Have Your Say: Your First Racing Game

[Paul Jeffrey]

Everyone remembers their first love, and racing games are no different. With such a wealth of content on offer today, can you cast your mind back and remember the very first?

No doubt about it, "sim racing" has advanced practically beyond imagination since those tentative first days of Pole Position back in the early 1980's. With highly polished graphics, detailed physics, multi car grids, online racing and all the other bells and whistles of modern gaming, a sim racer today is spoilt for choice when it comes to the wonderful pastime of driving digital racing cars.

So for our question today I ask, which game (on what platform) was your very fist foray into the world of racing?

Have fun reminiscing and enjoy the weekend!

 

[Metla]

Mine was Pole Position on the Atari 2600, By my reckoning I was about 8.

 

[Wedsley Dias]

GP1

 

[V10v8v12]

My first racing game was grand prix 2 on pc

 

[tigermilk]

Night Driver on the Atari 2600.

 

[Zenvioux]

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 (the 2002 one everyone forgets)

 

[Jordan Dion]

My fist one was grand Turismo II
But the one i really remember is Grand Prix 3
Was so realistic and fun for that time...haaa good memory

 

[sc4dr]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Sports Car GT! Not my first sim, but the first good one I remember spending hours on. My first one I spent hours on was test drive for the ol' C64 when I was a young Buck.

 

[guidofoc]

By racing game you mean videogame or in general? Because for me the first racing game was Polistil (same as Scalextric) when I was 4 or 5. Videogames, well at the arcade there were quite a few games, I remember one called Sprint 2 where you had wheel, pedals and gears, and the car was sliding all over the place. On my Commodore 64 I think the first was Pit Stop 2, on the Amiga Indianapolis 500, F1GP and Test Drive.

 

[arniesan]

I always dabbled with racing games, but I got seriously hooked when GPL came out, it set me on a road I have never left; sim' racing.
To this day I still play GPL on times and GP4 also.
Another early game I played was "Spirit Of Speed," still got the disk; but can't get it to run on my rig now...for those days it had good FFB.

 

[Mach77]

my first racing game: Monster Truck Madness
my first racing sim: Indycar Racing II
my first racing sim with a steering wheel: GTR 2
the racing game that made me fall in love with racing: Gran Turismo 3 A-spec

 

[Giovaneveterano]

I had to say, it was PoD (Planet of Death)... so many memories!

 

[JonnySniper]

I think it was probably Forza 1 on original Xbox. I also had Sega GT and Burnout, and Indycar by Codies which was pretty fun too.

My first experience with a simulator was Grand Prix 4 and F1 Challenge 99-02 which my dad owned. I remember how hard I found them as a kid lol. Both fantastic games even today.

(Guy in the video is kind of a bad driver and clearly playing on an easy difficulty, but this was the first result I got)

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Pole Position (1983) on Commodore 64.

 

[Stnry]

My First ever racing Game was Mobil 1 Rally Championship in PS1 but i hardly remember how it was

First One i really played and enjoyed was Colin McRae 04

Edit: i just found an old copy of f1 '98 i think that really has been the first

 

[Beef36]

.

 

[Mitja Bonca]

Lotus 3: The Ultimage Challenge
wow, didn`t play this game since 1993, cannot believe it.

 

[wombat999]

I can't even remember the title but it was 'F1' and I was highly impressed with the recovery cranes that removed destroyed cars (mostly mine) from around the circuit!!!
My first real race sim was the ubiquitous GTR2. which is still on my 'racing' HD today.

 

[DrSmile]

Test Drive for the C64

And when i saw the pic from f355 challenge...gosh i miss my dreamcast

 

[jp chemisky]

Then when i got home, i played my first racegames / racesims for hours and hours on the Amiga 500:

My favorite top 5 on the Amiga 500:

1. VROOM!
   
   
2. Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
   
   
3. Jaguar XJ220

4. Indianapolis 500

5. Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge


What an era of lovely memories and happy that i've experienced it all from the early beginning.
Hope you like this post!

Amazing ! I spent so many hours on the Amiga 500 exactly on the same games, and classified in the same order ! (Jaguar XJ220 had anyway a very cool feature that you could create your own tracks)
Thank you for the images and this happy memories !

 

[PietervE8]

Mine was Sega Rally on the Sega Saturn.