UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
If I see another video like this I'm gonna lose it.
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I'M TIRED OF SEEING IT! I've watched these videos, I've scrolled through the comments and all I see is a severe lack of discussion about the good racing games that have released in modern years. Have these people not played Distance? Literally the best racing game of all time. There are more racing games than Forza, Need For Speed, and Gran Turismo!
But Tribow!!!! That's not the only games people complain about! What about other franchises like The Crew, Project Cars, DIRT, GRID, and more!?! They have had bland releases as well as the other franchises! This whole genre sucks now! The only games that are any fun are the racing sims like iRacing and Asetto Corsa! Modern racing games cannot capture the essence of the PS2 era of racing games! It's ruined by corporate greed!
.....
I'm not just making up a strawman, I see the idea that there are no good racing games (especially in the arcade sub-genre) all over the comments of these youtube videos. The videos themselves talk about how racing games just aren't good anymore.
SOMETIMES, they'll talk about the indie scene and how there has been some good racing games coming out of there, but they often get dismissed as games that are too small to scratch the racing game itch due to there smaller budgets and ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!
On what Earth do the indie games offer less content than the AAA slop!?! What, just because the games don't have an open-world, licensed cars, and constant repetitive events that means they have less content? The indies have just as much content without all of that fluff! Besides, the PS2 era of racing games many of these videos talk about have the same or LESS content as the modern indies.
There have been a whole slew of good, great, to AMAZING racing games released within this decade that have completely blown me away several times over. The communities playing these games love them just as much the games from the PS2 era and yet "Modern racing games suck". "Arcade racing is dead". I've had enough! There's nothing wrong with this genre!
Don't believe me? Ok.
We got Trail Out. Released in 2022 as a spiritual successor of sorts to Flat Out. Do you miss those racing games with cool crash physics and are angry that car companies don't let developers go crazy with vehicle damage? Trail Out is right there, as well as Wreckfest which released in 2018. Wreckfest has even more impressive crash physics than Trail Out does. These games have reviewed pretty positively for the most part, but they're slept on.
Miss the old arcade racing scene? There's A BUNCH of indie racers to fill that void and it's not like higher budget games haven't been coming out either. Hotshot Racing (2020 release) is a small quality package of an arcade racer reminiscent of that era.
You got Formula Retro Racing (2020 release) capturing the exact vibe an arcade machine would have centered around, you guessed it, Formula 1.
Inertial Drift (2020 release) is a game jam-packed to the brim with drifting content. Its got the Initial D inspiration, its got bangin eurobeat, it still gets support from its developers, the visuals are stylized as fuck.
New Star GP (2024 release) has a motorsport career mode that people have been eating up. Everyone I know who has touched that game has been saying it's fire.
Hotwheels Unleashed 2 (2023 release) was quite a big improvement over the first game and has way less predatory micro-transactions compared to before. This game isn't mind-blowing or anything, but it genuinely deserved the 2023 Racing Game of the Year award way more than every other nominee because it was a solid release with very little bugs and plays amazingly well. Even though it may cost a little too much ($50 ignoring DLC) it's not like Need For Speed/Forza/Gran Turismo doing any better in that department and those games are WORSE!
Ubisoft sucks unwashed cocks, but they have been keeping Trackmania alive by continuing to publish it. Nadeo still keeps the game alive with updates coming out to this very day. A few months ago they added new cars from previous Trackmania games. The subscription service is a bit cringe, but considering the game is VERY centered around multiplayer I'd say it's tolerable. They have an amazing level editor and the gameplay is still Trackmania so it's still incredible.
I'm not done talking about the classic arcade style games form the modern era. There's a bunch of racing games that go for a top-down view, but still handle just as well if not better than the high budget modern racing games that suck.
Circuit Superstars (2023 release). This game is a love-letter to many different kinds of motorsports. You got cars of all types here: Formula 1, Nascar, GT racing, Supertrucks, One-seaters, Eurotrucks, Rally-cross, Open wheel single seaters, Sprint Cars, and even more. You can race the different cars against each other if you want. The game takes tire wear and weather into account. You gotta do pit-stops. It's practically a sim, but presented in a very arcade way. The same devs even making a go-kart game to represent go-kart as a sport. It's in early access right now and people love it.
Super Woden GP 2 (2023 release) has been highly praised for its fun career mode. There are people saying this game is better than Gran Turismo and it was developed by a single person.
art of rally (2020 release) has been praised to hell and back by fans of Rally racing. It's like it was everything they wanted. The game felt was incredible to control.
Turbo Sliders Unlimited (Early Access) is similar to Circuit Superstars, but without the realism. They got different kinds of cars to mess with and many fun tracks to try. There's a super good level editor and the community has been popping off with the multiplayer.
Mini Motor Racing X (2020 release) is a solid arcade racing release that despite being a small package that is admittedly average in my opinion, it's STILL better than the AAA shlop.
What about the futuristic racing games!?!? Where's the crazy sci-fi, tron, neon, cyberpunk, anti-gravity stuff? Well there's tons of those too.
