Favorite Dreamcast racing games?

[ShreddieMercury]

I've been on a racing game kick lately and thought it would be fun to discuss people's favorite racing games on DC. In particular, I love arcade racing, which is a sadly overlooked genre in modern gaming

I played a lot of Sega Rally 2, which is fantastic. I beat the 10 year championship and unlocked everything I could. Recently, I've been playing Daytona USA 2001, which in my opinion is even better. I've played a bit before as there is a fantastic port on Xbox, but I never got to grips with the way the cars handle. To my surprise, the game has tons of mechanical depth. The drifting is difficult and requires lots of gear shifting and manipulating the transmission. I'm having a ton of fun mastering the tracks and figuring out exactly how to shift through corners. The soundtrack and visuals are superb, and the game has that classic, unmistakable SEGA sheen that's so emblematic of the Dreamcast era.

What are your favorite racing games on the system, and have you played any recently?

[dark]

Test Drive Le Mans and Metropolis Street Racer are probably my favorites. They try to evoke a serious vibe, but the handling is still pretty simple (TD LM has settings to make handling much more difficult). MSR is a bit of a non-fun grind for the first 10% of the game where you have to race on tiny tracks with slow cars, but after you progress through the first bit, it becomes a lot more fun. There's certainly a ton of gameplay in the MSR 1 player mode to keep you busy for a very long time if you find you like it.

I used to say that Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 was one of my favorites, and its a pretty impressive game for the DC, but the car handling on it is honesty pretty awful and I can't be bothered with it these days.

[Neo-dreamer]

Sega Rally 2

[MoeFoh]

A serious racing game for serious enthusiasts:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F355_Challenge

F355 Challenge

Widescreen versions exist plus rear-view mirror patch.

Feast your eyes on this:



Damn serious when you are using racing gloves!

When your mid-life crisis hits you can always build one of these:

[theirvgotti452]

I spent many hours back in the day with Tokyo Extreme racer series, Looney Tunes space race, Revolt and San Francisco Rush. Rush doesn't hold up like the other 3 but I had my fun with my friends and family back then.

[Anthony817]

I put hundreds of hours into Gran Turismo 2 with the official retail Bleem release when I used to have a working disc drive before switching to GDEMU(Still not compatible with ODE's). But honestly it really looks amazing and runs so much better on DC than it did on PSX. Sure graphically it doesn't compare to the games natively made for the system but I love it. Nearly 500 cars to choose from easily make it top of my list.

As far as rally racing goes, I have to toss my hat in with Test Drive V Rally 2. That game is such a blast and the handling is so different compared to Sega Rally 2. More realistic and it even has a full on track creator which is awesome.

Vanishing Point is a game that looks beautiful and really taps into the power of the Dreamcast. It has such a wide variety of cars from classics to more modern ones, but it is more of an arcade oriented game I would say feels somewhat between Test Drive 6 and something like Need 4 Speed High Stakes.

I spent a lot of time over the past year or so playing Sega GT. I never used to give it the time of day becasue I always enjoyed playing GT2 on DC via Bleem, but it is surprisingly deep and the physics are pretty great too. Once you get down the way the cars handle it is lots of fun. Plus it has Mitsubishi 3000 GT/GTO which is one of my favorite cars so a plus in my book.

Test Drive Le Mans is really awesome, but I just wish it had more cars and tracks as well as more tuning options for the cars than it has. Overall I really love the graphics as well as it holds up really well even today.

MSR is a great game that is loads of fun but can be tough at times. The graphics are easily some of the best on the system and the environments are faithfully recreated. Before Bizarre went on to make the PGR series, they made this game and it even has the Kudos system for when you drift same as in those games. Fun fact: The names of both games were inspired by the DC comics cities in Superman and Batman comics. Metropolis was from Superman, and Gotham was from Batman.

[Grey Fox]

While there are tons of brilliant racing & driving games on Dreamcast probably either MSR or Vanishing Point for me.

MSR was just jaw dropping at the time & still graphically super impressive. Interesting twist on traditional racing too so was like a breath of fresh air. More so than that though - it has a distinct personality thanks to its music. Unlike most racers that used generic licenced music the soundtrack is a masterpiece of multi genre "tributes" by Richard Jacque.

Vanishing Point I adore. It is one of the most over-looked gems on the system. The handling is twitchy but in a good way. Once you adjust to it it is super responsive and allows you to slide round corners and between cars. It really does have a brilliant arcade style handling model. The Stunt Mode is super addictive with that "one more go" factor. Slick, rock solid visuals & a blistering frame rate. Decent range of vehicles & tracks. While it is more of a time trial that happens to have other vehicles on the tacks as it isn't about position but about time most nay-sayers are likely put off by the slow start (with some of the slower/duller vehicles), don't take time to adjust to the twitchy handling or get put off by the, admittedly, sometimes frustrating fact that sometimes when racing you can get clipped by another vehicle, spin out, lose time & have little chance to make up the time. However for my money it is no different to the BurnOut series in this regard. I love that you can have automatic gears but still have the ability to manually change the gears meaning you don't have the frustration of forgetting after a spin out etc but have the control to eke extra speed out when needed e.g. going uphill. Some of my favourite Dreamcast gaming moments are perfect lapping the night time track in the Lotus Elise, weaving in between vehicles, sliding the corners and always feeling on the precipice of losing control but always just keeping the vehicle going flat out teetering on total chaos. It's an amazing racing game that unfortunately puts up quite a barrier at the start but rewards those that stick with it.

Obviously other gamers mileage may vary though

[Cass]

I love F355 but Test Drive Le Mans for me anyway is easily the best Dreamcast driving game. The only racing game I enjoy more is Geoff Crammond's GP2 on PC.

[agentadam07]

Wacky Races

[OGDCFAN99]

Its not really racing but Rush 2049 and Vanishing Point stunt modes are still super amazing after all these years.


I'd probably go for Wacky Races in regards to actual racing which is also still super amazing after all these years.