I’ve found myself playing a lot of racing games lately. Normally these types of games aren’t my thing. I prefer gunfights to car chases and new skills to engine upgrades. That’s not to say I never play them, I just usually find myself playing one of the other genres. I have put some time in with some of more prolific racing franchises out there and I figured I’d share some of my thoughts on these games as a gamer who's lacking the need for speed.

Gran Turismo

Realism = me crashing into walls every few seconds.

Despite near universal acclaim I cannot get into the Gran Turismo series. I just find them way too tedious to hold my interest for too long. Getting the licenses to move forward with the game is a chore. During races I often spend most of my time off the track because I took too wide a turn or didn’t take it widely enough. Either way there’s a level of finesse required that I don’t currently have and don’t really have the patience to obtain.

My friends tell me that the main appeal of this game is the wide selection of cars and the fact that each one drives differently. The developers spend a lot of time making sure the vehicles handle like their real world counterparts. This might appeal to me if I was a car guy but I’m not. Right now I drive a 2001 Chevy Lumina, I will continue to drive it until something important falls off, and then I’ll just buy the cheapest car that still offers air-conditioning and a stereo. It’s hard to get excited about getting a chance to drive the car of your dreams when all you want is one that will get you to where you want to go while listening to music and avoiding the summer heat.

Burnout

Hey guys, check out this wicked jump.

I played the first Burnout back when it was released, I thought it was alright. I liked the concept but nothing really jumped out at me as being anything special. Sure it was fun crashing into people and watching the carnage unfold but that’s all I ever wanted to do. I had no desire to do normal races; I just wanted to cause chaos.

All this changed when I played the Burnout Paradise demo. It was no longer the mildly entertaining vehicular homicide simulator that I knew from before, what I found instead was the closest thing to a next-gen remake of my one of my favorite games: San Francisco Rush. I loved memorizing all the little shortcuts in the city. I found myself actually doing the races and stunt runs instead of just driving 120 mph down the wrong side of the road to see how long it’d take me to hit someone. It’s now one of my favorite games and I wish I could get more people to join me online.

Mario Kart

Then I get hit by a blue shell.

I have only ever played two Mario Kart games before, the original for the SNES and the new one for the Wii. The original holds a fond spot in my heart. I spent several years of my childhood racing with my friends and family and shooting multicolored shells at each other. I’m not sure why I chose to skip the next four installments. They all just became some of the titles in the long list of games that I never got around to playing.

By the time I picked up Mario Kart Wii, I knew some things would be different. New weapons, new characters, and new tracks were to be expected but I wasn’t really prepared for some of the new elements. I had heard of the blue shell before but it wasn’t until I experienced it firsthand that I realized how cheap those things really are. It didn’t stop at the blue shell though; the game is full if instant hit weapons that ruin your lead. While I found myself having fun for the most part but I grew frustrated after I was hit by the following sequence of weapons right before the finish line: blue shell, lightning bolt, blooper, and red shell. After I watched Peach cross the finish line I ejected the disc, put it back on my shelf and haven’t looked at in since.

Wipeout

What’s cooler than hover-cars? Hover-racecars.

This is actually one of my favorite game series ever. In high school my friends and I used to spend hours playing Wipeout XL though the PlayStation system link. After a while I drifted apart from the franchise. I skipped Wipeout 3, I played Wipeout Fusion but it was terrible. Then I just kind of forgot about it for a while, Wipeout Pure came and went without as much as a second thought from me. The series was now little more than a memory in the back of my mind.

Then the footage for Wipeout HD was released. The beautiful new footage and gushing from the fans reminded me of the fun I used to have. I picked up a copy of Pure and Pulse in the hopes of brushing up on my skills before HD came out. After a few races I was reminded of all the things I loved about the series, the fantastic setting, the balanced game play, and the weapons that trip you up rather than annihilate. Now I’m hooked again. My PSP, which used to get little play time, is now my second most played system. Wipeout HD also went from a game that I was just only mildly excited over to one of my most anticipated titles.

There you have it, my thoughts on some of the major racing franchises out today. I avoided franchises that I have little to no experience with, thus the lack of Forza or Need for Speed. Basically my taste in racers boils down to two main points: realism: bad and breakneck thrills: good. Obviously not everyone agrees with this, there are a lot of people that love the Gran Turismo experience and not everyone appreciates Wipeout. This is just the opinions of a gamer that was forced out of the car when he was being taught how to drive a manual car because his instructor was afraid that I was going to ruin his transmission. Hey, it's not my fault, stick shifts are the devil.