Top 10 driving games

I'm not the biggest fan of driving games, but I do love a good arcade driving game. Here are my 10 favourites.

Super Sprint

Atari's Sprint is the grandaddy of top-down racers, inspiring countless clones and sequels alike. In 1986 Atari release two such sequels, Super Sprint and Championship Sprint. There's little to separate the two games, but Super Sprint is the one I remember most fondly.

Ridge Racer

In the mid-90s, sprites started to give way to polygons and one of the games that spear headed that revolution was this street racer from Namco. The tight, winding tracks through cities and along mountain sides were like nothing arcade gamers had seen before. It was exhilerating and it inspired clones on every platform going.

Chase HQ

If all the other games on this list were about driving, Chase HQ was about driving down criminals — for justice! Ahem, anyway Taito's Chase HQ was a genre defining game that combined racing with demolition derby and the kind of heroic action normally associated with action adventure games. Brilliant.

Hang-On

The Pole Position of bike racing, Sega's Hang-On was fast and exhilarating. And it made you feel like Barry Sheen to straddle the big plastic bike, even if you couldn't reach the floor.

"Iron Man" Ivan  Stewart's Super Off Road Racer

Us Brits had no idea who "Iron Man" Ivan Stewart was, but we did know that Sprint clone, Super Off Road, was a riotous racing game. You did not so much control your little off road racer as will it around the twisty, uneven track, as you spin the stirring wheel around frantically. Somehow, that was all part of the fun.

Manx TT Super Bike

Sega's Max TT did for motorbike racing what Ridge Racer did for car racing. I can't say how accurately the track emulated the narrow, winding streets of the Isle of Man, but it was everything Hang-On was and more.

Hard Drivin'

Hard Drivin' is a game my brother excelled at, but I could not play Hard Drivin' to save my life.  At the time of its release, it felt like a proper driving simulator, because he had a clutch and a proper 5 gate gear stick.  Looking back now it's has not aged well at all; the primative polygonal graphics are incredibly slow.  Compared to sprite-based driving games from the same era, Hard Driving is ponderous.  Nonetheless, in its hay day it was a game that really separated the men from the boys.

Mario Kart Arcade GP/GP2

Released between the Mario Kart: Double Dash on GameCube and Mario Kart Wii, the Arcade GP games have everything you'd expect from a Mario Kart game, but in an arcade machine. The game also features Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and a red ghost. It also features a camera, so each of the four players can be super imposed into character cards, as can be seen in the pictures. It's a little touch that gives the arcade versions of this long running series something above the home and arcade versions.

OutRun 2

The original OutRun holds a dear place in so many arcade gamers' hearts, but the oft-forgotten sequel is the real gem in the series. Released in the mid-2000s, OutRun 2 added a brilliant drift mechanic that outshone even Ridge Racer. A skilled player can balance drifting to maximise their speed as they flow around the corners. A perfect drift is one of those truly special gaming moments.

Sega Rally

Another superb racer from Sega. I played this one when I was doing my degree. A lot of my student grant was spent on this machine — in fact I don't think I've spent as much on any other driving game in the arcade. The simple co-driver instructions were vital to success and it added that extra dimension that other racing games did not have. Quite simply, I've yet to find another rally game that I've enjoyed much as this classic.

MTW