Racing games like forza

Originally launched on PC, but now available on Xbox and Switch. See our full Art of Rally review. This wonderful banger-racer - which, just like Art of Rally, boasts many iconic and completely unlicensed cars shhh, don't tell the manufacturers - channels the classic Destruction Derby, as well as the fondly remembered Flatout.

That's not surprising, as it's by the original Flatout studio Bugbear. It's a simple formula, but has everything that you need: old cars with weighty, wallowing handling that lurch and smash and lunch each other's bodywork convincingly thanks to a brilliant physics engine. Simple pleasures. See our full Wreckfest review and buy it now from Amazon. TrackMania is one of those odd little corners of gaming that is almost its own genre: a brutally fast and difficult stunt-driving time-trial game with hugely exaggerated physics that allow for impossible feats of what you can only call airborne car ballet.

The PC games have a fantastic, dedicated community, but are bewilderingly fussy in their structure and business models, and last year's reboot, simply called TrackMania, is no different.

So allow us to direct you instead to this fantastic primer in all things Trackmania, made for consoles but also available on PC. It's far more accessible while sacrificing none of the series' legendary, just-one-more-restart, obsessive edge.

See our full TrackMania Turbo review and buy it now from Amazon. This lush package is currently the best way to play the iconic, futuristic PlayStation racing series - the original ultra-fast anti-grav racer, and still the best, even if the PS3 and Vita entries remastered here HD, Fury and are not quite of the blistering calibre of the original PlayStation games from the mids.

They are still gloriously slick, fast and beautiful, retaining the clean and cool sci-fi aesthetic that has always set the series apart from its brasher competitors. See our full Wipeout Omega Collection review and buy it now from Amazon. We usually favour recent releases over retro classics in our best-of lists, but a handful of oldies play as fresh now as they ever did, and that goes for this blast of summer breeze from Sega's stone-cold classic of free-wheeling road racing is available on Switch in this lovely version by the remaster artists at M2 - although, if you still have a 3DS, it's even better on that machine, with the stereoscopic visuals.

It's just you against the clock, the traffic and a branching route, drifting forever in a topless Testarossa. It's a crying shame, though, that OutRun 2 and its superb mids console versions are no longer available. Find out why OutRun is still the pinnacle of driving games.

In fact, it's probably the best there has ever been. While it may not be a perfectly rounded package, its handling model is second-to-none and the driving experience is as purely gripping as anything else in any of these categories. It's hard, and best experienced with a good wheel, but for communicating the sheer thrill and challenge of a car and a course, there's nothing better.

See our full Dirt Rally 2. While many don't consider it to be a "full" Gran Turismo game, the series' sole PS4 entry which also features in our best PS4 games list has expanded substantially over time and now boasts many of the solo campaign events and license tests fans love, as well as an impressive car and track list.

But it remains Polyphony Digital's most focused piece of work, and that's not at all a bad thing. The handling is a sublime balance of accessibility and sim-like bite, and the extremely well designed online multiplayer brings the clear rulesets and competitive edge of serious PC titles like iRacing to a more casual and welcoming setting. In short, it's still a GT game, as well as being the best and fairest online multiplayer experience on console - by a long chalk.

See our full Gran Turismo Sport review and buy it now from Amazon. Even if you're new to sims, you'll probably know a little about iRacing: that it's expensive, time consuming, tough. It is also, if you allow it, an all-encompassing take on some of the very best aspects of motorsport.

Work your way through the ranks and earn a slot in a team endurance event and you'll be witness to all the camaraderie, excitement - and, yes, crushing disappointment - of the real thing.

There's no doubt that some aspects of iRacing are getting a little long in the tooth - and there are certainly better-looking sims out there - but with all those years of experience since the service rolled out well over ten years ago comes a competence that you can't find elsewhere.

Find out what makes iRacing the ultimate driving sim. Kunos Simulazioni offers up two very different experiences - though they're both so good we've cheated and included both. The original Assetto Corsa might be getting a little long in the tooth, but with a handful of the right mods it can still be the best pure driving game on PC, while Competizione - after a handful of welcome updates - now offers a purebred racing experience that's the measure of iRacing.

