PixlBit

My favorite early 80s racing game was The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, a racing game published for the Atari 8-bit computers by Activision. It was designed by the guy who made ATVI's 2600 racing game Enduro, so it bears a certain resemblance. You raced across the US from the West Coast to the East Coast, having to deal with driving conditions, changing traffic patterns, making sure you didn't run out of gas, and the police, where you either had to get your speed down to the 60s or try and outrun them. It was a precursor to games like OutRun and Cruis'n USA, and was inspired by a 1981 movie called Cannonball Run.

In the Namco vs. Sega arcade wars of the late 90s, I generally preferred Sega's offerings (one notable exception was Tekken 3, which was a better game than VF3). I did get Ridge Racer R4, sans the Jogcon. It actually had a catchy soundtrack. Nintendo kind of outdid both of them, not with Cruis'n USA, but Wave Race 64.

These days, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has largely spoiled me for any other racing game. I never could get into the Gran Turismo/Forza style of racing sim, though I did entertain building a sim racing cockpit at one time. One of the guys who was on 1UP had a pretty sweet racing sim cockpit. But at this point, it's hard for me to go back to racing without turtle shells, plumbers, and weird gravity stuff. I also briefly contemplated getting Mario Kart Live.

One other racing game I'd like to mention is Car Wars, which was a TI-99/4a clone of Dodge 'Em and Head On. I played that a fair bit back in the day.

I think there was a Choro-Q game on N64, which is when I first heard ot the toyline.

Enduro was really fun.  Activision sure knew how to make good 2600 games.

As much as I like Namco, I do have to admit SEGA has a better track record with arcade racing games.  

I didn't get Mario Kart 8 Deluxe since I played it to death on the Wii U, but I did get Mario Kart Live.

http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/2020/12/25/mario-kart-live-home-circuit-switch/

Yes the Choro-Q game on N64 was brought to the US as Penny Racers.  But the 3D tracks were really barren and unimaginative.  I liked the Choro-Q Road Trip game on PS2 much more.

Thanks for listening!  --Cary

1. Road Rash 3D (PSone)
2. Destruction Derby 2 (PSone)
3. Diddy Kong Racing (N64)
5. Burnout 1, 2, 3 (Xbox)
6. Forza Horizon 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (X360, XOne, XSX)

Those are the main ones but there were others along the way like Sonic's All-Star Racing (X360), Mayhem (X360). Flatout (Xbox), Pure (X360), and Split/Second (X360). 

The general theme with racing games I like is arcade style, destruction and exploration. I'm not big on simulation racers or pure combat like destruction derby arenas or Twisted Metal style games.  

Yeah my favorites are kart racers and super simple arcade racers.  

I remember when Road Rash was really popular.  When I finally played it on one of the game compilations, I found that it was really choppy!

My friend Mark and I played RR 3D endlessly on PSone. Only later did I find out there were, I think, 3 earlier games on Genesis. I tried one of them but couldn't get too interested. RR 3D was so much better. I believe there was a Sega CD version too that had better sound. 

Yeah Road Rash was really popular for a while.  I'm surprised they haven't tried to remake it yet.  Or maybe they have and I just missed it.

There was a independent game that totally copied RR 3D recently. I forget the name offhand, but I tried it and it wasn't great. They should at least spruce it up and release it in a collection or something. 

I know I've played it on collections, but it wasn't spruced up or anything.

I just bought a copy of Road Rash 3D at the convention I just went to.