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Friday Fun: Our Top Ten Retro Console Racing Games

 
3 7,245 views Aug 26, 2011
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Occasionally, the All Car Tech team gets pangs of nostalgia for times gone by, and we often yearn for the days of 1980s excess, when braces were red and Porsches were white with whale-tail spoilers.

Inevitably, the subject of video games will pop up. We love a good racing game here, and the incredible digital works of today wouldn't be around were it not for their pixellated predecessors, so here, in reverse chronological order, is All Car Tech's run-down of our top ten retro racing games...

Wipeout (1995)

A 32-bit console era game? Surely not! Wipeout was defined by its Chemical Brothers soundtrack and the effortlessly cool Designers Republic graphics, both of which contributed massively to the slightly dystopian vision of the future. The fact that PlayStation 3 title WipeOut HD/Fury feels so similar is a testament to the original's floaty, challenging fun.



Sega Rally (1994)

We needed a rally game in the list. It would have been easy to include Colin McRae rally, inspired by the now late Scottish rally legend, as it really popularized the rallying genre in the console age, but for arcade fans and Sega Saturn owners, Sega Rally got there first. It's not stood the test of time as well as the McRae title, but like Ridge Racer it really introduced racing fans to 3D racing action.








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Comments (3)

  1. fb_38505333 avatar Joe Donaldson Posted: 8/26/2011 6:13am PDT

    Everyone of those games brought back a ton of memories. I feel like I need to hook up my Sega Genesis today along with my 3DO to get some retro gaming going.
     
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  2. fb_558122750 avatar John Capozella Posted: 8/27/2011 9:52pm PDT

    I would add R/C Pro-Am for the NES and Pole Position for Atari consoles. The former is similar to Micro Machines (top-down, "clock dial"), the latter is similar to Grand Prix Circuit ("First-person driver", open-wheel)
     
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  3. fb_61206378 avatar Antony Ingram Posted: 8/28/2011 3:08am PDT

    Thanks for the suggestions John. I picked Grand Prix Circuit over Pole Position as it was the one of the two that I played as a youngster! I debated including Grand Prix: The Cycles, also made by Accolade and based on the 1988 Grand Prix motorcycle season. Was a bit more "realistic" than Circuit!
     
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