When it comes to GT racing - perhaps the healthiest and most diverse form of motorsport right now - it's pretty much peerless. See our full Assetto Corsa Competizione review and buy it now from Amazon. There's still the sense that rFactor 2 has yet to reach its potential, and that it might be some time until it properly does so - Motorsport Games' acquisition of developer Studio combined with mouthwatering licences such as BTCC and WEC suggests there's plenty to get excited about in the future.

For now, though, and for all its little faults, there's no denying the authenticity of rFactor 2's handling, serving up a simulation model like no other.

If you've any interest in pretend race cars, you at least need to take this one out for a spin. Some old problems persist, and a handful of new ones crop up in what's still an occasionally lumpy package, but none of that can hold back this year's F1 game as being the best yet.

An all-new story mode, riffing heavily off the overstated drama of Netflix's Drive to Survive, works surprisingly well, and it's matched by decent next-gen versions and a few welcome nips and tucks to the existing racing. Note: The list is not in any particular order and reflects the writer's individual opinion.

New User posted their first comment. Log in. Modified 21 Dec Listicle. Also Read Article Continues below. Edited by Ravi Iyer 2. Sort by: Most popular Recent Most upvotes. Login to post your comment.

Show More Comments. Login to reply. No thanks Delete. Cancel Update. Cancel Reply. Be the first one to comment on this post. Manage notifications. Write For Us. I think part of it is that I hate seeing nice cars get wrecked,but from the little I did play, I didn't really enjoy it. The graphics are good, it's not CPU intensive, and the handling and controls are decent, I just don't enjoy the premise of the game. I'm sure there is an audience for this out there, it just doesn't happen to be me.

If you're familiar with the FlatOut series or any of the other demolition games by BugBear games, then you'll enjoy this. Don't get me wrong, this is by no means a bad game, it's just not my style of racing. So what is this? I'll be honest, I had no idea nor had I ever heard of it before Steam flashed an ad for it.

Steam says, "this is your chance to immerse yourself in the real world of drifting. Get together with friends, tune your car and burn some tires! Apparently before it came to Steam, it was only a mobile racing game. It is exactly what it sounds like, a hardcore drift racing game. Coming from having been a mobile game to the PC realm, it is lacking on the graphics side of things and the overall expanse of the game is limited. You get only 11 tracks designed specially for drifting, 45 cars, and the option for detailed physics settings.

It does, however, support gamepads and gaming wheels with key mapping options, and real-time multiplayer mode with up to 16 players per game session, so if you're into the multiplayer scene, it can be fun. Honestly, I wasn't impressed, asthese are features you can find in most, if not all other racing games with much more to offer. This was another racing simulator I had never heard of before Steam slapped me with an ad for it. Automobilista is made by a relatively unknown studio, Reiza Studios.

After watching gameplay videos and reading some reviews, like that of Tim Stone from Rock Paper Shotgun , who says "Automobilista lacks the ravishing visuals, swish licences, and high public profile necessary to compete with the Assetto Corsa's and iRacings of this world.

To me it was barely even worth watching the gameplay reviews. Another hard hitting game in the Burnout Anthology from EA Games , Paradise is number 4 in the series and the best one yet. Basically, you drive around the various locations and "send your car wrecking, spinning and scraping down the road, smashing through traffic and leaving a trail of expensive wreckage in your wake.

This one is on the better side of games similar to Forza Horizon and one of the few that is actually closest in nature. I don't enjoy many EA games but this one is rather fun. As with previous Burnout games, it offers gamepad support and key mapping, which is absolutely necessary for PC gamers like myself.

It is not Forza but it is fun. Gas Guzzlers Extreme Gameplay Trailer. Just the name of this game makes me NOT want to play it. It just sounds like another shitty "crash 'em up" racing game. And that's exactly what it is. Produced by Gamepires? Like Reiza, it's a game studio I'd never heard of and when I went to check out their website I was as unimpressed by their scrolling flash banner as I was with the games atrocious name. The bundle of the game including a soundtrack CD When I went to click on "gameplay" assuming they'd have a string of YouTube videos, I was yet again disappointingly greeted by a text synopsis of the game.

But boy was I wrong!