8 Racing Games We Can’t Believe Are Over 15 Years Old

Who can forget Burnout? The game kicked off a whole series of high-speed, crashy driving games when it was released back in 2001 for PlayStation 2. It’s difficult to really believe the original Burnout can be that old and ancient.

Ah, those were the days. Playing Midtown Madness on your Windows PC. How can this game be that old? When it was released in 1999, there weren’t many open world games on the market, which set Midtown Madness apart. It gave people freedom they didn’t know they could have and there was even a multiplayer mode too.

The game was just as violent as you’d expect from the cover design. This was the second instalment of the Carmageddon series and was released in 1998 for PC and (one year later) Mac. It came under criticism for the amount of violence in the game, mixing racing, combat and destruction. The damage model was unlike other games at the time too.

Going back to when Need for Speed was picking up pace, the second game in the series was released on PlayStation and PC. The 1997 title included all of the usual features of the original, with exotic cars and different race modes, but also brought in car paint customisation and separate car components. It took good strides forward for NFS in many ways, although some felt it was easier than its predecessor to play.

Driver set up a good foundation for the video game series, but 2000’s Driver 2 took things up a few notches with improved graphics, handling, a new character to play and big changes like the ability to get out of the car, explore the open world map (which featured four real-life cities) and even steal cars.

Another original game in a successful racing title franchise, Project Gotham Racing hit our consoles in 2001 when it was released for Xbox. It was a little different compared to other racing games, because it wasn’t just about winning – the ‘Kudos’ points were also important and were picked up through fun drifts, power slides and overtakes.

V-Rally was released way back in 1997 (and 1998, for some locations and consoles) for the original PlayStation and mixed things up by allowing two players to compete directly against each other in split screen mode, unlike in Colin McRae Rally. There were 10 locations and 11 official World Rally cars. It proved to be a big hit and spawned two follow-up games.

This is one I remember well. I think anyone who played Crazy Taxi will struggle to forget it. It was originally released as an arcade game in 1999 but was ported to other consoles over the next few years. Who’d have thought a game revolving around being a taxi driver could be so fun.

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