BallisticNG (2018 release) is an extremely good anti-gravity racer. Wipeout fans have been praising this game for a while now. Out of anything else I mention that is inspired by Wipeout this should be the one to play, but speaking of which.
Redout (2016) and Redout 2 (2022) are super inspired by the Wipeout games. The mixed reviews may scare you a bit, but these games are still pretty good. The sequel didn't meet fan expectations and the game is notoriously very difficult, but it's still a damn good time if you don't mind the difficult. It's visually gorgeous too.
Neodash (2022 release) is a crazy fast survival style racing game with high speed platforming. You'll be trying to keep your momentum along ultra fast levels drifting left and right to stay on track and avoid obstacles. It's a small package and pretty difficult, but cool experience.
Rocket Assault (2023 release) controls nearly the exact same way Rocket League does, but this time you're not hitting a ball around and instead you'll be occasionally shooting down targets with literal rockets while trying to survive each track. It's a pretty difficult game, but Rocket League fans should enjoy this. Speaking of which...
Rocket Racing (2023 release) FUCKING FORTNITE released a competent arcade racing video game. Personally, I do not think the game is good mechanically and it was a disappointment to see Rocket League's original mechanics dumbed down this hard. HOWEVER, it's better than a lot of the AAA competitors! Fortnite's community can do some wild stuff with it because of that level editor. I'm not gonna sit here and deny that the game is competent just because I don't like it.
Super Pilot (2018 Early Access) is the game that ACTUALLY plays like F-Zero GX. Some of the other games I've mentioned have been called F-Zero clones even though they play more like Wipeout, but Super Pilot is meant to feel just like F-Zero X/GX and it succeeds at that. Not only does it nail the gameplay pretty well, its got a neat level editor to mess with. Super Pilot still receives updates to this day. I'm excited to see it completed.
Grip: Combat Racing (2018 release) is a fantastic release that unfortunately hit its peak with multiplayer years ago. While that playerbase isn't quite there anymore, Grip remains as one of the coolest concepts a combat racing game has ever pulled off. Even if the online doesn't pop off anymore, you can still do local co-op if you want.
FAST RMX (2017 release) goes hard. For you Nintendo Switch users out there, there's a racing game that y'all should have been clamoring over. It doesn't play like F-Zero and it's not quite like Wipeout either, but it stands on its own as an extremely cool anti-grav racing game. I wish FAST RMX wasn't locked to that one console because it's amazing.
Remember the game I mentioned at the beginning? Yeah. Distance? THE BEST RACING GAME OF ALL TIME. I'm not just memeing I quite literally have 5000+ hours in that game I love it that damn much. Distance is a survival arcade racing platformer game that feels fucking amazing to play. Probably the only racing game you'll ever see daring to have sci-fi horror vibes. It's aesthetically immaculate and the gameplay is such a unique experience. The car can jump, rotate, and fly around. It has insane freedom of movement. This may sound kinda like Rocket League, Hotwheels Unleashed, or Neodash, but Distance has a different feel to it compared to those games. Plus, Distance is more or less a sequel to Nitronic Rush, which released in 2011. Its mechanics predates the other games you can compare to it.
Distance isn't just some small package of an indie game though. It's huge. The Arcade mode has over 100 levels to play. There's secrets to unlock. Cheats and modes to mess with. A level editor better than any other level editor I've seen. It's practically a game engine. People (including me) have made insane stuff in the editor. You can't experience this anywhere else.
And yet, despite all of these games. Modern racing games suck now. Is it because none of these are open world? Well guess what, there's a new open world racing game coming out soon called Resistor that looks pretty dang promising. Are racing game fans just gonna sleep on that one too because it doesn't have "Need For Speed" in the title? Resistor isn't the only racing game people are looking forward to either.
There's a game called NIGHT RUNNERS that fans of Need for Speed Underground and Wangan Midnight have been frothing at the mouth about since it recaptures the vibes of those older games. It's not done yet, but the game does have a demo and many people enjoyed that experience.
In terms of F-Zero-like games we got Aero GPX and XF Extreme Formula in development. Both games look amazing and the people who have had the chance to try to it themselves are giving the games high praises.
A rally game called Old School Rally aims to recapture the vibe of SEGA's Rally as well as the old WRC rally games from the PS2 era.
There's a godamn roguelike racing game coming out called REDLINE CROOKS that looks like a chaotic top-down good time.
AND YET I'm still seeing these videos talking about modern racing games being bad. "Ooohhh the racing genre is in shambles." For the love of all that is holy PLEASE pay attention to what's happening in the scene and stop buying the dogwater coming from these tired franchises. I implore you to try any of the racing games I mentioned here if you like racing games and ESPECIALLY try Distance. In fact, Distance is pretty close to releasing its PS4/PS5 update after many many years of being unable to deliver due to many real life complications.
I didn't even talk about so many other games! Horizon Chas Turbo/Horizon Chase 2, Pacific Drive (that counts right?), Heading Out (RELEASED A WEEK AGO), Turbo Golf Racing, and even a fucking sonic fan-game called Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers thats better than most kart racers I've played in my entire life.
PLAY DISTANCE
