Community Question | Do You Still Regularly Play 'Old' Sims?

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Sim Racing has been around for a while, and a few golden oldies really captured the imagination 10+ years ago - but do any of them still enjoy regular play time in your day-to-day sim racing?

I'm sure if you were around at the time, many of you reading this article have enjoyed some lappery in classics like F1 Legends, GTL, GTR2, Race 07 and the like - but great as they were at the time, are you still giving any of these regular play time in 2020?


I'll admit it's been a while since I last fired up any of these classics, but as you can see in the video above, the last time I did, it was a surprisingly enjoyable experience indeed.

So my question to you all is - do the various golden oldies still enjoy some play time on your modern rigs, and if so, which ones and why?

Leave your opinions in the comments section below.

Oldies footer.jpg
 
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I still played Race 07 and GT Legends regularly right up to the point when I got VR about three years ago. For me there is no going back to pancake racing after VR, so sadly it was time to retire those golden oldies. (Had to retire AMS 1 too, which was still "current" at the time.) If there was some way to hack VR into them then I'd happily give them another go!
 

Jimlaad43

Nice apex, I'll take it!
Staff
Premium
rFactor has tracks that no other games have. It has some of the best fantasy tracks available in racing games (Mills, Groningen Airport, VITUS GP), and pretty much any real racing circuit can be found in one form or another in rFactor, and it hasn't been ported to new ones yet.

If I could get my old copy of Total Immersion Racing working, I'd also play that too.
 
No, why should I? There is literally nothing that old racing games can offer to me compared to new ones.
what about car and track selections? newer sims focus on the newest content while older sims featured racing series, cars and tracks that are not used anymore today.

race07 has pau and macau, gtr2 had anderstorp and enna pergusa for example. toca 2 had the full btcc from 1998. are those games not worth replaying?

new does not always mean better.
 
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The answer is NO. But 2 years ago i have driven a "season" Race07. Few weeks ago i tried again the power and glory mod for gtr2 but i unistalled after 10 minutes. The visuals were already too bad :notworthy:

Modern graphics are definetly not the most important thing while simracing, but.....
I have no problem with raceroom but don`t fire up much older games anymore :unsure:
 
what about car and track selections? newer sims focus on the newest content while older sims featured racing series, cars and tracks that are not used anymore today.

race07 has pau and macau, gtr2 had anderstorp and enna pergua for example. toca 2 had the full btcc from 1998. are those games not worth replaying?

new does not always mean better.
I have played almost all of these and TOCA 2 was my favourite. But realistically in today's terms they are soo outdated. VR/online/graphics/physics/ controllers (think DD wheels) are miles ahead now compared to these old titles. Even now me and brother talk how great TOCA 2 was at that time which is fine but realistically I'm not gonna play it anymore. Don't want to ruin my childhood memories lol.
And those are my thoughts, your may differ. But new games are WAY ahead except yes, some tracks and cars missing.
 
I rarely have time to enjoy my newer sims theses days, so sadly not. If I did, GTR2 and Race07/STCC etc would probably get some love and I did install GT Legends a while back, but didn't fire it up!
 
I still played Race 07 and GT Legends regularly right up to the point when I got VR about three years ago. For me there is no going back to pancake racing after VR, so sadly it was time to retire those golden oldies. (Had to retire AMS 1 too, which was still "current" at the time.) If there was some way to hack VR into them then I'd happily give them another go!
I agree
 
Before each race weekend IRL I usually find a track similar to the one I'm racing at in NR2003 (almost every oval in North America has been made at this point), and do a full 100 lap "mock race" against a similar sized field of cars and my own custom AI path. People really do not understand just how close NASCAR 03 is to the real thing in terms of tire behavior and vehicle inertia. Few seasons back I had never driven on slicks before (our series uses grooved slicks to prevent guys from blowing $$$ on massive motors) and warmed up on NR03 using some track in Wisconsin as a placeholder. Went out and set the track record in qualifying. Pedal and wheel inputs were basically 1:1. Our baseline setup also works in the game.

IndyCar Racing 2 I recently got up and running on DOSBox. With a wheel set to the correct rotation it's quite fun both on road courses and ovals and it's the only IndyCar game I've played where races generally play out like a proper indycar race - draft battles on the ovals, lots of space between cars, AI with noticeably different skill levels between drivers, that sort of thing. I think what makes the experience is that with such simplistic AI, there's less chances for bizarre stuff to happen like you see in the isi/Madness engine games where cars divebomb the daylights out of you, drive on the grass, etc.

NHRA 2 and NHRA 2007 also get regular playtime, mostly because nobody's made any sort of drag racing game at all over the past decade. The team who made both games were massive NHRA nerds and most sim racers would not be prepared for how meticulous the engine adjustments are. The game is uncompromisingly difficult on max difficulty and both games have a proper career mode. Usually once a year my buddy and I will order pizza and just blitz through a few seasons, trading off every event.

Lastly, it doesn't count as a sim, but GeneRally. One of the best racing games ever made and it's a shame it never received an online component. The library of content for this game is staggering and it plays like a sequel to Danny Sullivan's IndyHeat.
 

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