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Best racing games on GamesNostalgia

Racing games, where players have the chance to drive a powerful car, have been a staple in the video game industry since the early days of arcade gaming. Of course, it's not just about cars, it could also be motorcycles, and it can be street racing, track racing, or offroad. What's important is the vehicle should be fast and fun to drive. Pole Position, released in 1982, was the first biggest arcade hit, while the first popular computer game was probably Pitstop II, released in 1984. One year later, Geoff Crammod created the first racing simulation when he developed Revs for BBC Micro.

In 1986, OutRun revolutionized the genre and set the tone for many other street racing games, with 2D pixel-art graphics, music, and a behind view showing the driver and his girlfriend.

Hard Drivin' in 1989 was the first racing game to use 3D graphics, but many games continued to adopt 2D graphics, like the well-known Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge for the Amiga, a game famous for the split-screen 2-player mode. There are also motorcycle games, like Super Hang-On, an arcade ported to many platforms, and Thalion's No Second Prize.

In 1991, the legendary Formula 1 Grand Prix (aka World Circuit) by Geoff Crammod was released. It was a realistic Formula 1 simulator with 3D graphics, a damage system, weather effects, and many other details nobody had seen before.

With the arrival of Windows 95 and more powerful graphics cards, many great racing games were released, like Screamer and, most importantly, The Need for Speed, published in 1995, a game that inspired movies and books.

The famous combat racing game Road Rash was released in 1996, like Death Rally, while the two fantastic driving/racing simulations Midtown Madness and Driver saw the light in 1999.

You can find many other racing games in this list, from Super Mario Kart clones to sci-fi racing sims or post-apocalyptic races. Just browse the list and have fun!

SEGA Rally Championship game-boy-advance

SEGA Rally Championship is a racing game originally created by SEGA as an arcade release in 1994. The game was also released in 1995 for SEGA Saturn and in 1997 for Windows. Severa...

Year: 2003 Genre: Racing

3d automobile coin-op conversion driving game boy advance off-roading racing rally

Virtua Racing Deluxe sega-32x

Virtua Racing is a 3D arcade racing game created by SEGA in 1992. Due to its fantastic success, the game was also ported to the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis, thanks to an additional chip (SVP) added to the cartridge.

Year: 1994 Genre: Racing

3d coin-op conversion polygons racing track racing

Wipe Out amiga

Wipe Out is a sci-fi hoverboard racing game created by Gonzo Games for the Amiga and released in 1990. In this game, two players compete in a race very similar to the ones shown in Tron.

Year: 1990 Genre: Racing

2 players amiga original game competitive futuristic sports hovercraft racing versus

Stunt Car Racer TNT amiga

Stunt Car Racer The New Tracks (or simply, TNT) is an Amiga reverse-engineered modification of Stunt Car Racer created by AmiGer. It was released in 2004. This unofficial update ...

Year: 2004 Genre: Racing

2 players 3d first-person freeware multiplayer polygons racing reverse engineered track racing

Midtown Madness windows

Midtown Madness is a racing sim created by Angel Studios for Windows and published by Microsoft in 1999. The game allows you to drive different vehicles in four different single-player modes: Blitz, Circuit, Checkpoint, and Cruise.

Year: 1999 Genre: Racing

3d automobile multiplayer north america open world racing street racing vehicle simulator

Hard Drivin' 2 amiga

Hard Drivin' II: Drive Harder is a sequel, for computers only, of the famous arcade by Atari, one of the most popular in the history of video games. Hard Drivin 2 was released in 1990 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS.

Year: 1990 Genre: Racing

3d first-person polygons racing street racing vehicle simulator

Hard Drivin' amigagenesisdos

Hard Drivin' is a famous 3D racing coin-op created by Atari and released in 1989. The conversions for home computers, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, and Mega Drive, were managed by Domark.

Year: 1989 Genre: Racing

3d coin-op conversion first-person polygons racing stunts track racing vehicle simulator

Turbo amiga

Turbo is a top down racing game for 1 or 2 players created by Silent Software exclusively for the Amiga, and released in 1989 by Microillusions..

Year: 1989 Genre: Racing

2 players amiga original game racing top-down track racing

Viz: The Game amiga

Viz: The Game, also known as Viz: The Soft Floppy One, is a racing game created by Probe Software, based on a British comic magazine VIZ. It was released initially for Commodore 64...

Year: 1991 Genre: Racing

c64 original game comics commodore 64 licensed racing

Ivan Ironman Stewart's Super Off Road amiga

Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road, or Ironman Offroad Racing, is a racing game created originally as an arcade in 1989. It was released by Leland Corporation. The game, desig...

Year: 1990 Genre: Racing

birds-eye view coin-op conversion flip-screen licensed multiplayer off-roading racing track racing

Harley-Davidson: The Road to Sturgis amiga

Harley-Davidson: The Road to Sturgis is a driving game officially licensed by Harley Davidson. The game was developed by Incredible Technologies and published by Mindscape in 1990 for PC, then ported to Amiga and Atari ST.

Year: 1990 Genre: Racing

driving licensed motorcycle racing street racing vehicle simulator

Overlander amiga

Overlander is a post-apocalyptic racing game released by Elite for 8-bit computers in 1988. In 1989, it was published for Atari ST and Amiga..

Year: 1989 Genre: Racing

automobile disaster post-apocalyptic racing street racing vehicular combat simulator

Skunny Kart dos

Skunny Kart is a nice racing game clearly inspired by Super Mario Kart. It was developed by Copysoft and released in 1993 for MS-DOS. The hero of the game is Skunny, a squirrel, t...

Year: 1993 Genre: Racing

2 players cartoon clone racing split-screen track racing

Vroom amiga

Vroom is a racing arcade/sim developed by Lankhor and released initially for the Atari ST in 1991, then Amiga, and finally MS-DOS. The game, inspired by the coin-op Pole Position, was born originally on the Sinclair QL.

Year: 1992 Genre: Racing

2 players automobile driving racing sinclair ql track racing