Submitted on: 07/20/2010 by
Justin Pacheco
I tend to be a fairly placid gamer. I will never be someone who lines up at my local GameStop for a midnight release. I can usually wait for games to get a little cheaper in price before buying them, and sometimes I end up really late on even the biggest titles (I just started playing Dirt, for example). Still, sometimes even I get excited for something. I did obsessively check the Forza Web site for months before the game released and could not wait to sink my teeth into that game. The same thing went for Madden 10.
And the nice part about this year is that it has already been a big year for racing games, yet I am still excited about some upcoming releases. So here are my top three most-anticipated racing games for the rest of the year:
WRC 2010
While the two Dirt games are great fun, they did not really offer a true simulation of a World Rally Championship season. There also has not been much in the way of rally games on this generation of consoles. However, the developers at Black Bean Studios look like they are trying to rectify that problem. However, the studio is somewhat unknown because it has only worked on niche racers like Superbike World Championship and the Superstars V8 series.
Rally racing is more mainstream than either of those series and should give the development studio a much larger audience. From the videos available, the game looks very promising and features extraordinarily detailed courses that strive to accurately re-create the real-life courses from the WRC season. This accuracy is important since one of the touted features of the game is the ability to race against the actual drivers during the events throughout the season.
F1 2010 is looking to continue Codemasters excellent track record with racing games.
Codemasters has put together a string of terrific and successful racing games such as the TOCA/Grid and Colin McRae/Dirt series. The developers under the Codemasters umbrella have really have shown their ability to create fun, gorgeous and fairly realistic games that are also accessible. So I really have faith that Codemasters be able to create something special with the F1 license. The videos that have been released so far make the game look promising, and while I am not an F1 fan, I do love F1 games.
The game is supposed to feature a deep career mode that will let you experience the life of the driver. This means you will be able to change teams, work with teammates and deal with the media. The game should also allow Codemasters to return to a true simulation style, which is not to knock Grid or Dirt, but I feel like Codemasters has tended toward a more arcade style lately -- especially when compared to the Colin McRae days. Still, if Codemasters delivers once again, I would expect F1 2010 to be one of the highlights of the year
Gran Turismo 5
This game should be a given number one for any racing fan. I do not even own a PlayStation 3, and I still can’t help but be excited by what I have seen. I love the Forza series and consider Forza 3 to be at the top of the racing-game class, but Gran Turismo is still Gran Turismo. I missed out on the original iteration, but I have owned 2, 3 and 4.
Sure, the games may be constantly and consistently delayed, I don’t think Gran Turismo 2 could have had a worse menu or been any buggier, and I abhor the mandatory license tests, but again, it’s still Gran Turismo. It’s like Ferrari: It has the name and the history and that goes a long way.
This is not to imply that the series gets by on name alone. Each game in the series has earned its accolades, and I expect the same from the fifth version. The delays might be frustrating, but in the end, they might prove worth it. Besides, a growing complaint from gamers has been the over-reliance on patches to fix things that should have been corrected before release -- this has been especially true in sports games so OSers should know better than any other gamers. Therefore, shouldn’t we be glad that Polyphony is taking the time to get everything just right?
And remember how I said I didn’t own a PS3? I would expect that to change when GT5 gets released, whenever that may be.
These are the three racing games I’m most excited for, what are yours?
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