11 Old Racing Game Features You Miss Most

Racing games have come a long way over the last few decades but while new titles offer incredible graphics and handling models, there are some old racing game features we can’t help but miss
11 Old Racing Game Features You Miss Most

1. Used car garage

As suggested by: Me
As suggested by: Me

Here’s what sparked this community question. In the older Gran Turismo games there was a used car dealership - it was fun to keep checking it and it added a bit of variety. It’s a real shame it hasn’t featured in more recent installments.

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Split screen was such a simple but enjoyable way of competing with your friends, but a lot of new racing games are focusing on online multiplayer, rather than off-line split screen features. It’s a big shame and limits the kind of multiplayer racing you can do.

3. Free roaming

As suggested by: Daniel Hall
As suggested by: Daniel Hall

The example here is Project Gotham Racing 2, Daniel says: “The ability to walk freely around the autoshow in PGR 2. I probably spent more time walking around here than actually racing.”

Current games usually look for sleek car menus and smart graphics, compared to small but enjoyable features like this.

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This was a feature in Need For Speed Underground 2, adding to the whole performance customisation feature on offer in the game – so you could change tuning setups and get performance statistics.

5. Having to work for it

As suggested by: Caro F.Doom
As suggested by: Caro F.Doom

This is a pretty broad one but it’s so true. Older games definitely featured more unlockable content, so top cars and supercars were out of bounds until you achieved certain things or got to a specific level.

That’s not really the case in most modern games; you’re given free choice of even the most powerful and exotic cars available. It takes a little away from the story of the game and the sense of achievement.

6. Building your own team

As suggested by: Dylan Smit
As suggested by: Dylan Smit

There’s always something really cool about a game giving you the chance to build your own race team up, like in the original Race Driver: Grid game from Codemasters. This kind of involvement and customisation is rare in modern games and adds a whole new level of immersion and personalisation to the experience.

7. Simple Mario Kart circuits

As suggested by: Freddie Skeates
As suggested by: Freddie Skeates

It’s fun to see the Mario Kart map creators going all out with wacky stuff but sometimes the best tracks are the simple ones. We’re talking about the sort of circuit where there’s no going upside down or underwater - it’s just a track and maybe a few obstacles to keep things interesting.

8. Trim changes

As suggested by: Blacklist79
As suggested by: Blacklist79

As Musclecarlover7 said in reply to this suggestion, being able to customise more things on a car like the trim and interior colours adds a real sense of ownership to racing games. Test Drive Unlimited 2 is the example used for this one, adding a whole new bit of customisation to the cars – the inside is important too, not just the outside of the cars.

9. Appropriate pricing

As suggested by: TheZillaJunkie
As suggested by: TheZillaJunkie

This is a bug bear of mine and, it seems, quite a few people too. When I saw this comment I immediately thought “hell yes”. More modern games make prices for even basic cars way too expensive.

10. Sending cars to friends

As suggested by: AnOrangeHellcat
As suggested by: AnOrangeHellcat

While this feature was probably not immensely popular or regularly used by many gamers, it was a nice extra to have. Being able to send cars across to friends (which I used to do in Forza Motorsport 4) was a way of sharing the gaming experience, in some cases helping each other and adding a sense of community to the games.

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In Forza 4 gamers could actually play their own version of the epic Top Gear Car Football (or soccer, however you say it where you’re from). It was a fun little feature and was something different to the usual racing too.

You can see all of the suggestions on the community question post here.

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Comments

Anonymous

Local multiplayer with multiple consoles was the best. System link. 2 tv’s 2 game discs, 2 wheels and a lot of time to setup, but the head to head racing was awesome. Now to play with someone in the same room you have to both join an online match and deal with lag and online accounts/subscriptions

11/06/2016 - 14:36 |
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Anonymous

I miss the days when you could actually play a game without needing to be online or having to pay extra for multilayer (NFS 2015 I’m looking at you)

11/06/2016 - 14:54 |
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George Leluashvili

I would like to spec the car I buy. And by that, I don’t mean choosing between colours. I would even be like to choose between DCT and Automatic transmissions. This way, Specific cars will have specific transmissions and I won’t end up racing with manual w/clutch in Formula 1 cars. I think it’s a great idea to have an ability to choose between trims of the cars as well. Like, BMW 225i, m240i and m2 are completely different cars but you usually have one of them in the games. Also,

11/06/2016 - 20:22 |
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Luke 21

The first one is basically the auction house in the forza series…so they have that already

11/07/2016 - 03:31 |
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Mike Jones

I miss DIrt 2 on the Xbox 360. I can’t understand why they put backward compatibility in for Dirt 3, as 2 was a far superior game, IMHO

11/28/2016 - 14:41 |
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Brent Fabian [Tracker Guy] (#GMT190LivesMatter) (Natsuki)

The reason they removed car gifting is because people would send the most expensive car in the game, then the recipient would sell it and make like 10 million or however much it was. I also liked horizon 1 where specific races required specific cars and specific class. Now in horizon 3 you could probably beat the game with the car they give you at the start.

01/01/2017 - 23:35 |
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Anonymous

Burnout games shouldve been the pic for the “having to work for it”

01/29/2017 - 21:05 |
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Anonymous

‘Nuff said

05/17/2017 - 02:14 |
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Anonymous

Anyone else miss cat and mouse from pgr 2

05/17/2017 - 07:21 |
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Adam Midderigh

Definitely agree with the ‘making you work for it’ one. For me the biggest turn off of Horizon 3 was the way it showers money on you right from the start, and forces you to start with a sub 6 sec 0-60 car.

05/17/2017 - 12:24 |
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