What is the point?

You' re in a car, and you drive around. Wow.

Seriously? I can understand games like mario kart where it' s not really about racing but about beating the crap out of other people, but plain old racing games like Gran Turismo? What the hell is the point?

Hmmm what' s the point in beat' em' ups? Just beating somebody up.
Or Shooters? Just walking around and shooting stuff.
And so on



Anyway, I believe the big fun comes from (as with almost any genre) that you can do things you can' t really do in real life. If racing games were all about getting in the car you already own and driving around in a city in a law-abiding way, I think I couldn' t have agreed more with you. But well, that' s not what racing games do. They let you drive a Ferrari and have some nice races which ends up equalling fun.

Any genre can be boiled down to a simple statement like that.

FPS: Wow you run around and shoot stuff.
RPG: Raid dungeons and talk...a lot.
Sports: Hit a ball around woohoo.

No real point to any of it cept for enjoyment on behalf of its designated audience.

Not only it makes you try soemthing you can' t do in real life but the real enjoyement comes also when it testes your reflexes and your know how, all games do , it gives you a sense of accomplishement.. it' s not often easy to drive in gran turismo, you should tune your car accordingly, break when you should , not early and not late, and much more, it' s applying these techniques that give your more satisfactions when they are well done... it' s called gameplay baby

I rarely agree with Emo, but in this case i do. i only like racing games like Mario Kart, or fast racers like Rollcage

Racing is about competing. That' s the core of racing.
Competing against other players, against the CPU, against your own record times, it' s all very satisfying if you' re a competitive person.
Also, the sense of speed can often be a thrill, especially in games like F-zero GX.
Add to that the huge variety of racing games with very different art styles, car types, settings, tuning options, etc. and you have a very versatile genre.

I rarely agree with Emo, but in this case i do. i only like racing games like Mario Kart, or fast racers like Rollcage

I rarely agree with anyone agreeing with emofag, but I feel exactly the same way. Unless you are talking about Outrun 2 in the arcades, that is (I' ve also gotta try a Burnout someday).

It' s not my favorite genre. But as someone said, everything can be simplified like this in the end. I do like a few racers though, like Outrun or Test Drive Lemans on DC. And F355 Challenge is one I would like to test eventually.

F1 games are a good way to spend my time.

But then it has to be where I am in control of the car setup to the smallest detail. Especially in F1 games finding a perfect setup for your car for a certain track can be challenging with also keeping in mind that it can start raining if it is predicted that rain may fall.

So then you' ll have to find a setup that gives you enough speed on a dry track but also one that gives you enough grip on a wet track.

There' s a lot more in certain racers than some people would think. I' ll try showing with a simple example.

If you' re in the lead with a rather small gap of like only 5 seconds or so you can play your cards very differently. You can either go full speed and take risks to increase the gap, but since you do that your burn more fuel and your tire wear will be higher making you have to go into the pits sooner but with a greater gap leaving you more room for your pitstop.

On the other hand if you are faster than the one behind you can control the gap. Reducing fuel usage and tyre wear which allows you to stay on the track longer than your opponent since he' s pushing to catch up to you while you can control. When he goes for his pitstop this should result in you being able to stay out a lap or 2-3 to go all out effectively increasing your gap since your opponent will be slower due to the high amount of fuel he has onboard. And when you finally go into the pits you also need to waste less time tanking fuel since you have lesser laps to do. In other words you effectively increased the gap between you by pushing 2-3 laps with almost no fuel and a rather good set of tires. Because of this you come out of the pits with a few seconds extra than you did before and another extra second since your pit-stop was shorter. And after that you can just control the race again or you can push again for a few laps increasing the lead more so you can start cruising after a while.

So as you can see you can put as much depth into a racing game as you wish.

The forklift race in Shenmue. Now that was awesome!
The trick was to raise the forks so you didn' t hit obstacles and edges on the track.

the racing Genre exisits to make the other Gneres look better. Thanks Sega!

I think one of the point of racing games is to live out your automotive fantasies without the harsh penalties of the real world ;).. Try going 100 miles per hour in most places around your town and see what happens to ya

Also, play a racing game drunk and drive a real car drunk and compare the repercussions

The point is to finish first!

Different things appeal to different people.

Folks like Demonoroth find the detailed management of a vehicle really interesting, so racing sims are really fun for them.

On the other hand, the gameplay he described sounds less like a game and more like some unusual torture to me. If you gave me the option of playing that game and punching myself in the crotch, I' d put on my boxing gloves.

You mean putting on the boxing gloves to play the game that way? Since it' s even more of a challenge then to press the buttons ;)

ORIGINAL: nekkid_monkey
On the other hand, the gameplay he described sounds less like a game and more like some unusual torture to me.

Well if you play online it' s best to let them feel you control the race. You could say I like to torture the mind when I' m superior in a race and let them feel it. Makes them emotionally unbalanced and they start making mistakes and go off track. Saves me the trouble of having to take risks that aren' t really called for and spare the car.

And YS who' s talking buttongs here...nothing beats a racing wheel and pedals for a racing game. Gives you much more control at cornering, braking and accelerating.

ORIGINAL: Evilkiller

Hmmm what' s the point in beat' em' ups? Just beating somebody up.
Or Shooters? Just walking around and shooting stuff.
And so on



Anyway, I believe the big fun comes from (as with almost any genre) that you can do things you can' t really do in real life. If racing games were all about getting in the car you already own and driving around in a city in a law-abiding way, I think I couldn' t have agreed more with you. But well, that' s not what racing games do. They let you drive a Ferrari and have some nice races which ends up equalling fun.

I can' t go around beating the crap out of people because A) I' m not a skilled martial artist in real life and B) I' d go to jail.

I can get on my car and speed on highways with a far better sense of speed than a video game can provide.

ORIGINAL: Mass X

Any genre can be boiled down to a simple statement like that.

FPS: Wow you run around and shoot stuff.
RPG: Raid dungeons and talk...a lot.
Sports: Hit a ball around woohoo.

No real point to any of it cept for enjoyment on behalf of its designated audience.

Um, whens the last time you shot someone in real life? Exactly.

When' s the last time your saved the world like in an RPG? Exactly

When' s the last time I drove at 100mph down a highway? Last night.

Exactly.

Again I can understand UNREALISTIC racers like Burnout where you can pull off insane speed and stunts that just can' t happen in real life, but stuff like Gran Turismo? Come on.

Yeah the problem though is - you are talking about Need for Speed and saying Gran TUrismo. Let' s ask a bit different questions.

When did you participate in a race for the last time? Exactly.
When did you drive a Ferrari for the last time? Exactly.

But it isn' t even comparable.

I could get into races if I wanted to, I can' t go on a killing spree as much as I wanted as there are consequences, I can' t save the world if I wanted to, etc.

To get to the nice cars like ferraris you usually have to unlock them and drive a bunch of crappy cars as you progress through the game, that is sleep inducing.