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MossyFeathers , (edited )

TrackMania – I recommend Nations Forever if you’re starting out; it’s free and Nations was the “meta” environment (different environments have different physics) for a long time, so there’s a fuckton of custom content for it.

As for what it is: it’s like the racing genre’s Quake equivalent. It’s also like super hot wheels. And it’s like Mario Maker. You make all kinds of crazy tracks with it, like Mario Maker. The tracks feature all kinds of wall rides, half-pipes, jumps, loops, and so on, with nothing more than inertia holding you to the track; like hot wheels. And finally, like Quake (and Mario Maker), the high-level players are bat shit insane.

This is the game where you get people who can hit a jump at just the right angle so they thread the needle through a series of holes barely larger than the car while travelling at speeds well above 300mph (welcome to TrackMania, I don’t think there’s a speed cap). They also do it using keyboards. Seriously. High-level TrackMania players use keyboards, not gamepads or, god forbid, racing wheels.

All of that said, no pressure because you’re mainly racing yourself, even in multiplayer. You’re trying to get the best time on a track, and multiplayer is basically the same, except your time is being compared with everyone else’s. There isn’t even any vehicle collision (strangely, there’s an option for it, but it doesn’t seem to do anything).

Play TrackMania. Is fun.

stealth_cookies ,

Seconding Trackmania, though I’d recommend playing the latest one released in 2020 rather than Nations Forever. A year’s access to everything is $20 and you get tons of content to play.

For a game that is at its core can be played at the highest levels with just 4 buttons it is incredibly complex with an insane skill ceiling. I’m pretty good and the difference between me and the top players is absolutely insane. The game is a bit beginner unfriendly, mostly because you are going to suck against good players because there are tons of mechanics that the developer tells you nothing about and unless you watch a video you aren’t likely to understand why players are leaving you in the dust.

This is the game where you get people who can hit a jump at just the right angle so they thread the needle through a series of holes barely larger than the car while travelling at speeds well above 300mph (welcome to TrackMania, I don’t think there’s a speed cap). They also do it using keyboards. Seriously. High-level TrackMania players use keyboards, not gamepads or, god forbid, racing wheels.

The max speed is 999 km/h, which is only acheivable with speed drifting, but speed in excess of 800km/h are not uncommon to hit in certain kinds of tracks. Your statement about controls also isn’t correct, most of the top players play with controller, but there are some that are keyboard players, there is even a couple insane ones that play wheel (most notably Granady).

MossyFeathers , (edited )

Huh, I was under the impression that high level players used keyboards and that gamepads were unusual. I was almost certain I’d read that keyboards were considered better because they were full-on/full-off instead of analog; the logic being that it let you respond faster. Where an analog stick would have some ramp-up time when you switch directions, a keyboard would register a full press the moment the key is pressed far enough to complete the circuit. Meanwhile, the physics of Nations were made with keyboards in mind, so analog controls wouldn’t offer that much of an improvement.

At least, I was sure that’s what I’d read.

Edit: that may have been before TrackMania 2, I’m not even sure if Nations supports analog controls. I haven’t played any of the games after Nations/United.

And009 , (edited )

Growing up I’ve always been a keyboard racer. The only benefit i see from gamepad is that you can hold any angle while turning, even slight ones.

With keyboard every movement is timing and it’s easier to build muscle memory for me.

Edit: the reason I want a vr headset and racing wheel are the opposite of what keyboard gaming is

stealth_cookies ,

There are advantages and disadvantages to all the control schemes depending on the types of tracks you play, the surface you play, and the car/environment you play.

Most good players play with controller because there are many situations you run into where you want the precision of steering a specific amount around a corner, or you are playing a track where you want to either speed drift (SD) at a specific angle (e.g. fullspeed or higher speed dirt/grass/plastic) or want to keep your steering under a certain angle to no slide (e.g. low speed dirt/grass/plastic).

There are techniques such as neosliding where it is much easier to do them in keyboard as it requires multiple taps in quick succession. It is also easier to play keyboard when you need to make turns where timing of a full steer is important (e.g. ice).

Considering cars other than the stadium car you start getting into situations where one control scheme is far superior than others. The snow and rally environments require smooth steering so wheel is superior there, but controllers are a good middle ground. Desert is faster with tapping movements over smooth steering so keyboard is a bit better there. I recall canyon is a bit better with keyboard as well.

This all applies equally regardless of whether you are playing older or newer games.

