Not sure it's my favourite, but Wipeout XL/2097 deserves a mention.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
55 points (100.0% liked)
RetroGaming
20702 readers
186 users here now
Vintage gaming community.
Rules:
- Be kind.
- No spam or soliciting for money.
- No racism or other bigotry allowed.
- Obviously nothing illegal.
If you see these please report them.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ridge Racer for the PlayStation
No clue whether people consider the wii retro yet, but it's a tie between Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity on wii (since that's how I experienced it) or Cartoon Network Racing on PS2 (same reason). I'm fairly certain PS2 is technically retro by now, as insane as that sounds.
Stunts was the best. You could draw your own circuits.
The first that come to mind are, in no particular order:
Need for speed hot pursuit (PC)
Sonic drift 2 (game gear)
Monaco F1 (mega drive)
Death Rally (PC)
Big Red Racing (PC)
Ballistics (PC)
WipeOut (psx)
The racing game in the Sega 4in1 pack (game gear)
Virtua Racing (mega drive)
Micromachines (mega drive)
Penny Racers (psx)
All very different from another.
Almost forgot: carmageddon!
I hate that I can call this “retro” now, but 100% INITIAL D arcade machine or PSP game.
SPEEDY SPEED BOY
GASOLINE’S BURNIN’ IN
F-Zero X
I crave speed and murder
Hydro Thunder on Dreamcast!
Top Gear 3000. It's the main reason why I have a SNES emulator installed on every device I own lol.
Road Rash and Skitchin are great. The Ayrton Senna games too, but I played those on Master System.
Network Q RAC Rally Championship on DOS is as good as it gets. Not the sequel International Rally Championship, which is far worse.
POD on Windows 9x. It has not held up and doesn’t look so good no matter how you get it working now. But if you played it back then those memories will live inside you forever.
Badlands on Commodore 64.
Moto Roader 2 on PC Engine.
NFS Porsche Unleashed/2000 (whatever they called it in your region) is the best NFS game.
I had a demo version of POD and I played it a lot. Now I'm afraid to look it up lol. Is it really that bad?
Love road rash!!
that's like picking a favorite child! Power Drift, SEGA Rally Championship, Super Hang-On, and Hang-On GP, and OutRunners are all vying for that spot. Kirby Air Ride gets an honorable mention for the same reason as that other commenter, i can count on one hand how many times i've actually played the main racing mode
Probably F-Zero GX. Though I'm older than that, I wasn't playing racing games a lot before that. An older game I'd enjoyed a bit was POD (: Planet Of Death).
I've played Mario Kart quite a bit, starting back with super, but I can't really pick one as my favorite retro racing game, because the one I like the most is 8. Though Wii came close.
It's so satisfying when you get good at knocking out other racers. I remember as a teenager I would set my top speed to high and whittle down half of the other racers on my way to the front of the pack.
It's easy to get in the top ten when you drop the racers count down fifteen places.
Hell yeah. And then you've got one of those crazy hard story mode challenges where you pretty much have to destroy as many opponents you can to have enough juice to win. The one with Michael Chain and his gang.
Top Gear on SNES is pretty sick.
Cruisin’ USA was pretty great too.
Outrun, especially Outrun 2. I like arcade style racers the most.
Also in that vein, San Francisco Rush.
Yeah, rush 2049 was my favourite from the SF Rush series.
Lots of great ones mentioned here and while I don’t know if it’s my favorite, I have a deep soft spot for Super Off-Road. It has an incredible spatial sense and fluidity for its time and still holds up at any barcade.
Yeah, fair. Me and my brother definitely played alot of that.
Kirby Air Ride, though I'm reaching a bit here since the main racing mode isn't actually the part that's notable about this game. City Trial was where it's at.
For just pure racing, F-Zero GX.
God City Trial was so much fun. Kinda wish Smash kept that mode that Smash DS had that was very similar to City Trial.
The top down racing mini-game was also slept on.
It makes me feel old to admit it's retro, but Gran Turismo on Playstation.
I was going to say SNES Mario Kart, but really I think it’s GC Mario Kart: Double Dash.
Diddy Kong racing.
Ridge Racer 4 on PlayStation. Such great mechanics. It’s genuine fun.
Radical Psycho Machine (RPM) Racing for the SNES!
Fun fact, this was one of the few games that played entirely in the SNES' High Resolution graphics mode!
Mario kart is the only racing game I've ever been good at.
So, I'll take Mario Kart 64 as my best retro pick.
Lotus III or Micro Machines probably. Maybe Road Rash (either version).
Grand Prix on Atari was pretty fun.
For me it’s Rad Racer on NES. Just very nostalgic! I love the sounds and the graphics just scream 80s/early 90s
It's a close call between Super Hang-On, World Rally and Colin McRae 2.0.
Someone already beat me to Topgear, but I'm not seeing Mario Kart? Also GT2 on the PSX was great fun.
Rock n Roll racing for the SNES. Absolutely adore that game.
Yeah, RnR, as well as SF Rush 2049 were basically my entire childhood.... so much so that I have been using this user name ever since. Though, if I could somehow also add in a tokyo extreme racer reference too without it getting too long or complicated.... or culturally insensitive... I loved those games too. Not enough proper Racing RPG games any more. You never start from the bottom and work your way up. Modern racing games just have you win cars in the lottery...
If Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed has become retro then it's that lol.
I suppose crash team racing would be considered retro now.
I spent countless hours finding all the secret paths and shortcuts
Gaelco’s World Rally Championship (1993)
I guess it depends on the definition of "Retro". I never got into racing games until Jet Moto and Wipeout on the original Playstation.