Help Me Decide On A Good Racing Game

[Ritwik7]

Hi guys!

I want to buy a good racing game to play on my PC when there's a lack of First Person Shooters at hand.

I previously loved NFS: Most Wanted.

Now I've been looking at a few titles:

1. GRID
2. Dirt 2
3. Burnout Paradise
4. NFS: Shift

Good, fast racing and some eye candy added...

Which would you recommend for me? It need not be a very accurate simulation. Want some fun and adequate replay value. It would be nice if you could give a few reasons along with your choice.

Thanks.

 

[LNCPapa]

I'm a huge fan of GRID on the PC (the console versions are not as good.) The physics are good enough (if you're not a hardcore sim player) and has lots of eye candy. If you have decent input for your PC (gamepad or steering wheel) then gameplay will be great.

Did I mention there's lots of eye candy? I've been meaning to post some screenshots for some buddies of mine, perhaps this is a good enough motivator for me to work on that tonight.

 

[slh28]

Here are my opinions:
1) GRID is awesome, especially considering you can run it smoothly at max settings with a mid-range graphics card. Unlike NFS Shift, which runs like absolute dogcrap on my ATI card, but then I hear Nvidia cards are ok.
2) Haven't played DIRT 2 but the original was very good, even if it was a bit hard and frustrating at times.
3) Burnout Paradise is very fun for a while, but doesn't have much structure to the game (the whole map is open at the start) and gets kind of boring.
4) As I have mentioned above, I can't get decent framerates on NFS Shift so haven't even completed a race yet

 

[Relic]

I'm not a big racer but just FYI: Dirt 2 is a GFWL title.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/12840/

But you're from India and it appears to be one of the 26 supported countries.

 

[Ritwik7]

If you have decent input for your PC (gamepad or steering wheel) then gameplay will be great.

I'll be using an ordinary keyboard. Will the controls play alright? Also, is the learning curve too great? I would mostly like some good fun racing.

 

[LNCPapa]

Well - if you're already used to playing driving games with a keyboard then it might not be so bad, but analog makes all the difference in the world on these games. I would suggest getting yourself a cheap little analog controller or if you have a PS3 controller, plugging that in and using it. There will be a little tweaking to get that PS3 controller working, but it'll be worth it.

Not much of a learning curve for GRID - you just jump in a drive. It's not terribly sim, not much car tuning - but it is absolutely beautiful. Screenshots really don't do it any justice. I run it at 4xAA 8xAF @ 1920x1200 & VSync on - never any dips in performance.

There are a few different game modes including a career mode similar to other driving games and the jump-right-in Quick race modes and Drift modes.