My latest Tecmo Bowl post was so much fun (for me at least) and it made me realize how much I love playing sports video games. So I decided to start a Top 5 series where I list my favorite video games of all time for each sport.
[Disclaimer: I do not play a lot of video games and never really know about the newest, coolest stuff. But it would be awesome if you comment and tell me how terrible my picks are. Or maybe just let us know your Top 5.]
For my first edition, I will stick with this blog's #1 topic: racing. As our readers know, I am not a racing guy. Over the years, though, I have managed to get addicted to quite a few racing video games, even if I wasn't very good at all of them. So here we go...
My Top 5 Racing Games
5.
Cruisin' USA - This was the first arcade game that I remember where we could sit in the driver seat and have a more realistic experience. You could change the radio station! The only problem is I never really played much past the first couple of "continue" spots.
4.
RC Pro Am - Fun Nintendo game using remote control cars. I'm pretty sure I remember that you had decent opportunities to fix up your car. The courses were fun and quick.
3.
Pole Position - Classic arcade game. The only console available in our town was at our movie theater. I spent an hour before and after so many movies as a kid, having to replace my high score! The stupid theater would reset the scores. I'd go to show my friends how I had the #1 spot, and it never failed... "ASS" or "XXX" would be sitting in my top score spot and I'd have to do it all over again. One day I want to get one of these for my house.
2.
Rock and Roll Racing - Zolof BLASTS into FIRST! How awesome was this SNES game?? Even the stupid songs ("Born To Be Wild"??) would get stuck in my head. We spent so many hours playing this stupid game.
1.
Mario Kart - All systems. Hands down the best racing game, even if I'm absolutely terrible at it. Anyone who played with us during Blogathon knows what I'm talking about. Even if I lose, I feel like if I knock someone off of the course with my Flame Runner, then I've done my job.
5. Cruisin' USA - This was the first arcade game that I remember where we could sit in the driver seat and have a more realistic experience. You could change the radio station! The only problem is I never really played much past the first couple of "continue" spots.
3 comments:
Never really liked Cruisin' USA, Daytona USA was a classic and especially when they introduced those new revolutionary units where you could race your friends *at the same time*. Heady stuff.
I had a couple of games for the old Amstrad, one of them was Scalectrix (you could make your own tracks!) and the other I can't remember the name of but I remember how it looked - it might have been Nigel Mansell's F1 game?
The original SNES Mario Kart remains the best. I lost weeks to that. I don't regret it.
Pat,
First of all, thanks for actually reading this.
Now that you say this, I feel like I have probably combined Cruisin and Daytona together as the same game in my head. You're right, Daytona is probably the better game.
Mike,
Believe you me, I read this too. I'm just trying to figure out a way to work my top-whatever list into a comment that clocks in under 20,000 words. Jeez, I could probably work this into a 328-part series of classic racing game reviews that'll probably go up around about the time I get around to putting up the in-person account of the 2005 Michigan 400 IndyCar race on my old site. Yep, that'll be up aaaaaaaany day now. And my review of Formula 1: Built to Win for the NES will be up the day after, to be sure.
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