Support NeoGAF

[2+2=5]

Simple, where all the arcade genres went.
Realism is cheaper(no design efforts, just copy-paste what already exists) but people believe that arcade is cheaper and brainless, add that realistic graphics are the best showcase for good 3d graphics and you know the result.

 

[PreyingShark]

@some people above: Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed has items so it's a kart racer. However, kart racers are just arcade racers with items. Also, the article seems to use the game as an example of an arcade racer that ditched the brake button. I would say the game counts.

Didn't we get Excitebots?

Yes, yes we did. It's amazing. Should've sold a lot better. D:

 

[mdsfx]

For me, Burnout 3 was the pinnacle of arcade racing. Too bad they don't make games like those anymore...

+27

 

[petran79]

One of the best racers
first with a custom track editor

 

[VVV Mars VG]

Anyone remember Burning Road on the PSX?

It was like a low-budget Daytona USA. Pretty fun, but really hard.

Haha this was such a rip-off at the time, I can still hear the soundtrack. Lots of fun, alas the sequel was dire.

 

[twinturbo2]

I could use a proper home port of Rush 2049 SE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExZjf6gC34M

 

[klee123]

Gran Turismo and Forza Killed them with the emphasis on real world cars.

 

[hardvibes]

They moved to mobiles. At last.

 

[DidntKnowJack]

I played the shit out of Burning Road. Still own it, in fact. That and Tokyo Highway Battle, the Ridge Racers, Rollcage, Jet Moto, Moto Racer 1 and 2 (these were motorcycle arcade games), the old PS1 era Need For Speeds, Destruction Derby 1 and 2, plus great shit on the N64 like Waverace 64.

 

[yogloo]

I still want my bettle adventure racing sequel. Someone please make it.

 

[Heratiki]

Platformers have moved to procedurally generated as well as side scrollers and dungeon crawlers. Are the arcade racers next?

I would love a demolition derby style racer that's procedurally generated. Man what fun and no cheating just equal fun.

 

[Odrion]

Aren't they on iOS now?

 

[Teknopathetic]

"Platformers have moved to procedurally generated as well as side scrollers and dungeon crawlers. Are the arcade racers next?"

I can't get down with this. Track design is so much of what makes a racing game good.

 

[d0g_bear]

I could use a proper home port of Rush 2049 SE.

Good news! This about is as close to a sequel as you could hope for.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1857884659/distance-a-next-generation-arcade-racer

 

[isamu]

Great writeup Isamu, you wrote down my feelings towards GRID2 in total.

I played it exclusivelly with the wheel and it was amazing experience.

Learning curve is hard, steep and challenging. But once mastered, GRID2 becomes exactly what you describing: old-school arcade hardcore experience.

Great, great game when experienced from that perspective.

Thanks man.

Fair enough, I don't recall bouncing off the corner not incurring a speed penalty in that one, but then again I didn't really play much of that version.

Also, I needed to get my CCE hate out of my system at some point.

Wasn't CCE the one where you can play via DC broadband adaptor?

 

[Neff]

What bemuses me is the slight 'our audiences have matured/changed' argument you get from some developers to justify why they don't release them anymore. Weve also had it in some fashion to justify why Resident Evil has lost its atmospheric original approach and turned into whatever the hell it was we got for RE6.

The contradiction is Ridge Racer, Daytona USA et all (and the original RE's) gave their respective companies a tonne of audience / critical acclaim plus a shit load of money - and I don't recall one title in their respective genres being a megabomba to make them say 'guys we need to change direction'

Limp sales of REmake and RE0 definitely influenced the gestation and ultimate action flavour of RE4.

Arcade style racers and the accessible, instant gratification fun that came with them gave way to licensed car brand porn, customisation, and virtual garage collecting after Gran Turismo launched and was a massive hit.

 

[isamu]

I think it's more that the idea of what an arcade racer is has been diluted somewhat. When people say there have been a lot of arcade racers recently, they're often referring to things like NFS, Forza Horizon, Driveclub etc. Whilst these aren't realistic, the ideas and settings behind them are far more ground in reality than classic arcade racers used to be. This limits the ideas that can be applied to them for various reasons.

The handling model generally needs to make sense to people that aren't familiar with classic games. The handling is more of a Hollywood representation of reality than the truly bespoke solutions we used to receive in games like Ridge Racer, Daytona or Outrun etc.

