For me, this is the Gran Turismo series. I started on the PlayStation. At first I bought all the racing games available, but the one game I kept playing wat Gran Tursimo. I played ALL available GT games. In 2009 I joined a community (GTHQ.nl) and we started community racing to keep it clean and fait in online races. This is when I became hooked to sim-racing. After upgrading my (old) pc I bought Assetto Corsa and DLC of RaceRoom experience. This was about half a year ago. The thing I still miss, though, is fair and clean driving, with some good ground rules or a drivers briefing. This is the stuff I go for, Community racing at it's best:
Hmm... just went further down memory lane, and I think Pit Stop 2 on the C64, should actually take credit for being the first race game - calling that a simulator would be a bit far stretched - that hooked me. Was in the mid 80's at some point, and when I had friends over, we always had to have a few races in split screen, so I could kick their ass before we ventured onto some other games
Well, your posts brought back a lot of memories about stuff I played, communities I joined and almost forgot. Of course there were much more Racinggames between Toca and the first GTR Mod/(based on F1 2002), for me... GP 3 couldn`t be ignored that time and it was one of the best F1 Sims I ever played. I was somehow stuck between Rally and Road Course Racing for years, and just for to race in a relaxed manner (compared to pure simracing) I occasionally played titles like NfS and Gran Tourismo. Litlle brainstorming of what I remember (chronological): V-Rally (PS1) Gran Tourismo (PS1) (A very little) Ridgeracer (PS1) NfS Hot Pursuit Toca 1+2 (PS1) Colin Mc RaeRally (played it up to CMR3 but on PC then) PC: Toca 2 (with wheel) GP 3 CMR NfS Grand Prix Legends (for a very short time) F1 2002/F1 99-02 GTR 2002 Mod by Simbin SCC by RSDG Prototype C by Virtua LM (all three Mods marking good times at Racesimcentral - wasn`t Karsten Borchers hanging round there too ? Your name rings a bell ...anyway : Many thanks to these teams and communities for their hard work and inspiration ) GTR 1 (which was a blast, like a whole new Simracing Universe opening, I remember driving the Spa Demo with the Lister absolutely cautious, cause it felt so realistic to me that didn`t want to damage that "expensive" car (lol)..) Richard Burns Rally (which brought me back to Sim-Rallying. Up to now RBR is simply the one and only authentic Rally-Simulation ever to me, and that for more then ten years now - what a shame regarding Rallye-Sims, but R.I.P Richard Burns what a gift he made ) - I remember another Rally Title that was quiet good that time , but forgot the name - it contained the original Race of Champions Special Stage /Teneriffa.. GTR2 - that was it for me- the advanced version of GTR1 - raced it until 2010, but after many years almost getting lost in Simracing and countless hours I invested in driving and community work it was about time to have a break from Simracing. I stayed in touch loosely to see whats going on in the simracing area- but eventually R3E got me back last year.. Forgot: GTL (but I´m only a fan of 70s classic cars like G5, so it wasn`t that interesting for me) And as I was very sceptical about the developments via restricted gameplay (with platforms like Steam, U-Play a.s.o) I never checked out Race 07/GTR Evo (except for the demo version) but even the physics & gfx were "better" (which I didn`t fully agree on) and had more options regarding pure gameplay it never came close to GTR 2 for me...but bought it just recently via Steam (3,99) and honestly : compared to R3E it feels like a simple-minded brother to me...
Hmm...first simulator for me probably was "Formula one grand prix" (amiga), first true PC sim was GPL and toca, but after GTR1 it was getting serious. That game almost blown my mind back then GTR2 was fantastic too, as were GTL. Some of the mods for rFactor were good too.
I started with REVS on C64 ages ago: I managed a 1:24:6 as my personal best time. In the manual was one sentence: Good drivers can archive a time below 1:25:0 So I spend nearly all my spare time in "racing". So I started in Silverstone and now I cant drive this track anymore. Now I prefer Brand Hatch ! Since that time I played nearly every sim on the market. Here are only few of them: - F1GP on the amiga - GPL - GT Legends ( I am still loving this for the brillant career mode) - TOCA 2 Now I am play often this: - Assetto Corsa - RRE - rfactor2 - Wreckfest I dont like iRacing.
