What are your favourite racing videogames? These are my top five.

Videogames have been since decades, and along with toy cars, the easiest and most affordable way to drive our dream cars- From powerful coin op arcade machines to modest handheld consoles, racing videogames have been always one of the most prolific genres in the industry.

Racing simulation has evolved throughout the years from top view games to 2D scaling graphics works of art like Out Run or Super Hang On, to 3D wonder like Gran Turismo to finally, a new generation of sandbox games on wheels like Forza Horizon. Many of those creations have been influential in our love for cars and in our lives as petrolhead. In my case, and in no particular order, these are the games that left a biggest imprint on me.

Out Run (Sega Game Gear, 1991)

Out Run is iconic even on its art cover.

Out Run is iconic even on its art cover.

I was born in the early 80's, an era where videogames finally took off. Japanese companies like Sega, Taito, Capcom or Konami filled the arcade parlors with incredible coin operated machines that offered incredible graphics and endless playability. Well, when i say endless, i mean endless until you ran out of coins.

SEGA was especially prolific launching spectacular 2D scaling graphics arcades that allowed the players to sit behind the wheel of a race car, to ride a World Championship motorbike or to fly a combat aeroplane. Titles like Out Run, Super Monaco GP, Afterburner, G-Loc R360 or Super Hang on also included awesome fixtures that allowed the players to feel a more realistic experience by providing seats, steering wheels, gear levers... even a scaled down motorbike that tilted in the case of Super Hang On!

When consoles became popular in the late eighties, most of those titles were ported to the new domestic devices. Of course they didn't have the same quality, and even in some cases, the had to be entirely redesigned, but it didn't matter, we were able to play them at home!

This screen meant happiness for me three decades ago

This screen meant happiness for me three decades ago

I loved Out Run since the first time i saw the arcade machine when i was 7. It had everything a 1980's kid with petrol on its veins would want: A convertible Ferrari Testarossa, the most iconic car of the decade, awesome tunes, gorgeous pixel art landscapes and many miles of roads plenty of Porsche 911, Beetles and Semi trucks capables of reach 180 kilometers per hour.

When i finally got my first console in May 1992, the SEGA Game Gear pictured here, Out Run was one of the games i absolutely coveted. And finally i got it for my tenth birthday in July.

Of course it wasn't as good as the arcade or the Mega Drive / Genesis port. The Game Gear was an 8-bit hand held that wasn't near as powerful as the 16-bit SEGA machines. But i really didn't care. The Testarossa, the blonde co-driver, the American landscapes, the music... Everything i loved from Out Run, was there, for me to play at any moment.

Out Run was my favourite Game Gear racing game, and even today, from time to time, i play it to remember better, simpler times. And i perform way worse than when i was a kid. Oh, well...

Test Drive III: The Passion (PC, 1990)

A Lambo! Yay!

A Lambo! Yay!

My parents bought a, back then, slightly obsolete IBM PS/1 PC computer in 1991. It was a home computer for my father so he could do some of his work at home. But of course it soon became also a gaming machine. And in that computer, i had the first contact with was going to be the future of the racing videogames: The 3D polygonal graphics.

Accolade launched the first Test Drive game in 1987. It was a 2D scaling graphics racing game, that was at the same time a complete revolution, as it was one of the first to use a first person point of view, including a detailed interior, and was also one of the first games to offer add ons, with floppy discs that offered new cars and scenarios. All them features that would became very popular in the next three decades.

A couple of years later, Accolade launched a sequel, called Test Drive 2: The Duel. This time it featured the two fastest road cars in the world back then: The Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959, racing against each other across very similar scenarios but this time, more colourful and better defined. The Duel was ported to many platforms becoming a hit I enjoyed it a lot. but the best was yet to come.

This was absolutely impressive in 1990. I loved this game.

This was absolutely impressive in 1990. I loved this game.

In 1990, the third instalment of the franchise was released under the Test Drive III: The Passion name. And it was completely different from any other racing game launched before. For the first time in the saga, it featured polygonal graphics, as did Hard Drivin a few years before, but also, featured a completely free-to-explore scenario, where you could take different routes to reach the destination point, including police patrolled highways, chicken infested back roads or if you were in a hurry, you could go cross country

The Passion, featured three impressive hypercars of the early 90's: Lamborghini Diablo, Pininfarina Mythos and Chevrolet CERV III. Later, as it happened with the other titles on the saga, expansion disks were released to make the game more complete.

The game was graphically impressive for it's time, with a well detailed interior that included moving gauges, changing weather conditions, light effects like street lamps and lighthouses and even a moving train.

I got a freeware copy (I.E: pirate copy) and spent hours and hours driving across the American roads featured in the game. It's immersive graphics and endless variety of situations made Test Drive III and endless source of fun to me. And for many years, it was the closest i was to drive a real car. Nowadays it may look crude and hard to play, but three decades ago, it was a game from another world.

F1 Race (Game Boy, 1991)

Hours and hours of racing fun in a pocket. For up to four

Hours and hours of racing fun in a pocket. For up to four

When Nintendo launched the Game Boy in April 1989, the videogame world changed forever. The little Japanese handheld democratised the videogame in both price and use ease. Backed by the almighty Nintendo, the Game Boy users enjoyed an almost endless game library where all kind of games could be found.

Of course racing games were an important part of them, and the Game boy got over the years many car games from both Nintendo and third parties alike. Due the limitations of the Game Boy hardware, many of them were quite bad, but there were also brilliant titles like Automobili Lamborghini. V Rally or Nigel Mansell F1 Championship. But the most innovative one was, without a doubt F1 Race

The single player mode was hard as the nails on a coffin.

The single player mode was hard as the nails on a coffin.

F1 Race was not only the first racing game to reach the system, it also had an unique feature: It allowed to play four human players at the same time, competing against each other. F1 Race and the Game Boy democratized also the multiplayer games, more than three decades ago.

Unlike in Japan, where it was sold as an standalone game, F1 Race was sold in Europe and the US bundled with the four players adaptor, and despite i got my Game Boy and my F1 Race copy second hand, the game was so immensely popular that i always was able to find other people to play. The single player was quite fun and incredibly challenging, but the four player mode was even better. Nowadays, with the online gaming allowing you to play against people from all around the world, the four player feature of F1 Race might seem almost pointless. But in the early 90's it was an unique, and incredibly fun feature.

Gran Turismo: The Real driving Simulator (Sony Playstation, 1998)

The game that changed everything.

The game that changed everything.

The Sony Playstation is probably the most influential domestic console of all time. Released 27 years ago, it was the main agent of change when the home videogame shifted from cartridges to digital disc technology. With an impressive game library, thanks to the facilites given by Sony to the third party companies, racing games were one of the strongest points of the PSX

Porsche Challenge, TOCA Touring Car, F1, Ridge Racer, Destruction Derby... All them were racing titles that were among the best games ever programed. But the one that changed everything, the one that became the benchmark for all the future racing games in the next two decades, was programed by Sony themselves (Through Polyphony Digital, of course)

When Gran Turismo was launched in Japan in late 1997, the chronicles that you could read on videogames magazines were just astounding: hundreds of cars to choose, hyper realistic graphics, realistic controls, a "Gran Turismo" mode that even included driving license test, replay videos that you could store on the memory card... all them features never seen before in a videogame. I could not wait for it!

JDM galore.

JDM galore.

Gran Turismo finally reached Europe in May 1998, and my hands in July, for my 16th birthday. And everything i expected was surpassed, by far. The graphics were incredible, the vehicle choice, huge, although in this first instalment, a bit limited to JDM models, the controls were sublime, the music, with tracks from bands Feeder, Fatboy Slim or Garbage, excellent, and the options just endless. For two years, the Gran Turismo disc never left my Playstation, only did it when i wanted to play a strange crime simulator, called Grand Theft Auto (Rings any bells?) and when in 2000 i finally put it away on its box, was just to replace it by the new Gran Turismo 2.

Gran Turismo made me love racing games again, made me love JDM cars and became even a small textbook about mechanics, aerodynamics and car history. I still have goosebumps when i see the intro and i hear the Chemical Brothers version of Manic Street Preachers' "Everything Must go". Without a doubt, the game that left the biggest imprint on me.

Forza Horizon 3 (Xbox One, 2016)

Make racing games great again

Make racing games great again

As i grew up, my gaming interests changed and even played more on PC than in console for many years. The new series of sandbox games, especially the Grand Theft Auto III games (Including Vice City and San Andreas) were more entertaining to me and the absolute freedom they offered guaranteed years of fun, literally.

I bought a Xbox 360 in 2010, and yet, racing games seemed to be a bit more of the same old Gran Turismo style: Gotham Racing, Forza Motorsport... all were based in the same racing-on-circuit formula seen before. I won't deny that i enjoyed them, but the games with "Something else" like the Dirt franchise were more enjoyable to me.

In 2017 i got me a Xbox One, and discovered Forza Motorsport 3. And i must say i fell in love with racing games again. Horizon was a racing game, but the circuit was in this case, a big portion of Australia, with kilometers and kilometers of open roads, highways, cities, towns, trails... And an incredibly amount of cars to choose from!

I loved to build classic liveries for new cars. This is a Shelby 350 Gt H hommage

I loved to build classic liveries for new cars. This is a Shelby 350 Gt H hommage

Forza Horizon 3 is probably the racing game i've enjoyed the most in my life. The astonishing amount of challenges, including the search of barn finds, the infinite personalization options for the cars, that could made me spend a whole sunday evening creating a racing livery, the excellent multiplayer options, and the feeling that it was something different and very well done, made it the car game i wanted since Gran Turismo. I can't wait for the future Horizon 5, soon to be launched, but Horizon 3 will always be the game that made me enjoy racing games again.

And what about you? What are the racing games you love the most? Tell me in the comments!