Racing Video Games

It's a video game developed by Turn 10 Studios, which features 231 cars and boasts realistic and high quality damage. If you love the ability to race realistically, and like the idea that your car get shredded to pieces, this is the game for you. Each car can be upgraded and tuned with a large number of extras and parts in three categories, which are engine/power, appearance/aerodynamics and chassis/drivetrain. On top of that you'll have plenty of customization options to really get your car to look the way you want it to.

The game contains a mix of licensed, street, point to point and original circuits. Also one of the game's talked about features is its physics engine, which calculates a car's performance in real time using physical data.

Forza Motorsport 2

This is the sequel to the original Forza Motorsport. With this one there are 349 cars available to get along the way, which is a rather large amount if you ask me. You'll also once again get a lot of customization options with 1,000 layers of graphics that can be created with the livery editor to draw shapes, letters and pictures onto a car. Unlike the original Motorsport, Forza 2 concentrates on circuit racing.

Forza Motorsport 3

You'll now be able to use over 400 cars, and customize them with a huge amount of options. There are over 200 events, which are circuit, oval, drag, drift, and timed events. Critics applauded the limitless levels of customization, and higher level of realism. There is also a pressure system in which the AI will make mistakes if they are pressure in certain situations, which makes them more realistic and natural feeling as opponents.

Need for Speed (NFS) is a series of racing games developed by several studios, including EA Black Box. These have always been a highpoint in video game racing, that proves to be a crossbreed between realistic and arcade in terms of feel.The NFS games mostly consist of racing on tracks and/or metropolitan racing, which may also include police pursuits.

One of the great benefits of these games is that they usually incorporate split-screen for those that love racing together with friends in the same room, unlike a lot of other racers on the market. Usually each game boasts an extensive list of cars that the player can eventually acquire, and with that plenty of visual and mechanical customizations to make each vehicle their own.

The Need for Speed series has always been one of those pick up and play racers that don't require an extensive knowledge of racing to be good at it. On top of that, I've had many races with friends that lasted until the early morning as we pitted our best cars against each other. They have always been great multiplayer games.

If you like a racing game that has one of the primary focuses on high-speed aggressive driving and crashing, then this is the series for you. The games traditionally have a wide variety of challenges to accomplish as you move your way up the ranks. With the original Burnout the car selection was quite small, but as each sequel came into being, more and more cars were added.

To put int bluntly, if your looking for a realistic racer, this is not it. If your looking for a pure adrenaline rush of high speed racing with an emphasis on damage and destruction, this one would be worthy to check out. Due to the arcade feel that this game has, it's relatively easy to pick up and play without having to know how to drive well, after all, a part of playing the game is to ram your car into other cars and stuff while your racing, so even sucky players may excel even if on accident.

The Gran Turismo (GT) series has been popular for a very long time, ever since 1997 when it first entered the scene. It has a rather large following being that it has proven to be highly successful as well as a critically acclaimed series.

There are four big reasons why GT has been popular, first being that it has superb graphics, the huge number of officially licensed vehicles, the ability to tune performance, as well as the extent and detail of simulation. The game does feature an arcade mode, but it strikes home with its realistic simulation mode.

You can't go wrong with this game if your looking for a realistic racing simulation that has a wide spectrum of cars to choose from, as well as a substantial fan following. I've always believed that this is Forza Motorsport's direct competitor in terms of it being a serious driving simulation.

These are the four big dogs on the market concerning racing, and it's hard to choose the best out of them since they each have their own unique feel. Personally, I've always liked the Need For Speed series due to it being a healthy mixture of both arcade and simulation to an extent. It's also a great party game, the cars are easy to get the hang of even for people who are not naturally born racers, and the police chases in both NFS: Most Wanted and NFS: Carbon are top notch (my two personal favorites of the series to date). If your going to get a couple games in a single shot, you will be pleasantly surprised by those two, they are both great games, especially split-screen.