MossyFeathers , (edited )

I was curious enough that I looked into it a bit and it sounds like the difference is negligible at this point because they added keyboard binds for partial presses in response to analog keyboards(?). Again, I haven’t played TM2 or anything after, last game I played was TMUF/TMNF, so I haven’t tried using them myself, however when I was looking to see what the kb/controller/wheel split was I found a lot of people saying that there isn’t a strong reason to use one over the other anymore due to the new binds.

Edit: it actually makes me kinda happy to talk about this. I loved the games as a teenager, but they were too niche and I never had anyone to talk to about them.

Edit 2: damn, I remember finding the OG game at Fry’s and thinking it looked like the coolest game ever and getting confused when no one else thought it was sick as fuck (everyone was into Halo and CoD, and tbf, I was into them too; but I had patrician tastes that spanned multiple genres, not like the casuals I grew up around u.u)

stealth_cookies ,

Yeah they added “action keys” that can trigger different percentage presses (20-40-60-80-100%) as a “fix” because the bobsleigh blocks they added in the new game were not keyboard friendly and they wanted to even the playing field. They eventually changed the physics to get rid of that specific need (but not completely) but they are still useful in some situations.

Download the newest game! It has a free access tier which gets you access to the first 10 tracks of the quarterly campaign and to the ranked mode. It is a bit limited but enough to see if you might get back into it. There is a decent community on reddit for the game.

Localhorst86 ,

High-level TrackMania players use keyboards, not gamepads or, god forbid, racing wheels.

It’s wild to me that some players like GranaDyy are actually able to compete using a racing wheel.

Causal87_ ,

I really enjoy open world racing games. Forza horizon and the crew being two of my favourites.

Localhorst86 , (edited )

Favourite racing game is always highly dependent on what I am looking for.

Forza Motorsport 4 (Not Horizon) was one of the best racing simcades i’ve enjoyed playing, it has solid sim-ish racing and it is very satisfying to build up a garage and take a car for a spin on some of the gorgeous original or real life racetracks. Unfortunately, it’s an xbox 360 exclusive and not backwards compatible on xbox one or series x, so not really playable on current systems. I am stll looking for a similar experience on a modern pc.

I also enjoy “Project Cars” and it’s sequel “Project Cars 2”. I can easily play the games on my current PC or the Steam Deck, but the game can be challenging on a gamepad - not impossible, but managable. It does lack some beautiful original tracks as it only features real life circuits and it does lack the satisfaction of having to “earn” and build up a collection of cars and making them your own. Unfortunately, both games have been delisted on storefronts and can no longer officially be purchased, but if you can get your hands on a PC Key, you can still enjoy the games on a modern system.

If I want to enjoy some sim racing, I’ll go with Assetto Corsa or Assetto Corsa Competizione. Great fun with a steering wheel, not really my thing with a gamepad. Modding possibilities for AC are basically endless on PC, but again, lacking some sort of progression system that will allow you to build up a car collection.

Forza Horizon 3 with its Hot-Wheels Expansion was probably my favourite open-world arcade racer, unfortunately it’s also delisted, and while I still have the physical xbox one version, that means I can’t play it on PC. Forza Horizon 4 (with the Lego expansion) is the next best thing (still far better than FH5) and is still available on PC, but will also be delisted in december (grab FH4 while you still can!)

I have also spent a lot of time playing Burnout Paradise, but I still prefer Burnout Revenge over it’s younger open-world brother.

Wreckfest is a great spiritual succesor to the already great Flatout 1/2 and certainly the best banger racer you can currently get. The damage model is very convicing and it’s good fun to wreck some CPU racers.

BLUR - an underrated battle racer, with a really fun 4 player splitscreen. Calling it “Mario Kart with real cars” is, imho a bit too simple, but it does get the point across quite well.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005) - early 2000s yellow/brown tinted aesthetics aside, the game still looks good today and police chases can go on forever. Great fun.

Not a racing game, but a honorable mention: American/Euro Truck Simulator 2, bought it as a joke back then, but it does feel cathartic at times.

stoy , (edited )

Forza Horizon 4 is my favourite, 5 is mostly meh.

Then we have Beamng, that is increadible

simple ,

Speaking of Forza Horizon, they’re really cheap on Steam currently. FH4 is only 4 dollars.

stoy ,

Yep, but you can’t get all DLC any more, its absolutely worth it, still, but I just wanted to let people know

Localhorst86 , (edited )

FH4 is only 4 dollars

What country do you live in? For me it’s currently $/€14 in the regular version, 20 for the deluxe ultimate edition.

Also note that the game will be getting delisted in december, so now might be the last chance to get it at a discount.

