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!

 

[Nitro McClean]

My first (arcade) race game was "Test Drive" in 1987 on a DOS PC. No steering wheel, only arrows on the pc keyboard to drive. The first I tried with a steering wheel was "Grand Prix IV", and the first one I used a lot with my son on two computers (both with a steering wheel) was "DTM racing driver 3". The next one was rFactor, and we are using this still today, together with rFactor 2.

 

[The Flying Hun]

Amiga Ferrari Formula One, I think that was 1988. I did not get along with it too well. But the only alternative to it on the simulator market, was subLogic's Flight II. LOL

What really bought me into sim racing, was Geoff Crammond's now famous very first Grand Prix, again for the Amiga. 1991?

Other important stations for me until I reached Assetto Corsa and Raceroom today, were Grand Prix 3, Nascar 2003, and GTR2. There were more racing games I played, but these had a lasting effect in my biography, and lasted for longer than just a few weeks.

 

[Markano97]

My very first racing game was gran turismo 2 on the ps1 shortly followed by Toca World Touring Cars.Great memories!

 

[The Flying Hun]

Oh yes, TOCA 1+2 I must also mention. Very good in their time. Maybe also list V-Rally and CMR1 on PS1.

 

[DeltaDart0276]

My first racing game was Need For Speed 2 on an old IBM box hooked up to a Sceptre CRT monitor. Played it with a joystick!

 

[AlleyViper]

Probably Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit, quickly followed by Test Drive back in 88'.

 

[JoelRR]

Probably 15 years ago, Geoff Crammond's GP2 running on a Pentium 1 166mhz MMX

Damn, I miss that PC, but mostly that game...

 

[Edivad82]

Grand Prix 2!!! Damn!
Always updated with http://grandprix2.de/ and always installed on my Pc!

 

[HamiltonFan]

This was my first proper racing game, from there it was pretty much the same as everyone else, CM1, GP2 etc...

 

[BenCollins]

I played Pole Position on the Atari and all the Lotus games on the Amiga, but it was Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix on the Amiga that changed everything. Racing 100% Grand Prix for almost two hours with all these real-life drivers, cars and tracks. Amazing. I never so much as glanced at F1 before, but I was totally addicted to both the sport and the game after that and ever since.

 

[WPxNJ]

Jarret & Labonte: Stock Car Racing (PlayStation One)

"Welcome to Deee-John"

Loved that game-and the nonsense North American name only made it better.

 

[Pywackett-Barchetta]

Daytona USA on the Sega Saturn may not have been the best port in the world, but it sparked my love of stock car racing and video games in a household that already enjoyed both, and NASCAR 98 bolstered that soon after.

 

[Nick Hill]

Holy crap, based on some of these "firsts", I'm probably old enough to have fathered some of you!

But I'm also reassured to see I'm far from the lone dinosaur, either...

My first racing game goes back to either Rad Racer on the NES.

The first games I played that I would consider sims would be another tie (due to my memory getting fuzzy) - either the original Mario Andretti's Racing Challenge or Indy 500 (Papyrus).

 

[Zuffenhausen Weiss]

ZX Spectrum - Nigel Mansell's Grand Prix

 

[MosportMike]

Besides all of the racing games in arcades, my first full time racing game was Michael Andretti World GP (1990) for the original Nintendo. Gawd, I'm old now.

 

[the202]

F1 World Grand Prix (N64). Very impressive for it's time with weather effects, fairly realistic damage and even tyre dirt if you went off track!

 

[Nick Hill]

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:

In Soviet Russia, car drive you!

In all seriousness though, that's kind of awesome! Looks like he is getting a bit of oversteer though - might want to loosen the rear ARB.

 

[Red_Falcon]

Nigel Mansell's World Championship (SNES)

My first Racing Game on the PC was Grand Prix 2

 

[Jimlaad43]

F1 Championship Season 2000 on Mac. This game was immense, what helped was the Driving School feature which was indispensable at actually teaching me how to drive a racing car on a race track. I got Total Immersion Racing at the same time, but F1 CS 2000 was so good it took me a good few months to actually swap discs and start playing TIR.

 

[frangp]

Anybody even remembers this one?

This one was my first simulator in spectrum 128k+2
Este fue mi primer simulador en spectrum 128k+2