By Mark H. Walker

Few endeavors are as viscerally satisfying as racing automobiles. The sport's unique combination of adrenaline rush and mental challenge are an addictive mix. Who -whether enroute to the grocery store or dawdling on a country road- hasn't punched that accelerator, squealed those tires, felt that electrifying thrill? Perhaps that feeling is the basis for the sport's long, yet sometimes tenuous, love affair with console and computer gaming. Whatever the reason for its popularity, it is popular nonetheless, and a genre as old as the medium on which it runs.

There are two distinct types of racing games: Arcade racers and racing simulations. Arcade racers stress playability and fun. Although many passably model car dynamics, they place a higher emphasis on grins than gut-wrenching g-forces. On the flip side of the coin, racing simulations emphasize realism. Some, such as Papyrus's Grand Prix Legends, go as far as modeling the interaction of individual suspension pieces and drive train elements. No matter which type of game spins your wheels, you're sure to discover more about its origins in the following article. So snap that five-point harness shut; it's time to take a quick lap through the history of racing games.

In The Beginning

It started in a Laundromat, or at least in the beach's boardwalk arcades. Kids flitted about a machine like flies on sugar. Early racing games were little more than cars on sticks, rapidly swerved to trace the meanderings of the scrolling road beneath. Fun yes, sophisticated no. Nevertheless, gamers prayed for similar games that they could take home once the laundry was finished or the beach trip over.

Atari, once the god to all things game, answered the entreaties. Their Pole Position was one of the first racing games. Although simplistic by today's standards (what isn't?), the game is still a lot of fun. Whereas others, such as Nintendo's 1984 F-1 Race and Activision's 1982 Gran Prix side-scroller, entered the market at close to the same time, Pole Position fired the imagination of a young generation of future computer gamers that were hungry for a speed simulation with a bit of realism.

Despite the console's championing of the first racers, it was the computer that would put the genre into the limelight. Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit -which ran just fine on a 286, thank you- was the first of the limelight grabbers. Focusing on the European Formula One series, Grand Prix Circuit, offered a smattering of cars (Ferrari, Mclaren, and Williams) that ran pseudo-realistically on the handful of actual tracks included on its one 3.5" disk. Accolade knew a potential gold mine when it saw one and quickly followed with the release of Test Drive (a series that continues to this day) and The Duel: Test Drive II.

Whereas Grand Prix Circuit hinted at the racing simulations that would soon assault the market, the Test Drive series opened the gates to the flood of arcade racers. Both Test Drives popped wannabe Porsche and Ferrari drivers into the cockpit of their dream cars and threw them on scenic highways that wound through desert, cites, mountains, and shoreline. The object was simple: go fast, beat the police, and avoid oncoming traffic.

What Accolade couldn't avoid was the usurping of their genre-leading position by a small (initially two-man) start-up in the suburbs of Boston. Hot on Grand Prix Circuit's tail pipes came the first true racing simulation, Indy 500. Coded by the now legendary David Kaemmer, Indy 500 simulated driving a several-hundred horsepower IndyCar at the world's most famous race, the Indianapolis 500.

Released in 1989 (the same year as Test Drive II: The Duel) the game was the first racing game, whether simulation or arcade, to truly impart the feel of driving a racecar. If it mattered on the asphalt of the Brickyard it mattered in the code of Indy 500. You had to be patient, smooth, and fast to win this race. The game also included complete setup options. Gamers could flatten their IndyCar's wings, slap in a taller top gear, or myriad of other possibilities that are commonplace today, but rare in games of the late Eighties.

While Kaemmer worked his magic in Boston, across the ocean another fledgling programmer began flexing his coding muscles in a joyous game called Stunt Car Racer. The game combined the thrill of putting a car through its paces on a series of stunt-type tracks with the take-no-prisoners realism that would mark his future forays into the world of Formula One Grand Prix (pronounced Grah Pree) racing simulations. The man's name was Geoff Crammond and he soon followed up Stunt Car Racer with the classic World Circuit.

Published by Microprose, World Circuit brought to road racing fans what Indy 500 gave Indianapolis 500 devotees: The ultimate simulation of their sport. World Circuit drivers competed with the cars present during the 1990 Formula One season on any of the tracks at which they raced. From the tight, sky-scraper lined streets of Phoenix (site of America's last Grand Prix and witness to the unforgettable 1991 Jean Alesi/Ayrton Senna duel), to the high speed straights of Monza, gamers vicariously lived the dream of on-the-edge competition, As in Kaemmer's simulation, time spent tuning the chassis in the garage would directly affect the vehicle's performance on the track. And make no mistake, the vehicle performance was superb. These cars just felt like you'd imagine a few shakes short of 1000 horsepower car should feel.