DannyBoy ,

It’s 16 canuck bucks for me here. You must get some good pricing in your region.

simple ,

Ah yeah, must be one of the rare cases where regional prices are really favorable.

Awe ,
@Awe@lemmy.ml avatar

Not a “racing” game but you can race in BeamNG (and even do multi-player with a mod.) After trying it, other games feel underwhelming to me.

Chozo ,

I miss the arcade-y feel of older racing games. Everything these days tries too hard to be a simulator, that they end up stripping the fun out of it. I want sparks to fly out of my tires when I drift even though they're rubber and wouldn't actually do that, I want wacky announcers with color commentary, I don't want to shift gears.

I want games like Ridge Racer and Need for Speed to make a comeback.

tuckerm ,

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit or Burnout: Paradise might be the closest to what you're looking for. They're both open-world games, but I don't think they really have that open-world filler that you see a lot of. They both got remastered releases in the last few years.

MrScottyTay ,

Hot pursuit is barely an open world game. There’s never a point to find around in the open world, in fact most people might even miss that you can do that.

Jessica ,

I loved Project Gotham Racing because it rode the line between arcade game and simulator quite nicely. I haven’t seen anything like it since.

ColeSloth ,

Mario kart is still a thing. I absolutely hate the not actually random item drops, though. Getting punished for being in the lead is lame.

gerryflap ,
@gerryflap@feddit.nl avatar

At the moment Assetto Corsa and Wreckfest.

Assetto Corsa because it’s a simracing sandbox. I’ve modded it to hell with Content Manager and CSP. I also have a lot of paid mods for mainly formula cars like the RSS Formula 1/2/3/4 cars and the VRC Formula E cars. The AI is the perfect level of silly to cause absolute mayhem with the right settings, but also pretty interesting races when you want them to behave.

Wreckfest is a joy on the Steam deck and for casual mayhem. It still has a nice driving model imo, while remaining casual. The maps are optimized for crashing into others which means you’re never safe.

OhStopYellingAtMe ,
@OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world avatar

Dirt (series) - because I love rally racing.

Motorstorm (series) - because racing across an active volcano is fun as fuck.

Carmageddon (series) - because it’s insane and hilarious.

Twisted Metal 2 - not really a racing game, but close enough.

dishpanman ,

I always liked racing games combined with violence like Carmageddon and Twisted metal! Others along those lines are RC Pro Am, Spy Hunter, Road Rash 3D.

squirrel ,
@squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Assetto Corsa Competizione (Sim), if you like GT track racing.

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

Super Tux Kart

zanyllama52 , (edited )
@zanyllama52@infosec.pub avatar

Found the Linux user

NaibofTabr ,

Crash Team Racing is the pinnacle of kart racing games. The driving is more skill-based than the leading brand name, and it doesn’t have shitty rubber-band AI.

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer is still great fun, easy to learn but hard to be good at.

Nothing compares to F-Zero GX. The abandonment of the franchise is a travesty, and should be considered abuse of the gaming community.

kratoz29 ,
@kratoz29@lemm.ee avatar

Crash Team Racing is the pinnacle of kart racing

Where do you play it? Your comment kinda made me want to play it in my Switch.

NaibofTabr ,

I’m playing the remake on PS5. I think they did a pretty nice job with the graphics upgrade, and with the new tracks.

kerrigan778 ,

Need For Speed Underground 2 I would list as a solid GOAT for the genre of open world arcade racing.

Matticus ,

I had to scroll way too far down to find this. The open world and vehicle customization were ahead of their time. Supposed to be a super upgraded fan mod for the PC port coming that makes it pretty for modern systems.

bestagon ,

Art of Rally mixes fun arcadey accessibility with realistic handling for a fun stylish experience imo.

I love Dirt Rally 2. Oddly enough I’m not too good at it but it becomes a sort of groundhog day simulator as I continue to comically fuck up a run and reset to try and hit tight timing windows and optimize, resulting in a wave of excitement when it all culminates to eventually pushing me over the finish line

DannyBoy ,

Dirt Rally 1 and 2 are both very fun.

Assetto Corsa is a fantastic simulator that me and my race team has used to learn a track before we take our race car there so we know all the turns. It really feels like you’re there and the game runs well and looks good low end hardware.

kilgore_trout , (edited )

Although I haven’t played a lot of them, my favorite is Colin McRae Rally 2.0, which is predecessor to the DIRT series.

I used to watch my uncle play on his computer in the 2000s.

sjmulder ,

Yes! I got it again on PS1 a while back and still like to play it.

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