World Circuit by Microprose @ 1992 on a pc. Pretty much had every sim since then. Toca 1 and 2 , GTR 1 and 2 among my favorites.
Well ........ first racing games are played were: Stunts (I loved that track editor) Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix (and of course its successors) IndyCar Racing Nascar Racing First multiplayer racing action with: Viper Racing (Amazing damage model at this time) Need for Speed (1, 2 and especially the great "Porsche Unleashed") Grand Prix Legends (with wrecking the car most of the time) TOCA But my true steps into (more serious) SimRacing were with GTR2. I was driving my first league races with GTR2.
Even i drove many racing games before, my first real "sim" that got me hooked was of course GPL (for which i also bought my first steering wheel). GPL-65 Mod in a gentleman league (where clean and fair racing was all it matters), those where the days...
Test drive @Commodore 64 , but if we are talking about some serious racing wiht other people online, then it was GT Legends. I love historic cars.
I think in my case it's hard to say what exactly brought me to simracing. When I was a kid my father always took me to one of his friends to watch Formula 1. This went on many years until 2009. My father and me were shopping and in a PC-Store I saw the cover of DTM Race Driver 3 (or Toca race driver 3 in other countries). There was also a Formula 1 car on it and just because of that I asked my father if I could have this game, and he bought it for me. Because of this game I became a DTM and V8 Supercars fan and it was so much fun that I wanted to play more racing games, so I also bought DTM Race Driver 2, Race On, Superstars V8: Next Challenge and F1 2012. In the years 2009-2013 I became a big DTM fan and was sad about the fact that there was no game with the new cars, and in December 2013, DTM Experience was released, and due to that I am playing RaceRoom today. So you could say that I'm just here because of DTM Race Driver 3, or the little Formula 1 car on it's cover
The first racing game i ever played was: Grand Prix Circuit The theme song is still burned into my brain Later Gran Turismo 2 on the PS 1 brought me back to driving games. From there i moved on to the PC, where i played: Grand Prix 4 & F1 Challenge 99-02 I still remember driving this F1c Mod called "GTR 2002" created by a certain SimBin Development Team After that SimBin released GTR which was the game that made me buy a FFB Steering Wheel. At the same time i was also going off-road with Richard Burns Rally (best rally sim to this day) http://youtu.be/DhBfRlbjVfs I continued with GT Legends, which woke my interest in historic racing. Then the rFactor Community started releasing some great mods, which got my attention. http://youtu.be/xphQ08xA16M Right now i have following Sims installed: rfactor1, rfactor2, RBR, RACE07 + Addons, AC, iracing, but as you can imagine, i mostly drive RaceRoom Racing Experience
I think Shift 2 Unleashed brought me to "Simracing". It has a good mixture of cars, my favourit circuits and very good graphics at that time. To be honest when I start Shift 2 today it feels so terrible uncontrolable compared to R3E or AC that I quit after 2 minutes driving
Microprose Grand prix on the amiga was the title that felt like racing. Wonder how many times i drove the full championship season with full race distance on it, it was driving my parents mad hehe. Classic intro from Microprose Grand prix 1992
For me the earliest would be any racing title on Atari/Intellivision/Coleco/Amiga. My best title was definitely GP2, probably the most revolutionary F1 title. After GP2 I moved to F1GPRS (Ubisoft) and Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation 2. I've had many other titles some not worth mentioning and some worth it: TOCA2, RalliSport Challenge 2 and EA F1 2001. But the first "modern" racing title was GRID Autosport (December) and then I moved to my new love, R3E!
Moto Racer got me hooked.....then F1 Racing Simulation by Ubisoft....with a joystick! That was a great game.....pits stops and tire wear. After that GP2,3, 4 , and lots of GPL ( I finally bought an ActLabs RS wheel.... $250 back in '99).