Papyrus didn't take long to answer Microprose's challenge. In 1993 they released IndyCar Racing. Rather than solely model the Indianapolis 500, of which Papyrus had lost its license, IndyCar Racing simulated the entire IndyCar season. This was the first time that one racing simulation had attempted to master the complex physics of road racing, super speedway oval and short oval racing. The game did a superb job and was justly coated with gaming journalists' critical acclaim. But although the platitudes poured in, the money did not. That, however, would change with Papyrus's next title: A game that would forever change the face of PC and console racing.

NASCAR Goes Big-Time

The game was NASCAR Racing, and it combined the complexity of the typical Papyrus simulation with what was rapidly becoming America's #1 motorsport. The blend was natural; hard core enthusiasts were able to tinker their fill with the stocker's chassis and gearing, then take it out for a realistic spin on some of North America's best known oval tracks. On the other hand, novices took advantage of both the inherently easier learning curve associated with oval-track racing and the game's arcade mode. NASCAR Racing was not only a critical and commercial success for Papyrus, but the dawn of a new proliferation of racing games -both arcade and simulation.

In 1995 quality racing games sprouted like wildflowers on a highway median. Sega released Rally Championship for its console gaming system and Papyrus followed up its modest IndyCar Racing success by placing IndyCar Racing II on store shelves. Rally Championship was one of, if not the, first serious racing game for the console crowd. Modeled on Sega's famous arcade series of the same name, Rally Championship drivers could slide their car through the dirt and gravel turns of rally courses the world over. The graphics were beautiful (the cars even had translucent windows), and the game nailed that loose-sliding-on-dirt-and-barely-in-control experience like nobody since (with the possible exception of GT Interactive's 1999 release, Dirt Track Racing).

On the flip side of the coin, Indy Car Racing II was a mixed bag. No one could question the simulation's accuracy, or at least the apparent "mathematical" accuracy of its physics modeling, but many critics claimed it was too difficult. This raised a question that would often haunt serious simulations: Could a game be too realistic?

Sure; with 1995's computing power, visionaries such as Kaemmer and Crammond could painstakingly detail a car's response to most driver inputs. At first glance, it would seem that this would make the car no more difficult to race than its carbon fiber and titanium counterparts. Problem was -and still is- the programmers can't translate the feedback from the car's scrabbling rear tires into the gamer's butt nor the twitch of the front suspension to the gamer's steering wheel. Without sufficient feedback, the difficulty of ultra realistic simulations was getting out of control.

In 1996 Geoff Crammond came to the rescue. The float Crammond threw to the complexity-swamped public was Grand Prix II, the sequel to his popular World Circuit Racing. Make no mistake, Grand Prix II is every bit as sophisticated as Indy Car Racing II, it does, however, offer critical driving aids that let cyber-drivers learn the ropes before being thrown to the racing wolves. The game includes automatic braking, automatic shifting, throttle help (kept gamers from spinning their rear tires on acceleration), and an option that painted the ideal racing path (called the driving line) on the track. To be sure, Papyrus included both automatic braking and shifting in IndyCar Racing II, and tire marks on the IndyCar tracks hinted at the proper driving line, but their simulation never achieved the downright drivability of Crammond's. In fact, many still consider Grand Prix II the finest racing simulation ever.

Despite Grand Prix II's critical acclaim it couldn't match the commercial success of Papyrus's 1996 offering, NASCAR Racing 2. The game seriously upped its predecessor's graphical ante, and with reviews in major car magazines such as Autoweek, NASCAR Racing 2 took the PC racing genre to previously untapped mainstream audiences. It used some of this newfound leverage to wrangle its way onto the now defunct Total Entertainment Network and morphed into the NASCAR Racing Online Series (NROS), a fully NASCAR sanctioned series that crowned its champions each year at the Daytona 500. 1996 was also the primal year for another legendary PC racing series: Electronic Arts' Need For Speed. Their 1992 Car and Driver proved that Electronic Arts was no stranger to racing, yet Need for Speed would quickly become their flagship racing series. The game mixed a nearly-simulation physics engine with arcadish driving ease to garner a large following.

Also garnering their share of fans was another pair of 1997 titles. In one corner stood Interplay's Carmegeddon. Depending on your taste -or lack thereof- Carmegeddon either took arcade racing to new lows or highs. Not truly a racing game, the title rewarded the driver who could squash the most pedestrians under his or her tires.

On the other side of the ring stood POD. A game that many would call the best arcade game of the decade, POD was the most lavishly graphical racer of its time. Gamers piloted futuristic racecars through SciFi cities glistening with lights. Not only were the physics damn good, but the sense of speed was incredible. Equally fitting was the game's beauty; although done without the aid of 3-D accelerated graphics, the eye candy was a portent of the graphical wave soon to sweep the gaming world.

