subject: What Makes Great Racing Car Games? [print this page] When you think about it, racing car games should all be pretty much the same. You have a car, you race it, you win or you lose. So what is it that makes some of them better than others? Why are titles like Colin McRaes Rally and Mario Kart still spoken of in hushed voices around the video game conference table, while other games come and go with barely a blip registering on our collective radar?
There are two basic attributes that define successful racing car games realism and fun. In most cases, successful games opt for one or the other. So while Colin McRae made a name for itself by successfully mimicking the stressful environment and extreme skill of the rally arena, Mario Kart made millions of devoted fans by delivering out and out fun.
Games that aim to mimic the experience of driving a car for real often require you to change gear at the right moment, Racing car gamesand place great emphasis on making the computer car react like a real one. Too much gas means too little control, and breaking at the wrong moment can send you into an irreversible spin.
Fun racing car games will often eschew things like gear changes in favour of more colourful performance quirks like the ability to jump or to pick up and discharge special weapons. Though in fun games, when theyre successful, you do tend to find that he vehicles you race behave as a real car would if you go into a corner too fast you lose control, and if you brake suddenly you skid. Hence the ability, if you time it just right, to get a super speedy start in Mario by running up your revs in time with the starting lights
In both fun and serious racing car games, environment and backdrop play a big role. Thats because a racing game is essentially just you steering and braking (and occasionally firing a weapon) so you have to pay a lot of attention to the track ad its surroundings if youre going to make a hit. Again, fun racing games often win out here hence the eternal successes of the Mario and Donkey Kong franchises, which combine lunatic environments with the gameplay in a way that serious racing car games dont tend to do. In a rally game, for example, you can rarely leave the course and get lost you just bump into an invisible wall. While cartoony games like Mario and Donkey Kong will let you get as lost as you like, making the environment a much more immersive one.
All of which leads to a conclusion there is probably more scope for fun racing car games than there is for serious ones. Theres certainly a wider audience. Only serious F1 fans will stick religiously to the faithful tack reproduction of a Formula One racing game but everyone loves driving a cartoon buggy round a desert island!
