Racing & Car Games

Itching for more adrenaline and competition in your life? Racing games are perfect for that. But what if you are a newcomer to the genre who doesn’t really know where to start? Do not fret, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a handy guide which will help you pick some good games all about driving and outrunning your opponents.

What are racing games?

For the most part, racing games are all about the player racing against other contestants or simply time. They involve you driving all sorts of vehicles, ranging from real-life cars (including SUVs and trucks) through planes and boats to all sorts of futuristic vehicles.

Sometimes such games just let you drive around in gorgeous open-world settings, without you having to worry about faring better than your competitors. In general, there are quite a few categories in the genre, including:

• Arcade racing games – forget about realistic driving physics and damage models here, these are all about having pure fun! Make no mistake, though, while you don’t have to struggle controlling your vehicle that much and pulling off sick maneuvers is usually super easy, these titles still require skill and can be really demanding competition-wise! Still, they’re the best entry point to the genre for everyone.
• Kart racing games – these are a separate category of arcade racers, with simple controls, whacky track designs, lots of obstacles, and of course plenty of power-ups that you can use to either gain an upper hand over your opponents or mess with their plans with a carefully timed rocket, for example. The Mario Kart series is the most popular franchise in the genre, known for actually defining it, but there are other great titles in this category, too.
• Futuristic racing games – these too fall into the broad category of arcades. What you can expect here are super-fast-paced competitions, cutting-edge machines, and outlandish tracks. Notable examples include classics such as Wipeout, Rollcage, Powerslide, and Star Wars Episode I: Racer, but there’s a whole bunch of recent futuristic racing games.
• Racing simulators – this category of racing games is aimed at hardcore fans who love ultra-realistic driving physics and damage models. Yeah, these aren’t for the faint of heart! Still, it doesn’t mean they can’t be accessible, though. Usually racing simulators are so customizable that you can turn them into an arcade game with ease. So, even if you’re new to the genre, you can adjust realism and difficulty settings to your skill level and then up the ante the moment you feel ready for more.
• Indie racing games – it’s not necessarily a separate category per se, but we felt it might be a good descriptor for titles which don’t exactly fit the bill. You know, you have all those relaxing drifting simulators or games where the sole objective is to crash your car in the most spectacular way possible, essentially all the releases which kind of steer clear from the traditional formula of the genre.