My First (Simracing) Car

[Bruno Iwanczuk]

Best simulator of all time
https://ibb.co/fLMpxz


The first car i drove with a steering wheel was this piece of """" in GTR2, after that the Subaru in Richard Burns Rally. It was in 2010.
https://ibb.co/h4GTqK

 

[Mitja Bonca]

I started with GPL straight when it came out in 1998, and look how my D: drive looks today:

--
Still The Best sim ever. I spent so much time with it, that nothing else would ever in my life. So many great memories, that I cannot describe here. And VROC which we had, thats what I miss in all today`s sims.

 

[JonnyCombat]

Indianapolis 500. Glorious.

Mid/late eighties? Great game anyway, although it nearly always descended into anarchy on the track (my fault every time).

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

I've been playing racing games since Enduro on the Atari.

The ones that finally made me commit and say "i have to buy a wheel too"(i had a friend with a wheel) where GP3 (this friend would always talk to me about GP2) and F1 2001 by EA/ISI.
Had just dropped consoles for PC gaming, so very convenient.

 

[ears]

Yeah, that was it - the Duluxe version!! I remember that same feeling - waiting for the box to come through in the post with the 3.5 inch floppy disks inside!! I think the company were based in Sheffield or somewhere and they packaged the box in a jiffy bag. I never got into editing any files or anything like that, but then again I was only about 11 or 12 at the time.

It was a great game for its era. I remember working through from the Astra GTE to the BMW and then on to the mighty Sierra Cosworth! The progression through the game was really well structured. I remember the cars had upgradable parts, tires and so on. I still remember the game really fondly now. It brings back great memories of when me and my brother were kids.

Did you ever get Stunt Racer 2000? That was another really good driving game for the Acorn. Brutally hard though as I remember - especially the later levels. Not sure I ever completed the single player mode on that one.

It was a great sense of achievement when you got up to a BMW then the Sierra.

It was a damn hard game too, that mouse control. So sensitive, you had to make such small movements. And the slightest deviation off the track at speed and bang. Head slams on steering wheel, dead. They really should have implemented seat belts.

I did play Stunt Racer 2000 but just for fun really, don't remember actually taking on the single player.

I also had Powerband which was ... well ... just awful.

 

[Janni1312]

2010 - 11 years old - GTR2 - Porsche 996 Cup - Hockenheimring - Wondering why the car goes straight when pressing "space" for braking in the corner....Oh I'll never forget that

 

[RMR1]

Exactly the same for me. Grand prix 2 in 1994 in Jean Alesi's Ferrari and then the GPL revelation. Really fell in love with the accurate physics and this historic feel all over the game, and all the mods which came afterwards. The Ferrari was my favorite (and a bit less difficult than the Lotus). I now stick to AC in VR and have limited leisure time otherwise I would have reinstalled GPL...

GPL 2.0 would be tremendous
Assetto Corsa with all original content + mods is coming quite close from what we had in GPL (except the global atmosphere) :
The Bazza's 67 Legends car mod is good, still needs to be a bit more polished

We could almost do the original '67 championship with the following available track mods :
Kyalami 67 by ACtrack reboot is good
Monaco 66 by ACtrack reboot is very good
Zandvoort (Sandvoerde 60s in RD by Sergio Loro) is very good
Spa 66 by ACtrack reboot is tremendous
French grand prix was in Bugatti Le Mans, successfully replaced by Rouen Les Essarts in GPL. We have the Rouen Les Essarts track in RD by Dr Maboul which is good but does not have exactly the 60's look. It has the correct layout but incorrect elevations in some places of the circuit.
Silverstone : Kunos original
Nurburgring : a fairly good Nurb 67 track mod exists (by Rainmaker) (named 65 but it's 67 layout)
Mosport : the 2012 version on RD is OK because I think the layout has not changed since '67 (but lacks the historic look and feel)
Monza : Kunos original
Watkins Glen : the mod by Liski we have in RD is very good but the Boot Classic layout is not exactly the same as the 1967 layout, and it lacks the '60s look
Mexico : the '67 layout does not exist for AC (at least I could not find it)

If someone is willing to organize such '67 events in AC, I can help and support (not enough time to take the lead).
In the meantime, I try to attend every '67 F1 online event I can find...

Thanks for the Nords 65 heads up! How could I miss that!!!

 

[Kevin Bradley]

It was a great sense of achievement when you got up to a BMW then the Sierra.

It was a damn hard game too, that mouse control. So sensitive, you had to make such small movements. And the slightest deviation off the track at speed and bang. Head slams on steering wheel, dead. They really should have implemented seat belts.

I did play Stunt Racer 2000 but just for fun really, don't remember actually taking on the single player.

I also had Powerband which was ... well ... just awful.

@ears yes, Powerband was totally pants, I remember that one. Not a patch on Saloon Cars.

