense being festooned into games, and the near-term prospects for the games industry looks pretty terrible.
funny that richard burns rally flopped but is still one the most highly regarded rally "sims" of all time for it's physics and has an active community to this day. Definitely appealed to them enthusiasts.
If I'm going to be completely honest here and it might sound controversial but, I don't really like modern racing games. Let me explain.
*Read more*
You got me
Your low-key super smart, I like the way you present everything and its not just "oh I hate modern games" is really a "each game has its purpose and purposeful games we are now losing those games leading to a decrease of quality games"
GT7 is honestly amazing,
All the micro transactions stuff is click bait, yes you can buy in game money but idk how lazy you would need to be to do that.
10/10 game will be remembered as one of the greats.
Gt7 is nothing compared to assetto corsa for PC. Modding makes console gaming obsolete.
the mtx are annoying
@@TheCouch-Co-Opthen ignore them. It's not like they're popping up in your face
@@ITSMRFOXY 3/10 ragebait. Come on now! be better :)
@@ITSMRFOXY
Lmao ACC simgrid seasons is on console - cross platform actually - and yes, it's about racing. Not some car design mod BS
I think one of the biggest problems with new racing games is the obsession with simulation. A good sim is fun but it's extremely hard to develop and not everyone wants to learn how to drive a sim/buy a wheel. Even the arcade games like need for speed have tried to take more sim focused handling changes that have resulted in confusing and bizarre handling models that are stuck in between sim and arcade. As a whole, a lot of arcade games have terrible handling models as a result and a lot of studios have attempted to create sims without the proper resources or time
0:21 Should've put this clip on a slow-mo repeat, that car didn't "Just" hit the breaks, it teleported in place with it's momentum instantaneously set to 0. Like a prop losing it's controller rather than a legitimate entity, which is reinforced by the way the other vehicles just... clip right through it.
That's not how you program racing opponents on modern hardware, that's how you program racing opponents in a 1980s early 3D game running on an Intel 8086 where giving non-player cars physics would set your CPU on fire.
OG driver/racer here. Grew up playing Test Drive, Outrun and Need For Speed. I am into ALL of the above mentioned car games. Where I feel this genre fell of course was when they introduced the open-world dynamic. Sure, the freedom was nice, but what (else) was the point? NFS & Midnight Club started it, and somewhere along the way, these games lost their way. Arguably FH4 was when the open world concept finally came full circle. FH4 reminded me of the original NFS games. To your point, now the devs are resting on selling graphics rather than fun car/driving/racing games or simulators. The peak for NFS for me was High Stakes and Porsche Unleashed. Gran Turismo was AMAZING when it first debuted, but are you really going to make me spend hours getting a license every single time???? If devs focussed on the WHY of their game rather than the what & how, these new games would have a better purpose.
No game has quite hit the vibe of Need For Speed Underground 2 ever since it came out. Forza Horizon games have come somewhat close, but at this point I'm just waiting for the RTX Remix mod for Underground 2 to get done...
have u seen tufu tho
@@ninjaskillzyt tufu?
real
Underground 2 and midnight club dub edition were awesome
Assetto Corsa seems to be the only racing game we’ll ever need from here onwards 😅
I like to think of BeamNG as the Gmod of racing games
It kind is XD
For me personally, Wreckfest semi-clean C-class servers are just about the best door to door racing you can get and I have tried it all and with Wreckfest 2 coming out, the servers are full!
Keep doing what you’re doing guys! The views will come! Love this channel wishing the best
Thanks so much!!
STILL waiting on a better racing game than F-Zero GX. Nothing ever since has come even CLOSE.
FORD GT MENTIONED 🎉🎉
My dream car.
@ 19:40 "so, you can pick your poison," you only gave us two choices, and they both stink. There IS a third choice: you can run emulation and play all the best classic, monetization free, race car games out there...
I don’t buy them, modded assetto corsa dominates all
Yup
Not everyone can mod AC. And even if they could, you can't mod in the vibe.
Racing games peaked in 2000s, you want good racing game play any racing game from the 2000s
I can list up to 100 of good 2000s racing games that are better than every racing game we have today
honestly? it sucks. everything is either hyper arcade or trying to be a sim- no "Games" that are in the middle like forza, project gotham, gran turismo used to be. PGR is dead, forza and gt are larping as esports, competitive nerds sucked the fun out of asphalt, mario kart, etc. everything else is a sim that has 0 fun in it like ACC, beamNG, and so forth. beamng in particular is basically undrivable without a racing wheel setup thats several hundreds (or thousands depending on currency) of your hard earned money. assetto corsa can be a players game to be almost anything- but the fact its a sim ruins it for anyone without a super fancy setup.
imo? it isnt the corporate greed, it isnt bad devs,
its streaming and content creator culture. theyve made everything and i mean EVERYTHING heavily compettive and ruined not just racing games but FPS and other genres too.
I miss PGR so much.
i disagree with most of your points icl
Word of mouth is very powerful. Just as an example NFS Heat when it initially came out did have some positive reception but the grand majority despised it because that was the popular opinion to have at the time. Months after Unbound's release it is now regarded as one of the greatest Need For Speed titles to have ever come out. Sure Heat has better quality of life features and its no bs user experience is something that Unbound shouldn't have messed with, but the game hasn't changed after 4 years. Unbound is simply the new target.
@@ToaGresh300 never met a single person to like unbound. More dlc than there is game. Not to mention online is impossible to start in as a newbie since none does low class races
Just a tip regarding beamng, there's a lot of controller options that make it actually easier to play with a controller than with an actual wheel. Source: I play a lot of sim racing titles on a full setup but actually find beamng to be more fun on a controller as a laid-back couch game 😅
Most games are only cash grabs now compared to passion into a single game. Racing games is where it hurts most for me..
Once nfs goes back to its glory days. We’ll have some amazing racing games. Example being nfsmw 2005, hot pursuit, rivals, and almost every old nfs games. This could be said to any team that makes racing games. You should have customization and modification for cars, but… it shouldn’t be so complex to make it unnecessary to even play any other cars. Maybe you could change the paint, spoiler, or rims, but now we have full fledged customization and modification. Now don’t get me wrong, I know there’s people out there that love that, but there’s people that want a reason to try different cars. If you can just modify a car to another car, then what’s the point of trying the other car?
100%. People should be able to forge a unique relationship with their cars!
Rivals and Hot pursuit had very little modifications tho.
@@joshuaandrewson3091 Hot Pursuit 2010/Remastered only had paint choices if racer, no customization if cop.
@@MrShadow1617 2010 hot pursuit is where the series lost me
this is by far one of the best videos documenting the decline of racing games without the necessant whining about certain things like the music choices in nfs unbound. however i will say majority of the community at this point has gone delusional about the things they want in games and it's become more of a pyschological thing that companies have to take into consideration now.
Most fun racing game today that i have played is Wreckfest!!
Realistic? No not so much, but the cars handling and dynamic is fun.
Never had so much fun crashing and losing 😆
Microtransactions , DLC, DLC, update update patch patch patch...
Online only, cannot access the main game OFFLINE (looking at you GT)
It's a mundane drag (excuse the pun) these days
I miss the old days, of just popping in the disc and Bobs your uncle