The tracks generally are designed to be such that they could feasibly be found in real life. Either set in cities inspired from real location, or mountain passes etc. There will generally be nothing like the water tunnel from Scud Race, or tracks with gaps that can be jumped to produce shortcuts. You won't go from racing through a canyon with stone arches lining the road to a highway where the sky shows what must be a view of the entire galaxy. Nope. You get cities, and you get mountains.

You also don't usually get music that is designed specifically to complement the game experience. Music that when heard separately from the game itself still paints an image of the place you originally heard it. Instead you generally get a set of generic licensed tracks, that you've probably already heard enough of before ever playing the game, set to shuffle.

There have definitely been plenty of non-Sim racers on consoles these past few years. However, the number of 'arcade racers' released is debateable.

 

[Type_Raver]

No mention yet of 90s Arcade Racer, coming out for Wii U?!

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Looking at the track design for a bit, it comes across as a tad too schematic, as if the designer really wanted to cram in every little environmental doohickey one would have seen in so many of these games. The color range and aquatic areas look like Scud Race, the hilly English stuff very Outrun 2/Daytona USA, and the cityscapes look like Daytona 2 and arcade Ridge Racer. Some of the Cruisin' here, too. As a concept, this '90s Arcade Racer idea is self-limiting, since the games it's influenced by each have specific visual themes that are explored in various ways. Ridge Racer games deal with cities and and their outskirts, OutRun with exotic locales, Daytona and Virtua Racing with racing circuits, etc.

None of this valid if the physics aren't any good anyway, which is the collective hope.

 

[isamu]

No mention yet of 90s Arcade Racer, coming out for Wii U?!

Been mentioned tons of times. Pelikan will save us all

 

[the androgyne]

Looking at the track design for a bit, it comes across as a tad too schematic, as if the designer really wanted to cram in every little environmental doohickey one would have seen in so many of these games. The color range and aquatic areas look like Scud Race, the hilly English stuff very Outrun 2/Daytona USA, and the cityscapes look like Daytona 2 and arcade Ridge Racer. Some of the Cruisin' here, too. As a concept, this '90s Arcade Racer idea is self-limiting, since the games it's influenced by each have specific visual themes that are explored in various ways. Ridge Racer games deal with cities and and their outskirts, OutRun with exotic locales, Daytona and Virtua Racing with racing circuits, etc.

None of this valid if the physics aren't any good anyway, which is the collective hope.

The track-side design isn't what i think of when someone says track design. To me it's fine since it has the AM2 colour palette! The actual track design - the layout - of Daytona's 3 courses will be hard for anyone to match let alone exceed though.

 

[patrickthehedgehog]

I play a few of these games on PC with an Xbox controller and I've been thinking about picking up a wheel, pedals and a shifter. What would be a good fit if I play the following games?

Grid 2
Scud Race via Supermodel
Outrun 2006
Arcade games through MAME

I'd like force feedback on these if possible.

I also made some Steam icons for a few racers if anyone is interested:

Megarace

Scud Race

OutRun

 

[Riffled]

Not the most graphicilly advanced games but Namco, Sega and Raw Thrills just need to get on some Arcade ports of their new games. H20verdrive, R-Tuned, Sega Race TV, Dead Heat, Dirty Drivin', Harley: King of the Road, Hummer Extreme etc. etc.

 

[SloaneRangerSW1]

Where have all the arcades gone?

 

[LoveCake]

Outrun 2006 was a masterpiece and nobody bought it.

I did Coast to Coast was a great game.

There is that 90's Arcade Racer supposed to be coming out this year sometime, going to be getting this for my WiiU.

I think GT & the sim genera has taken over really, nobody seems to want arcade thrills anymore, the days of things like this are gone

 

[TnK]

I did Coast to Coast was a great game.

There is that 90's Arcade Racer supposed to be coming out this year sometime, going to be getting this for my WiiU.

I think GT & the sim genera has taken over really, nobody seems to want arcade thrills anymore, the days of things like this are gone

We still have this in a cool place called Sega Republic. Playing outrun 2006 four player mode vs racing is insanly fun.

 

[SMOK3Y]

FM5 & GT6?

 

[mrklaw]

"Platformers have moved to procedurally generated as well as side scrollers and dungeon crawlers. Are the arcade racers next?"

I can't get down with this. Track design is so much of what makes a racing game good.

one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of 'open world' racers like rivals etc. Too generic which causes two problems
1) no real courses, so basically impossible to memorise specific corners and sections
2) due to the high speed action, most roads are meandering nonsense with no corners of any character

 

[Vitor711]

People chose Split Second over Blur.
+ pretty smashes in Burnout/NFS. Another EA success story.

