Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Evolution Of Racing Games Since The 70's


Most of the people own a car in real life, even if they hate driving. Still there are things you can't do without the car, like shopping or taking the kids to school or friends. But online car games bring us a different experience and different opportunity to drive a car. You can race in high speed but without the fetid and tiredness, not to mention you can start over once you fail or crash.


Let's take street racing for example. These are tough races and require you to have high level skills and mental toughness, which most people don't posses in real life. In gaming it's not like that. Here everyone can participate in these races. You choose the car you want and drive the metal on the pedal. If you play multiplayer car games it's even better because you play with real opponents and not against the computer, so when you win it's a great feeling, even if it's online.


Another exciting car game genre is desert races, taken from Rally Dakar and other races in the desert. Desert races are considered the most toughest and dangerous races in the world. The take place in an extremely difficult environment and conditions. When you get stuck there is no one to pull you out or assist you, you have to make it all on your own, and changing an oil pump in the desert heat when you wear leather coat it's no picnic.


For the action lovers there are the classic Chasing games. You either play as a villain or a mobster that escapes from the cops, or you are a good guy on a mission. The missions can differ from game to game. Some games require you to deliver something to a certain point, in other games you need to reach a point within a specific time limit, and do that while avoiding all kinds of obstacles, challenges or other opponents. But the most popular car game type is the classic car racing. You race against other opponents, machine or real players, and you need to win them all. In here also you have several options, you can win by finishing a lap in the best time, or you need to make it to the finish line first regardless to the time factor.


To leverage the excitement and thrill and give the players a real time feeling, the gamer can choose a round circular track, a point-to-point track, a rally type race, sandy track, concrete track, autobahn, formula, muddy road, drifting style, monster truck, truck games, and list goes on and on.


This is why people love this genre so much, the possibilities are endless.


Other genres and publishers realized that too, and they started to combine their character elements and game style with races.


Mario games are a good example, Ben 10 games also. There are plenty of Mario racing games: Mario Karting, Mario Racing and more. Ben10 has even more games that involve racing or any kind of vehicle: Ben10 Motorbike, Ben10 Super Moto and others.


Car games have gone a long way since the early 70's, from the first ATARI and SEGA games. A lot of sub genres have evolved, and we see the changes in real motor sport also, the increasing popularity of car races and motorbike racing all over the world, so it's only natural that cars will turn out to be a significant genre in online games industry.

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