Do you remember E-Type? An arcade racer with a built-in track designer. That was good fun.

Another of my favourite Acorn games was Birds of War, a flight sim set over 4 eras - WW1, WW2, 50s/60s and modern. That was awesome. The campaign was absolutely brilliant!!! I remember it came with about 7 floppy disks and it took forever to load.

All this retro-game talk makes me want to go find an Acorn emulator to play all these old titles again!!!

 

[ears]

@ears yes, Powerband was totally pants, I remember that one. Not a patch on Saloon Cars.

Do you remember E-Type? An arcade racer with a built-in track designer. That was good fun.

Another of my favourite Acorn games was Birds of War, a flight sim set over 4 eras - WW1, WW2, 50s/60s and modern. That was awesome. The campaign was absolutely brilliant!!! I remember it came with about 7 floppy disks and it took forever to load.

All this retro-game talk makes me want to go find an Acorn emulator to play all these old titles again!!!

Yeah E-Type was one of the first Arc games I played, and Pacmania.

I got a similar bug a year or two back and found this amazing website by an amazing guy called Jon Abbott who has been through all the old Arc software and made all the stuff that's now copyright free available for download.

He's also written emulator extensions that mean the games can be played on various devices including a Raspberry Pi running RISC OS.

https://forums.jaspp.org.uk/forum/index.php

 

[Kevin Bradley]

@ears thanks very much for the information and the link - I will definitely be checking that out. Cheers mate.

 

[JackCY]

Depends what you count as a sim, if we're counting GPL as a sim then I suppose it would be some 8bit Atari formulas in late 80s.

If we're counting something with clear customization, setups etc. then Viper Racing which had features you can't find in expensive AAAAAAAA games even today no matter how many As they are "rated".

But if we're talking about sims that could be counted as a sim more than as an arcade then RBR and LFS.

 

[Jayenn]

Not sure which one i played first as a kid, but it has to be between Indianapolis 500: The simulation, Accolade's Grand Prix circuit and Test Drive 1.

The first sim (for its time) that got me into all of this was Grand Prix 1 though. I remember loving that game and printing out race results.

Honorable mention of a TRUE hardcore sim i probably played the most as a kid: Stunts (aka 4D stunts driving)

 

[Lynx2000]

It was either the Hakkinen Mclaren in GP4 or the Ford Focus in CMR 3 or 4. I was very young at the time,like 5-6 years old in 2005-2006 when I started playing racing games, so I dont remember exactly. I played GP4 for ages, the first "sim" I played after GP4 was PCars and after that R3E and AC.

 

[justfdl]

NFS Porsche Unleashed. I was driving a 944 in RL at that time, and when the game was released I immediatly got it for the 944 in game.

 

[apex11]

Amiga 500
Geoff Crammonds F1
The Cycles
Team Suzuki racing

Then onto PS1 and a whole bunch of racing games and honerable mentions aside from various F1 titles:
Total immersion racing (i think)

Then Dreamcast with Le Mans 24 hour.
Stunning game the cars had jet streams from the aero when it was early morning / evening with full 24 hour cycle.
Incredible and not seen that much detail even today.

Then i went off and got drunk and crazy at Uni and found girls and partying....

Got back into it with PCars on xbox....which developed into the full sim set up etc...

Now full on sad geek with every possible sim game on PC....plus i recently got into Flight sims!!

My true hobby now, saves me loads on money as don't do track days anymore and don't drink and get to have fun around being a Dad.....

Thank you sim racing and computer games, simply the best hobby ever pound for pound and for not having to wait around for it or trave, simply pop into the man cave....

 

[apex11]

How could i forget the ToCA 1 and 2 games!!!

 

[raiod1478]

The first sim I tried once I bought my first wheel was rF1 because it was the most popular back then, but the first online league I entered was on GPL and I raced my first season with the lil Cooper, good memories trying not to kill anyone on those loose cars

 

[Butch]

I started race game with the 288GTO on 4D stunts on a 486DX4-100. I continued with, screamer 2, need for speed 1,2,3,4,5,6 and mercedes world racing.

But I think, my first real simracing car: The TR4 for GT Legends.

 

[MrLonguinha]

Microprose, Grand Prix 1 by Geoff Crammond and IndyCar Racing 1 by Papyrus

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

... honourable mentions ...: Total immersion racing (I think)
Le Mans 24 hour. ...Stunning game the cars had jet streams from the aero when it was early morning / evening with full 24 hour cycle.

yep, total immersion was fun, fell in love with Sebring and the Panoz playing that game

brilliant, 24 hours had some nice details, started out on a full 24h race (one could save during every pitstop) but never got to finish it, it was simply too depressing to play the hours between 23.00 and 05.00, lol)
also, the AI got incredibly fast once you passed them, so races were always fun right till the last turn