THAT's BECAUSE SPLIT/SECOND WAS AWESOME.

Blur had the better handling, but S/S was the most fun I've had with a racer this gen. At least for the first 4 hours before the repetition kicked it.

Oh what they could have done with a sequel...

 

[drugstore_cowboy]

I play a few of these games on PC with an Xbox controller and I've been thinking about picking up a wheel, pedals and a shifter. What would be a good fit if I play the following games?

Grid 2
Scud Race via Supermodel
Outrun 2006
Arcade games through MAME

I'd like force feedback on these if possible.

I also made some Steam icons for a few racers if anyone is interested:

Megarace

Scud Race

OutRun

Supermodel supports ffb but MAME doesn't.

 

[Synth]

Thanks man.



Wasn't CCE the one where you can play via DC broadband adaptor?

No that was Daytona USA 2001 (which was great imo). Championship Circuit Editition was the second attempt to port Daytona to the Saturn. The graphics were improved, and it added two new courses, but the handling model was thrown out the window completely. It didn't feel at all like Daytona at the end of the day. It did also have split-screen added, so I'll give it that at least.

It also had this cheap game breaking monstrosity:

Driving perfectly over GRASS? Really? Rendered the unlockable horse pointless lol.

There was a Japanese version of the game supporting netlink though... which may have been what you meant. Not that it meant much to me in PAL land though.

 

[Kyo]

Sega Rally 2007 was pretty good and nobody bought it.

That Sega Rally wasn't very arcade-like. If anything, it was a good example what went wrong on the way to the dearth of real arcade racers today. It sacrificed the arcadey 60 fps that it should've had for things like real-time track deformation, it placed the sheer number of tracks over their stylistic individuality and it packed all of its content into a "modern standard home racing game" career mode - all distinctly non-arcade-like.


Synth has it right:

I think it's more that the idea of what an arcade racer is has been diluted somewhat. When people say there have been a lot of arcade racers recently, they're often referring to things like NFS, Forza Horizon, Driveclub etc. Whilst these aren't realistic, the ideas and settings behind them are far more ground in reality than classic arcade racers used to be.
[great post truncated for quote]
There have definitely been plenty of non-Sim racers on consoles these past few years. However, the number of 'arcade racers' released is debateable.

Exactly.

 

[danmaku]

Simple, where all the arcade genres went.
Realism is cheaper(no design efforts, just copy-paste what already exists) but people believe that arcade is cheaper and brainless, add that realistic graphics are the best showcase for good 3d graphics and you know the result.

Realism is NOT cheaper, and it's part of the AAA strategy: raise costs to eliminate competitors. Every studio can afford to produce an old style arcade racer, but very few can afford licenses to hundreds of real cars, high level 3D modelling, realistic environments, etc.

 

[muddream]

Have there been any games with similar physics to NFS Underground 1 last gen? Those unnaturally grippy cars on tight roads with traffic were the most fun I've had in a racing game, but the few recent games I've tried seemed to move away from that in one way or another.

 

[RVinP]

.moto racer 2
.need for speed 2
.need for speed 4 (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB-ORsJ-U5A )
.monster truck madness 2

Miss those games..

 

[Synth]

That Sega Rally wasn't very arcade-like. If anything, it was a good example what went wrong on the way to the dearth of real arcade racers today. It sacrificed the arcadey 60 fps that it should've had for things like real-time track deformation, it placed the sheer number of tracks over their stylistic individuality and it packed all of its content into a "modern standard home racing game" career mode - all distinctly non-arcade-like.


Synth has it right:


Exactly.

Ok, now this is awkward, because I now need to argue against a post agreeing with me...

Whilst I completely agree that 30fps should never happen in Sega Rally, this problem was actually solved really easily for myself by simply playing it on PC at 60fps. I'm always hesitant to judge a game on anything other than the platform provided the optimal experience. This was especially true for prior generations where arcade ports were generally massively inferior to the arcade originals (and 60fps being knocked down to 30fps was very common). Plus, Revo's stable 30fps was still preferably to the DC Sega Rally 2's eye destroying fluctuating 60fps.

I thought the handling model for Revo was great personally, and the track deformation was a fitting evolution for a series that different racing surfaces was always an integral part of its design, even as far back as the original. In a way, Sega Rally was one of the first hybrid racers that introduced more realistic considerations to an arcade racer.

