6 Driving sims that flew under the radar

"feather-throttle-not-hair" (feather-throttle-not-hair) 05/15/2014 at 11:45 • Filed to: None

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Recent talk of Project Cars got me thinking about how different the video game industry is now compared to how it used to be. Despite only being in it's alpha stages, I'm already ready to throw my money at the game, just because true honest to god racing sims are so few and far between these days.

But it didn't used to be that way. After the massive success of the Gran Turismo franchise, racing sims seemed like a guaranteed way sell some games. Everybody had to take their shot at making a "Gran Turismo" like game. A few of those games turned out to be good.

The following is a list of games i've played in my 31 years of loving racing sims that have surprised me in one way or another. Most of them featured physics engines ahead of their time. Now, some of these games may not stand up to the test of time, but it's still fun to go back in time and take a peek at all the games that gave me little glimmers of hope about what the future would have in store for me.

1. Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed

Believe it or not, there was a time when Need For Speed games weren't entirely silly and unrealistic. Need for speed 1 was the most realistic driving game of it's day and despite becoming a bit arcadey in the 2nd 3rd and 4th iterations, Porsche Unleashed was a return to sim style gameplay. This game was notable for being the first game that I'd played other than Gran Turismo that featured weight transfer and its effect on grip under braking and acceleration.

The last time I played this game was 2006 and it still held up then.

Published in 2000 for PS1 and Windows

Cool features: Very nice list of classic Porsches, lots of mechanical customization, plenty of point to point tracks, fully modeled interiors.

2. Tokyo Extreme Racer Zero

There are a lot of Tokyo Extreme Racer games and they're all kind of similar. Honestly this is the only game on the list that had kind of subpar physics for the day. However this game still featured some really cool things to bring the realism factor up a bit. First of all, the game took place on the highways of Tokyo, where real, actual people street race huge HP monsters in the middle of the night. It was also technically an open world racing game, though the player is constricted to several highway loops. Despite the restriction, the map is enormous. Mainly however, this game gets credit for having a HUGE car list that faithfully reproduces all sorts of awesome JDM cars, all without any licensing. Is that a MKIII RX-7? Not according to the game. In the game it's named simply the "Type-FD3S." Yes, they named every car after it's chassis code. Brilliant.

Published in 2001 for PS2

Cool features: Body kits that made you go faster, realistic straightline speed, a unique life bar battle system, included a documentary about street racing in Tokyo.

3. Enthusia

OK, we're finally getting down to the stuff you've probably either never heard of or ignored. Enthusia was a full on Konami branded attempt at a Gran Turismo clone. And boy was this game panned by the press at the time. It featured neither the car count nor the smoothness of career progression that gran turismo boasted. It also had far inferior tuning, that did little beyond make the car superficially faster. However the "worst" part was a totally unforgiving physics engine. The main problem it seems to me, stems from the cars having a poor sense of straight ahead, often leaving drivers careening back and forth between the walls all down the straightaway. My solution was to get better. And use a wheel. The game comes alive with a wheel. It's the most "Holy crap, this game actually has an insanely good physics engine" i've ever experienced.

I last played this game about a year ago. It kinda holds up, but it's physics have since been surpassed by things like Fourza.

Published in 2005 for PS2

Cool Features: Decent car list, good enough physics for drifting, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

4. Corvette Evolution GT

This super obscure game featured about 35 cars, two of which were Corvettes. This game was more notable for its competent physics engine than for anything else. With its name and presumed budget, it would have every excuse to be absolutely horrible. However it was actually a halfway decent racing sim that featured an interesting RPG-like system for the players' driver. XP went towards making your guy better, which would subtlety improve your car control. Ok not that simmy, but the physics themselves were a better representation of driving than 90 percent of the games on the market at the time.

Published in 2006 for PS2 and PC

Cool features: one of the first rewind features in a racing game, the ability to make opponents nervous by driving behind them, slick menus.

5. Battle Gear 4

Ok so calling this one a "sim" might be a bit of a stretch. Basically the Battle Gear series was a series of sit down arcade cabinets that were a more realistic alternative to the Initial D series of games. I've played battle gear 2-4 and I would characterize all as being shockingly simmy for an actual arcade cabinet. Corners must be slowed down for, weight transfer must be accounted for and drifts must be carefully modulated. Oh sure every car FWD, AWD or RWD will throw its rear end out under braking, but get back on the gas and FWD cars pull out of it as they would, AWD do as they should and RWD cars get more sideways as they should. I just pretend that all the cars have huge rear anti-roll bars causing all kinds of oversteer.

Published in the mid 2000s

Cool features: Lots of JDM cars, cool mountain pass courses, body kits, savegame cards, Japanese PS2 release if you can find it....

6. Baja: The Edge of Control

Much like Enthusia, this game was panned by the press at its release. Also much like Enthusia, the driving is incredibly unforgiving. This is magnified by the fact that the game starts players off in the slowest cars, modified VW Baja bugs. The thing is, despite being the slowest cars in the game, the Baja bugs are also one of the most difficult cars to drive, what with their rear engine configuration and limited suspension travel. Baja: the Edge of Control was all about the suspension physics, the heart of the game was dealing with putting power to the ground with the rear tires going all over the place. This is truly an underrated game for anyone who like this type of thing. The graphics kind of blow, the menus and stuff kind of suck, but they did a good job of modeling offroad suspension. And for me that was enough to make it worth a lot of my time.

