Road Rash is still one of my favorites! I plan to play through the PSX version at some point since I only ever got the chance to play the Genesis ones as a kid.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Colin McRae Rally for PSX/PSP still holds up really well.
Is Burnout old enough to be considered retro? 🤔
Because otherwise I, too, would have to say Road Rash.
Not much of a fan of racing, which is why my picks are what they are; Burnout has the awesome crash mode, and Road Rash is basically just a beat 'em up on wheels.
Although, I also really like Wipeout.
Gran Tourismo 2 and 4, Ridge Racer Type 4, Burnout 3 Takedown and NFSU2/MW. I like a lot of racing games but these are my favorite retro ones.
Rock and Roll Racing
Excite bike
Excite bike
We had endless hours of fun back in the day using the track builder and figuring out the exact spacing and combination of ramps to make your little dude crash out in a manner that flung his tumbling corpse the absolute maximum amount of distance. (Okay, so you never really die in Excitebike, but you know.) You can achieve significant hang time if you do it right.
Random unsolicited video game trivia: First run editions of Excitebike were actually Japanese Famicom cartridges bodged into Famicom-to-NES cartridge converters. They're literally Japanese copies of the game, verbatim. This includes the theoretical ability to save out your track to the Famicom Data Recorder, which has only the minor wrinkle of never having been released in the US. This was baffling to us at the time, not understanding why the option was there when it self-evidently didn't work (but your Zelda cartridge could save just fine).
Somehow my dad figured this out using the early Internet or Usenet or something, and then I had the actual answer. Still not actually being able to save, mind you, but at least I knew why you couldn't. Except nobody in the schoolyard would believe me.
(I do know!)
Rc Pro Am was pretty great.
Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega, Super Maro Bro for the NES, along with Zelda, and Hotwheels micro racer. Blaster Master waa also a super fun game that I am on the hunt for. Far as Road Rash loved the PS1 version. Also play the shit out of Cruising the USA for the Nintendo 64.
Not sure it's my favourite, but Wipeout XL/2097 deserves a mention.
Super Hang-On is a comfort game for me, if I need a pick up and play racer I often choose that
If I wanna get more technical while staying retro I'd play Gran Turismo 2
If I'm in a "I need the arcade experience" mood I'll play Daytona USA
Stunts was the best. You could draw your own circuits.
Yes!! This and Fatal Racing was my entire early teens!
The first that come to mind are, in no particular order:
Need for speed hot pursuit (PC)
Sonic drift 2 (game gear)
Monaco F1 (mega drive)
Death Rally (PC)
Big Red Racing (PC)
Ballistics (PC)
WipeOut (psx)
The racing game in the Sega 4in1 pack (game gear)
Virtua Racing (mega drive)
Micromachines (mega drive)
Penny Racers (psx)
All very different from another.
Almost forgot: carmageddon!
Ridge Racer for the PlayStation
No clue whether people consider the wii retro yet, but it's a tie between Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity on wii (since that's how I experienced it) or Cartoon Network Racing on PS2 (same reason). I'm fairly certain PS2 is technically retro by now, as insane as that sounds.
Hydro Thunder on Dreamcast!
Road Rash and Skitchin are great. The Ayrton Senna games too, but I played those on Master System.
Network Q RAC Rally Championship on DOS is as good as it gets. Not the sequel International Rally Championship, which is far worse.
POD on Windows 9x. It has not held up and doesn’t look so good no matter how you get it working now. But if you played it back then those memories will live inside you forever.
Badlands on Commodore 64.
Moto Roader 2 on PC Engine.
NFS Porsche Unleashed/2000 (whatever they called it in your region) is the best NFS game.
I had a demo version of POD and I played it a lot. Now I'm afraid to look it up lol. Is it really that bad?
It’s maybe not so bad, but I spent ridiculous hours in POD, playing every track and in reverse, and with every car, and split screen multiplayer.
I’ve never been able to get it to work with dgVoodoo, so the 3dfx crispness isn’t there. And I think it’s limited to 800x600 (but I remember it being somewhat prone to crashes above 640x480, this was about 10 years ago though). I also had a lot of audio popping which I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
It was such a great looking game to show off the Glide graphics on a 15” svga monitor, but for me it didn’t scale well on a 24 - 27” hi res screen.
Love road rash!!
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F-Zero X
I crave speed and murder
Probably F-Zero GX. Though I'm older than that, I wasn't playing racing games a lot before that. An older game I'd enjoyed a bit was POD (: Planet Of Death).
I've played Mario Kart quite a bit, starting back with super, but I can't really pick one as my favorite retro racing game, because the one I like the most is 8. Though Wii came close.
You know, when I read retro racing I immediately thought of NFS and Pod, it's surprising to find someone who still remembers it.
It's so satisfying when you get good at knocking out other racers. I remember as a teenager I would set my top speed to high and whittle down half of the other racers on my way to the front of the pack.
It's easy to get in the top ten when you drop the racers count down fifteen places.
Hell yeah. And then you've got one of those crazy hard story mode challenges where you pretty much have to destroy as many opponents you can to have enough juice to win. The one with Michael Chain and his gang.
That story mode was unhinged difficult. Don't think I got much further than that.
It was such a cool level. I remember that was the only story level I beat in first couple tries~
Top Gear on SNES is pretty sick.
Cruisin’ USA was pretty great too.
I hate that I can call this “retro” now, but 100% INITIAL D arcade machine or PSP game.
SPEEDY SPEED BOY
GASOLINE’S BURNIN’ IN
that's like picking a favorite child! Power Drift, SEGA Rally Championship, Super Hang-On, and Hang-On GP, and OutRunners are all vying for that spot. Kirby Air Ride gets an honorable mention for the same reason as that other commenter, i can count on one hand how many times i've actually played the main racing mode
It makes me feel old to admit it's retro, but Gran Turismo on Playstation.
Lots of great ones mentioned here and while I don’t know if it’s my favorite, I have a deep soft spot for Super Off-Road. It has an incredible spatial sense and fluidity for its time and still holds up at any barcade.
Yeah, fair. Me and my brother definitely played alot of that.
Kirby Air Ride, though I'm reaching a bit here since the main racing mode isn't actually the part that's notable about this game. City Trial was where it's at.
For just pure racing, F-Zero GX.
God City Trial was so much fun. Kinda wish Smash kept that mode that Smash DS had that was very similar to City Trial.
The top down racing mini-game was also slept on.
Outrun, especially Outrun 2. I like arcade style racers the most.
Also in that vein, San Francisco Rush.
Yeah, rush 2049 was my favourite from the SF Rush series.
Top Gear 3000. It's the main reason why I have a SNES emulator installed on every device I own lol.
I was going to say SNES Mario Kart, but really I think it’s GC Mario Kart: Double Dash.
Lotus III or Micro Machines probably. Maybe Road Rash (either version).
For me it’s Rad Racer on NES. Just very nostalgic! I love the sounds and the graphics just scream 80s/early 90s
And you can press select and everything goes to anaglyph 3D...
A random piece of trivia you can use to blow certain people's minds is that Rad Racer was developed by Square. Yes, that Square.
I had no idea to either of those!
You'll be scouring cereal boxes for a pair of red/blue 3D shades in no time.
Diddy Kong racing.
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