What I didn't like in Revo was the race progression. I definitely missed working my way through the pack over a number of races. In Revo, I was usually in first place after the opening few turns, and then remained in time trial mode until the end of each race. That said, it was still one of my favourite races this gen. I would have loved to see what SRS could have done with some of Sega's other franchises (which wouldn't need as much consideration for surface modelling).

 

[the androgyne]

I still remember the exact locations that you'd approach the AI cars in Sega Rally. Used to enjoy how that made going for the best time in arcade mode across all courses a bit more interesting - if you were racing faster than normal you'd encounter the AI in a sometimes trickier or sometimes beneficial situations.

 

[thewhitehawk]

Most full-priced arcade racers don't offer enough value for consumers to be viable in the market.

What killed them, in my opinion, was the market changes: consumers are much more demanding now with their purchases, high price tags, reasonable but not great review scores and lackluster or non-existing advertising.

Perhaps the PS1/N64/Dreamcast days saturated the genre a bit and thwarted some of the interest. We never got Scud Race or Daytona USA 2 on home consoles even

Oh well, at least thanks to mobile devices we can play a hundred uninspired Micro Machine game clones.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Is that Initial D PS3 game any good?

It's a direct port of V4. I have the PSP version, which ports the superior V3.

Could do worse, though.

 

[Wonko_C]

Ok, now this is awkward, because I now need to argue against a post agreeing with me...

Whilst I completely agree that 30fps should never happen in Sega Rally, this problem was actually solved really easily for myself by simply playing it on PC at 60fps. I'm always hesitant to judge a game on anything other than the platform provided the optimal experience. This was especially true for prior generations where arcade ports were generally massively inferior to the arcade originals (and 60fps being knocked down to 30fps was very common). Plus, Revo's stable 30fps was still preferably to the DC Sega Rally 2's eye destroying fluctuating 60fps.

I thought the handling model for Revo was great personally, and the track deformation was a fitting evolution for a series that different racing surfaces was always an integral part of its design, even as far back as the original. In a way, Sega Rally was one of the first hybrid racers that introduced more realistic considerations to an arcade racer.

What I didn't like in Revo was the race progression. I definitely missed working my way through the pack over a number of races. In Revo, I was usually in first place after the opening few turns, and then remained in time trial mode until the end of each race. That said, it was still one of my favourite races this gen. I would have loved to see what SRS could have done with some of Sega's other franchises (which wouldn't need as much consideration for surface modelling).

Didn't the PC port of Sega Rally Revo have annoying stuttering all the time? It felt like the frame times are all over the place with that game. I still have my copy there, unfinished because I could never find any way to solve it.

 

[Synth]

Didn't the PC port of Sega Rally Revo have annoying stuttering all the time? It felt like the frame times are all over the place with that game. I still have my copy there, unfinished because I could never find any way to solve it.

I didn't encounter noticeable stuttering when I played. I do remember that when I first got it on 360, my brother got the PC version and the framerate was all over the place on his Q6600 + 8800GT, which was really surprising at the time. I bought the PC version later down the line, and was playing it on a i5 + GTX 460. I didn't notice any problems then. What were your specs at the time.. it may just be a case of needing brute force it to run well.

 

[Noisepurge]

in memoriam.

I still have the toughest trophies locked! Goddamn AAA-heart attack and 15 stage continuous ones...
(luckily i got the online ones before the game died)

oh! and be sure to get Outrun in the Sky before that gets removed too!

 

[Tizoc]

kart racer so no

Did you even play the game? It's close to an arcade racer, furthermore it was developed by the same team as Blur.

 

[Ovid]

I tired of "arcade" racers having to utilize simulation elements.

 

[ChronoX]

I miss these.

 

[manj]

http://youtu.be/OC5x8o5hN8Q?t=43s

no one remember Ultim@te Race on PC...?

port of this would be fine, but with better draw distance would be great...

 

[chrislowe]

Enjoyed loads oc arcaderacers on my ps1. Ridge racer, rage racer. Rr4 need for speed 3 and 4. Rally de africa etc. Too many to mention

 

[Atolm]

Hopefully Sega will port a new Initial D for the PS4.

 

[Senor Kami]

Need for Speed is already out and isn't Driveclub one that's coming early this year? They haven't gone anywhere imo.

 

[Xav]

Ridge Racer Full Scale FTW