By the middle of 1998, if you weren't graphically accelerated, you weren't sh.... well, at least sharing the limelight. '98 certainly wasn't the first year of acceleration, but was the year in which it broke out in the racing genre. The market was suddenly flooded with stunningly good looking games. Whether mesmerized by the sheen on a Viper's hood in Sierra's Viper Racing, the individually leafed trees in Electronic Art's gorgeous Need For Speed III, or the lightning that split Microsoft's Monster Truck Madness 2's tumultuous skies, gamers' eyes had plenty to cheer about.

Surprisingly, much of the gamer's cheering had nothing to do with PC games. In 1998 a new name joined the Kaemmer/Crammond legacy. The name was Kazunori Yamauchi, and the game he produced is the PlayStation's now-legendary Gran Turismo. The game modeled 150 cars, from Honda Accord station wagons to Dodge Vipers. Almost unbelievably, each felt different. There was no mistaking the lightning-fast acceleration of an Aston Martin DB-7 for the more sedate pace of Subaru Legacy. It was, however, easy to mistake Turismo's slick graphics for those of a 3-D accelerated PC Game. It looked that good!

Also looking good on the console scene were Codemaster's TOCA (PSX) and Midway's Top Gear Rally for Nintendo 64. TOCA was based on the British touring car championship and sported a physics model and graphics nearly the equal of Gran Turismo. Conversely, the Nintendo title Top Gear Rally (actually a late 1997 release) was the first console title to seriously challenge Sega's Rally Championship series.

Nevertheless, for simulation enthusiasts 1998 will not be remembered as the year of 3-D acceleration nor the year of the console's comeback, but simply the year of Legends. Late in the year, Papyrus released a game that many believe will be the benchmark for racing simulations for years to come. Titled Grand Prix Legends, the game modeled every -I mean every - detail of 1967 Formula One cars. The resultant immersion was incredible. These cars felt real; what worked on real racetracks worked here. Furthermore, the 3-D graphics and throaty engine noise were on par with anything on the market.

1999 And Beyond

By 1999 racing games were one of the hottest genres in computer gaming. It seemed like everyone wanted their share of the consumer's pie. That was a good thing -there was no shortage of titles from which to choose. But the glut produced its share of duds. Electronic Art's NASCAR Revolution, for example, proved that 3-D graphics and a nationally recognizable license do not a good game make. But the good far outweighed the bad. On the arcade front, Electronic Arts Need for Speed: High Stakes is a fine game. So too is UbiSoft's Speed Busters --a retro racing game where players race cars through interactive landscapes and not only try to best their competition, but dodge rampaging dinosaurs, schooling sharks, and a plethora of other dangers. Accolade continued their Test Drive series, releasing Test Drive: 6 (for both PC and console) and Test Drive: Off Road 3. Both were typical arcade fair, but where else can you drive a Hummer?

However, the PC market wasn't content to stick with arcade racers. Ubisoft released Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation 2, the sequel to its popular and asphalt-real Formula One Racing Simulation. Electronic Arts produced two excellent simulations: Sports Car GT and Superbike World Championship. Superbike has the feel, look and sanctioning license to become the best motorcycle racing simulation ever. Of course Papyrus continued to pump out its NASCAR simulations like Krispy Kreme does doughnuts, and last, but surely not least, Codemasters developed TOCA 2 for the PC.

But no one was ignoring the consoles any longer. Sequels to all the big names were either released or in the works. There was a spiffy new Gran Turismo 2, TOCA 2, and Top Gear 2 for gamers to swoon over, and Sega announced that the latest version of their Rally Championship was nearly ready for the Dreamcast.

The momentum that grew throughout the nineties burst into the new millenium with a vengence. There is no lack of new titles to race on today's shelves. Geoff Crammond is back, and his Grand Prix 3 is prettier, yet just as challenging as its predecessor. EA Sports has thrown down their own Formula One gauntlet with the release of F1 2000. Coded by the Sports Car GT team, the game is authentic, but a bit tricky to drive. Contrarily, circle track racers will love Hasbro's NASCAR Heat. Designed by the boys and girls who made Viper Racing, Heat is a beautiful, smooth driving game that features 40 scenarios designed to make even the most inexperienced racer a Winston Cup Champion. And talk about beautiful... the graphics in EA's arcade/simulation Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (PC) and Sega's Sega GT (Dreamcast) are enough to drop even the most jaded jaw.

Without question, racing games are a booming business. That's no surprise; the sport is one of the most exciting on our planet. What is surprising is how long it took software developers to catch on to the fact. Nevertheless, spurned by the success of Papyrus's NASCAR series, the market is flooded with games eager to put you behind the wheel, games wishing to provide that unique rush of adrenaline and surge of mental energy.

For Mark's thoughts on the future of racing games, take a trip over to his editorial at GameSlice.