For me it was a long and slow process to be honest and it starts when I was 9 years old and a console made by a company called Binatone called The TV Master. This console was one of the very first of its kind in the UK and had 8 game variants of Pong. I had many long happy days messing with this console and this is what got me hooked into games in the first place. In a way you could call me a trail blazer because no one else I knew had one or indeed had any interest whatsoever in playing games at that time. This was circa 1976 and now all these years on look at what the games industry has become.
Moving on from this I had a ZX 81, and later an Intellivision which was marketed as the first 3D console. Later followed Speccy 48k and of course the Commodore 64. This of course is where my love for racing games really began with games like Outrun and Pitstop. I guess at the time however adventure games and shooters were my real love however and it was not until the Megadrive I really started my road war. Titles such as Road Rash, Super Monaco, Outrun again, Ferrari GP Challenge all had me hooked then along came this:
Wow this was so 3D at the time and really rocked the racing game world. Seriously everyone who enjoyed racers wanted this and I was no different. What could top this game? I remember at the time thinking there is not much more they can do to get things more realistic than this. 1993 saw the release of the coin op legend that was Daytona USA. I remember going down to the Tracadero in London because they had an 8 player hook up there and spending over £200 in two days just playing this. Man this games was like nothing you could get at that time in the home market and it was out of this world.
This as you know ended up being converted to the Sega Saturn a couple of years later and you can bet your bottom dollar I bought it and played it for hours and hours and hours. Namco on the other hand had Ridge Racer which I never really warmed to due to its silly sliding about on tarmac which at the time I found quite unrealistic although it eventually found its way into my games collection.
The years are falling away and Need For Speed Crusin USA and Sega Rally took a lot of my spare time much to my Girl friends disapproval. With the arrival of my new PC a whopping P200 which at the time far outweighed its competitors Mr Crammond beckoned with the legend that is
Oh yes this WAS racing and far better than anything that has previously been available not due to graphics but due to gameplay. Gameplay was a sim and really in my memory was the first attempt at a proper sim although GP1 came before it was not up to this standard.
There was no "arcade" mode in Grand Prix II, per se, but it included the ability to turn on and off such things as indestructibility. There were seven major functions called "driving aids" that could be turned on or off: steering help, braking help, automatic turn-around (has the car face forward after a crash), indestructibility, racing line help, automatic shifting and traction control. The game had five levels of difficulty one could choose from, and the higher the level, the less options for driving aids one could turn on or off.
There also is a "Quickrace" function that lets the player jump into a race without having to go through the perfunctory qualifying session. The quickrace option was customizable, allowing a player to race as many laps as desired and allow the player to set their grid position.
Personally there was not much more that sparked my interest until I bought Codemasters TOCA 2 well after release on console. My PC time was now spent playing shooters such as quake and Unreal and my racing gaming had ceased.
Years went on and now I played games such as Golf and shooters and not much else although I occasionally got my shabby playstation out for a spot of racing. World Of Warcraft grabbed me too for a while and then I saw an advert for Racedriver Grid and figured it was time to bring out my racing side once more.
Grid for the most part was of course far more arcade than anything else but it did indeed place me well and truly back in racing mode. I started playing other titles I had previously missed and spent some time racing in team events via team sites such as team BEER and Pheonixians . Good times were had by all but after the terrible driving that happens online after a game has been released a while I gave this up. I wanted to race but not like this, not when every corner meant I was going to be placed into a wall or a spin. I set about looking for somewhere to go that played fair and wanted to do the right thing, I found RaceDepartment. I was instantly attracted to the quality of not only the site but also the staff and how they acted. This was a place I could stay I felt and so spent £100s getting as many of the games they played as I could.
What game dragged you into sim racing?
Moving on from this I had a ZX 81, and later an Intellivision which was marketed as the first 3D console. Later followed Speccy 48k and of course the Commodore 64. This of course is where my love for racing games really began with games like Outrun and Pitstop. I guess at the time however adventure games and shooters were my real love however and it was not until the Megadrive I really started my road war. Titles such as Road Rash, Super Monaco, Outrun again, Ferrari GP Challenge all had me hooked then along came this:Wow this was so 3D at the time and really rocked the racing game world. Seriously everyone who enjoyed racers wanted this and I was no different. What could top this game? I remember at the time thinking there is not much more they can do to get things more realistic than this. 1993 saw the release of the coin op legend that was Daytona USA. I remember going down to the Tracadero in London because they had an 8 player hook up there and spending over £200 in two days just playing this. Man this games was like nothing you could get at that time in the home market and it was out of this world.This as you know ended up being converted to the Sega Saturn a couple of years later and you can bet your bottom dollar I bought it and played it for hours and hours and hours. Namco on the other hand had Ridge Racer which I never really warmed to due to its silly sliding about on tarmac which at the time I found quite unrealistic although it eventually found its way into my games collection. The years are falling away and Need For Speed Crusin USA and Sega Rally took a lot of my spare time much to my Girl friends disapproval. With the arrival of my new PC a whopping P200 which at the time far outweighed its competitors Mr Crammond beckoned with the legend that is
Oh yes this WAS racing and far better than anything that has previously been available not due to graphics but due to gameplay. Gameplay was a sim and really in my memory was the first attempt at a proper sim although GP1 came before it was not up to this standard.
There was no "arcade" mode in Grand Prix II, per se, but it included the ability to turn on and off such things as indestructibility. There were seven major functions called "driving aids" that could be turned on or off: steering help, braking help, automatic turn-around (has the car face forward after a crash), indestructibility, racing line help, automatic shifting and traction control. The game had five levels of difficulty one could choose from, and the higher the level, the less options for driving aids one could turn on or off.
There also is a "Quickrace" function that lets the player jump into a race without having to go through the perfunctory qualifying session. The quickrace option was customizable, allowing a player to race as many laps as desired and allow the player to set their grid position.
Personally there was not much more that sparked my interest until I bought Codemasters TOCA 2 well after release on console. My PC time was now spent playing shooters such as quake and Unreal and my racing gaming had ceased.
Years went on and now I played games such as Golf and shooters and not much else although I occasionally got my shabby playstation out for a spot of racing. World Of Warcraft grabbed me too for a while and then I saw an advert for Racedriver Grid and figured it was time to bring out my racing side once more.
Grid for the most part was of course far more arcade than anything else but it did indeed place me well and truly back in racing mode. I started playing other titles I had previously missed and spent some time racing in team events via team sites such as team BEER and Pheonixians . Good times were had by all but after the terrible driving that happens online after a game has been released a while I gave this up. I wanted to race but not like this, not when every corner meant I was going to be placed into a wall or a spin. I set about looking for somewhere to go that played fair and wanted to do the right thing, I found RaceDepartment. I was instantly attracted to the quality of not only the site but also the staff and how they acted. This was a place I could stay I felt and so spent £100s getting as many of the games they played as I could.
What game dragged you into sim racing?