Reading this thread made me remember a lot of titles but oddly no one mentioned. Sport Car GT from 1999 Publisher: Electronic Arts Developers: Westwood Studios,Image Space I loved that game back then. Although i should have kept the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia on and not looked at gameplay on youTube lol
My first lust for racing games was on the Colecovision. My Dad had the game Turbo and also the wheel and pedal. As I got older I was loving stuff like Street Rod & Test Drive on the C64. RC Grand Prix stands out from the SEGA Master System as a fond memory. Then came the SNES with classics like Nigel Mansell's and Street Race FX. On the Saturn & Dreamcast I made sure I got and thrashed Daytona and SEGA Rally, awesome times having arcade in your home. Then stuff like Gran Turismo 2, TOCA 2, Metropolis Street Racer. Finally got my first FFB wheel with the 360 for Project Gotham. Once I came to PC I was playing games like F1 201x until I stumbled upon this early access called AC that blew me away. I caved and bought a G27. Then all of a sudden out of what seemed like no where Simbim died and Sector3 came out with this awesome FFB update for R3E... Now I can only really play 2 games. This and AC. I loved em so much I went out and got myself a Fanatec Clubsport V2 with the V2 pedals and V1.5 SQ shifter. My wife isn't really happy but that's the price you pay hehe.
Well this might seem silly, but I like to think my first simulator was back in the 60's.It was a box car racer (anybody here old enough to remember them? Push them to the top of a hill road and race to the bottom ). It sat on the side of our house for a couple of years after we wore it out. In that I raced the likes of Mario Andretti, Paul Newman and Elvis Presley (yah I know he never drove a race car, but he made racing movies and I was 8yrs old). In 1991 I think it was, a pc based racing game called STUNTS came out. And I played that game religiously until 1995 when I got rid of my computer, moved to Hawaii, and spent most of my free time surfing and mountain biking. Got married and had kids. I never forgot about stunts. I thought about it often and that was my true intro into sim racing. Then about 5 years ago I got my first iPhone. And the only two apps I put on it were Real Racing 1 and 2. I could plug them into my 46 inch flat screen tv with an HDMI adapter and play in cockpit mode. using the aceleromiter to steer and thumbs for brake and gas. There was a strong following for that with a forum much like this, and a 16 person multiplayer mode. Its still running today tho not as popular. I was getting bored with them, I wanted more realism. then a friend in a different forum told me about GTR2 about a year and a half ago. so I bought a fast laptop and a Thrustmaster Ferrari Experience wheel and I was hooked instantly on this format and never looked back. I wore the $50 wheel out in about 6 months and my wife, god love her, bought me the G27 for Easter last year. Even tho she thought (And still thinks) the whole "pretend racing thing" was a total waste of time. Anyway, I now have 5 or 6 different installs of GTR2. And GTR, GT Legends, Race 07/Race On and rFactor 1 . I fiddle with all of them but keep going back to the basic GTR2 single player championship mode. Switch in some different tracks and cars and keep racing. However, the DTM 2013 single player championship and online racing in RaceRoom is quickly sucking me into this sim.
I started 1998 with Need for Speed II... Then Gran Turismo 1-4, with friends because i didnt own a PS 2. I was the only one who changed the controls everytime to the analog sticks. ^^ A friend bought a Xbox360 in 2008 and i drove some laps in Forza 2 and this ends up in an own Xbox 360 Elite in 2008 with Forza 2 and Viva Pinata Played around 2 month and started to turn off the driving assists one by one which pushes the fun alot. It was great to have finally full control over the cars. After Forza 2-4 and mostly every other racing game on this consol i got a cheap pc from an friend in 2011 and startet to play on this system too with a crappy gamepad. By a coincidence i noticed R3E and started to play it right at the start of the open beta. I bought a 360 gamepad and alot Km later i made a plan for a new pc and a wheel which i got booth later 2013. Since i got the wheel i played every old and new sim on the market.