I last played this about a year ago and it holds up.

Published in 2008 For PS3 and Xbox 360

Cool features: Supsension movement, lots of veriety of backgrounds and races, some incredibly long courses.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/14/2014 at 23:05

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Here's three more:

ToCA Race Driver 3 (2006- PC, PS2, & Xbox):

The graphics only hold up moderately well but the game features an insane number of racing disciplines, from monster trucks to F1, and has great physics and even better tire wear modeling. The damage system is also extraordinarily well implemented, with varying damage levels to all sorts of parts. For example, you can damage your steering and have the car constantly pull to one side or you can have a wheel snap off entirely and put you out of the race. Engine damage can make it overheat under full throttle, and damage to aero/suspension will affect cornering speeds. Overall a great game that I still play on occasion.

4X4 Evo 2 (2001 - PC, Xbox, Gamecube, & PS2)

Simply put, the most fun I've ever had in an offroad racing sim. The game has a huge variety of trucks to choose from and all are extensively customizable. The tracks and environment effects in the game are all phenomenal. If this intro video doesn't get you hooked, I don't know what will.

R: Racing Evolution (2003- Gamecube, Xbox, & PS2):

The story mode is a bit stupid (you're an ambulance driver that gets "noticed" by just the right person during a particularly frantic run!) and the graphics are kinda meh, but the game has many of the "classic" circuits like Monaco and Suzuka and some pretty cool cars to choose from, one of the first races in story mode puts you in a Pantera!

feather-throttle-not-hair > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 05/14/2014 at 23:21

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Awesome. I had one or two of the TOCA games as a kid, and they were definitely good. Deserving to be on any list of unheralded racing sims.

4x4 evo 2 was a little before my time. Not that I wasn't playing racing sims back then, just that I wasn't really into trucks or offroading until later in life. I bet if that game had been on my radar, i would've loved it. The video was interesting, kind of impressive suspension movements and live front axle modeling.

I dont think ive ever even heard of R: Racing Evolution, but i'm intrigued. It definitely looks cool, if i ever see it in the bargain used sales bin anywhere i'll pick it up. Learning about stuff like this was basically why i wrote this post.

Burrito de EJ25 > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/15/2014 at 01:39

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Enthusia is the only game you could really call a simulator on this list.

feather-throttle-not-hair > Burrito de EJ25 05/15/2014 at 02:01

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admittedly I'm setting the bar for "simulator" pretty low. In the grand spectrum of racing games, all fall on the realistic side of the scale somewhere though.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/15/2014 at 12:06

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The Type- tidbit came about the time when licensing was ridiculously tough from auto manufacturers mostly because Gentleman's Agreement and how it depicts hoonish street racing.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/15/2014 at 12:59

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4x4 Evo 2 also had/has a pretty large online community dedicated to developing add-ons and improving the game, even now over a decade later it's still pretty fun. In fact, I think I'm gonna go dig around for my old disc today and install it on my current machine :)

Spoon II > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/15/2014 at 14:28

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Loved Porsche Unleashed! Surprisingly fun to use a joystick for steering as well.

feather-throttle-not-hair > Spoon II 05/15/2014 at 14:39

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Ahhh yes! I miss the old days of "Your one PC gaming peripheral is a joystick"

It was probably due to joystick compatibility that I was able to play through the game a second time in 2006 with a dual stick setup. The first play through when it came out was with a keyboard!

Dusty Ventures > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/15/2014 at 23:26

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Baja: Edge of Control is the ultimate "under the radar" game. Some of the physics were cheesy, and clear remnants from THQ's ATV Fury series (namely the ability to steer the vehicle in the air), but it's tons of fun, has good four-way split screen, five GIGANTIC free range maps to explore, and the Baja 1000 rally lasts TWO GODDAMN HOURS, without ever using the same bit of road more than once. That's absolutely ridiculous in a game.

FrankenBlaster > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 05/16/2014 at 22:16

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I actually picked up that R: Racing Evolution for $3 at gamestop (one of my bad habits is buying all the cheap games, I have a few racks full of shit games) and I expected it to be crap. Turned out to actually be a lot of fun, still play that game from time to time.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > FrankenBlaster 05/16/2014 at 23:21

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I got it when Gamestop was having a buy-1-get-2-free blowout on GameCube games. I got that and two Rogue Squadron games (which are awesome btw) for ~$8.

area man > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/20/2014 at 17:43

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Thank you for recommending the Baja game! Gonna check it out. Also Porsche Unleashed may be my favorite PC driving game of all time, although the last time I had a computer that could run anything decent was mid-2000s.

lucas p. > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/26/2014 at 10:36

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only one racing game in my book. LFS live for speed. amazing physics.

second would be Richard burns rally

LongbowMkII > feather-throttle-not-hair 05/26/2014 at 15:33

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TXR0 is the best of the series and one of my favorites of all time. Loved pushing my 263hp cappuccino around the inner loop at full throttle sticking with 800 hp beasts. Sim..no but great racing game

DK > feather-throttle-not-hair 06/11/2014 at 20:50

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battle gear is am amazing drift game, I remember spent lots of time in the arcade behind it... They only made the BG3 into a ps2 game, BG4 remains as an arcade one. It is not the most realistic simulator, but it did convey the feeling of drifting very well, IMHO better than those initial D arcade style physics.