Have Your Say: Your First Racing Game

[Paul Jeffrey]

Everyone remembers their first love, and racing games are no different. With such a wealth of content on offer today, can you cast your mind back and remember the very first?

No doubt about it, "sim racing" has advanced practically beyond imagination since those tentative first days of Pole Position back in the early 1980's. With highly polished graphics, detailed physics, multi car grids, online racing and all the other bells and whistles of modern gaming, a sim racer today is spoilt for choice when it comes to the wonderful pastime of driving digital racing cars.

So for our question today I ask, which game (on what platform) was your very fist foray into the world of racing?

Have fun reminiscing and enjoy the weekend!

 

[MapoUK]

My first was Chequered Flag back in 1984 which came free with my ZX Spectrum!!

 

[SpiriZz:TV]

My First Game was Garn Turismo 4. The Soundtrack and teh Graphics where shitty, but it was still good fun.

 

[DrLimerep]

First game I remember spending any time on was Grand Prix Circuit (PC version) back in the summer of 1988.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Enduro on the Atari...
Than Nigel Mansell on the SNES, rented a few, played others on friends houses...

First one on PC was F1 2000 followed shortly by GP3, the game i bought my first cheapo (a Genius, what happened to them?) FFB wheel.

 

[GT VIRUS]

First game I remember was also Nigel Mansell on SNES, but the 2 influential ones were Gran Turismo as a kid, and LFS in my teens. I spent many many hours on mouse controls in LFS

 

[snyperal]

Lotus esprit challenge on the zx spectrum.

 

[Rich J]

Chequered Flag on the 48K Spectrum.

 

[felippekiss]

Enduro kkkkk i'm not kidding

 

[mantasisg]

Jarret & Labonte: Stock Car Racing (PlayStation One)

Same here. It will stay best driving racing for me forever. I remember it was so extremely difficult at first that I kept driving only Laguna Seca and same car for a few weeks lol

 

[Antonio Castagna]

 

[Taggy4485]

My first racing game was either

Gran Turismo 1
or
Midtown Madness 2

Not sure since i was about 4-5 when i played them

 

[roberto teso]

My first F1 game ever:

Speed Race 1974

Not at home, obviously, but in a place we call sala giochi, games hall…

It was a long, long time ago…

Edit reason: I forgot the plural on games hall

 

[Matt Lenart]

test drive (by accolade) in monochrome on my Apex by EPSON 8088 XT
r.c. pro am (NES)

 

[Richard Wilks]

Anybody even remembers this one?

 

[CC]

This was mine

 

[DND]

My name is David and I have been playing racing video games since the 1980's, Pole Position at the video arcade,...and I can't stop. Not that I want to but when your wife says to people she thinks it's cute, well I digress I'm still not going to stop.
Grand Prix 2 on PC with a Logitech Wingman Formula Force in 1995 was my first at home foray into home racing. The years may have clouded my memory but that Grand Prix series was a blast, I have a copy of GP4 I tried loading on my current PC but can't seem to run it, would be interesting to compare it to today's games. I have graduated to a home built sim cockpit including a Bob Earl racing rig and triple monitors and as long as the community continues to push forward I can see me doing this for years to come.

 

[unseen]

Revs+ on the C64 way back in the mid-eighties. Big Geoff's first foray into sim-racing (and mine). Couldn't find any fun in any of the arcadey racers after playing that, so my next proper fix was Indianapolis 500 then F1GP on the Amiga.

 

[AvGas]

First thing I think I ever really drove, properly. Prior to that in the arcade, many rolls of quarters went into Outrun, Road Blasters, Spy Hunter, Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road, Pole Position, and my arcade favourite, Virtua Racing.

Then into Gran Turismo series on Playstation, then I tried GP4 (crammond) but couldn't really run it very well. Pretty much just that stuff until Grand Prix Legends, when i could finally afford a decent computer (32 mb RAM on that video card!)

But basically anytime I hear Paul Page talking about anything, that's the beginning.

 

[Matt88]

Grand Prix by microprose and the legend that is Geoff Crammond. Played with a joystick. And it had multiplayer in the form of car switching during the race.

 

[Deleted member 99238]

Even in the Soviet Union (USSR) there was such a mechanical game "behind the wheel" (original name "За рулём").
Probably this was my very first racing experience: