What’s the easiest way of driving the ultimate sports car around your favourite racetrack? Simple - buy a racing game! The gaming industry has always had a soft corner for driving. Apart from racing games, driving is used quite extensively in other gaming genres as well. In more ways than one, gaming and driving are quite alike. The feeling of control and freedom experienced while driving or gaming can be pure bliss to most and addictive to some.
One recent example of driving and gaming coming together is how the Formula One championship is looking at gamers to help improve its future. The best part, though, is one doesn’t have to worry about damaging or crashing their vehicle, be it a hard-core racing game or a role-playing one. Here are just some of the games that got us driving, well before we were legally permitted by the law.
Need for Speed
Since its inception in 1994, the Need for Speed series has had 23 game titles and is one of the most widely known racing games of all time. Whether it was the Ferrari 550 Maranello or the Jaguar XJR-15, the racing was always thrilling. Also, players could choose to run from the cops or be the cops, how cool is that!
Crazy Taxi
Although there wasn’t much choice when it came to vehicles, and graphics weren’t based around the driving, the game was fun nevertheless. The idea was to drive around looking for taxi fares and then getting those passengers to the said location as fast as possible.
Gran Turismo
Launched back in 1997, the first ever Gran Turismo is the best-selling video game of all time on the Original PlayStation gaming console. The game had arguably one of the largest collection of vehicles with brands like Acura, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Dodge, Mazda and many more.
Midtown Madness
Midtown Madness first came to the scene in 1999. It was developed for Windows by Rockstar San Diego and published by Microsoft Studios. The game had multiple racing modes and had a range of vehicles from the Volkswagen Beetle to the Panoz AIV Roadster. The game had interesting races on offer and also had quite an extensive free roam map at the time.
Grand Theft Auto
Right from the first GTA game title, cars were an integral part of the gameplay. Although the shift to third person view was first seen in GTA III, it was GTA Vice City and San Andreas that took the world by storm. There has always been a consistent improvement in how the cars handled and drove in-game. Explicit content aside, the GTA series did a pretty good job of getting us out onto the open highway.
It’s safe to say that as long as cars and video games exist, we’ll be catching a glimpse of the two every now and then, intermingling to drive our obsession, quite literally!
Comments
0 comment