What was the first racer you remember playing?

[DigitalSpace]

For me, it was R.C. Pro-Am on a babysitter's NES sometime in the late 80s. Still one of my favorite racers to this day.

What about you?

[smokehouse]

Pole Position II on the Atari 7800…..

Booop, booop, booop, beeeeeeeeep! (crummy imitation of the starting buzzer when you race…)

[Enixis]

I don't remember the title but the objective was basically to get your red car to the checkpoint before the time runs out whilst avoiding other cars and manholes (i think). Oh and it was an NES game with a top down view.

[Nez]

R. C. pro am

Out run 2019 or 2029 i can never rember the date.

[squidblatt]

Nightracer for the Atari. Not such a bad game back then, but definitely not a graphical masterpiece.

I used to play Super Sprint in the arcade, but I wasn't good at it, so it didn't really impact me. The first racer I really had fun with was probably RC Pro Am.

[roushimsx]

Pole Position. When I was a kid, I was damn near obsessed with the game

[Oobgarm]

I'd have to say Pole Position on the 2600.

[poloplayr]

super sprint, black and white arcade version with the wheel.

[Jumpman Jr.]

I think it would have to be Micro Machines on the NES. That's as early as I can remember. I believe my friend had the game.

[robotriot]

For me it was Stunt Car Racer on Amiga. I didn't get very far though, I only ever finished the first league I believe.

[Flack]

Spinout on the Odyssey 2., then either Night Driver or Race for the 2600.

[kevin_psx]

For me, it was R.C. Pro-Am on my babysitter's NES sometime in the late 80s.

Ahhh young people. Me, it was Night Driver from the late 1970s! It was nothing but flashing lights streaming down the screen! (PLAYABLE - http://web.utanet.at/nkehrer/JNitedrvr.html )



http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/N/vNight_Driver.png

[Damaramu]

IIRC, it was Pole Position for me in the arcades.

[squidblatt]

Ahhh young people. Me, it was Night Driver from the late 1970s! It was nothing but flashing lights streaming down the screen! (PLAYABLE - http://web.utanet.at/nkehrer/JNitedrvr.html )



http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/N/vNight_Driver.png

Night Driver. That's what I meant to say. Don't know where I got Nightracer from.

[s1lence]

Pole Position for me.

[Policenaut]

Mine were Pole Position and Dodge 'Em. :)

[johno590]

One that I vividly remember was Turbo on the Colecovision... ah memories.

[club210]

I remember a few. Atari's Night Driver, Intellivision's Auto Racing.

What I remember best is arcade Monaco GP. I used to play it at the A&P supermarket while my mom shopped. I remember my mom saying she had to go shopping and I told my friend we should go. He looked at me and gave me the old "...o.k.". When we got there and I had some spare quarters he began thinking up his appeal to his mom to change supermarkets. Now the local spot doesn't even have kiddy rides anymore. Where is the love?

[sharp]

I don'te remember too well, for console it was of course RC Pro Am, which I still enjoy. Arcade was Power Drift or Super Off-Road, sadly arcades here are always 18+ so I could only play them at the yearly fair. Still love Power Drift and I always wondered why they never released a home-version in the west. Although I can live ith my Sega Ages version for Saturn.

[dreamcaster]

Grand Prix by Accolade on the PC. One of my first games for my first gaming platform (a 286 PC circa 1989).

Little did I know that racing games would be become my favourite genre.

Got Tokyo Highway Challenge 2 running as we speak. :P

[esquire]

For me, it had to be either Night Driver or the original Sprint - the black and white version.

FYI, Super Sprint was the updated version by Atari in Color with lots of extras,

[FantasiaWHT]

Pole Position on an arcade (I think at least, this is a long time ago hehe)

But on a console... Spy Hunter for NES

[starchildskiss78]

My memory is a bit fuzzy on this but it was between one of three games (all for the beloved C-64):

1) Pole Position
2) Pit Stop
3) Pit Stop II

As for console games it would be R.C. Pro Am for the NES!

[Perkar]

somehow, despite having around 30 games for my 2600 as a kid, i never had a racing game.... so i'm probably going to have to say either outrun at the bowling alley arcade, or rad racer on the NES at my friend's house....

funny how i have such weak racing game roots, while nowadays the burnout series owns me.

[rotten03]

Im gonna have to add another Night Driver comment. It was my first but not my favorite. I love racing games but Night Driver is NOT the reason. :) I don't think it was until Outrun that I liked racing games.

[Goodwill Hunter]

Indy 500 for the 2600! My brother and I begged to get it for Christmas....the big orange box with the special 2600 racing controllers. We literally played it for 3 days straight, stopping only for meals, church and sleep...regular race, ice race, tag, race to the dot...I think it's one of the most fun 2-player games for the 2600!

Rich

[le geek]

Night Driver or Sprint 4 :)

Cheers,
Ben

[Jasoco]

Rad Racer when we got our NES in 198whatever.

[Mason P.]

pole position

man that has been a while :)

[Jed]

Math Gran Prix for me, if that one counts. >_>

[googlefest1]

i think pole position

[norkusa]

Night Driver on the 2600

[§ Gideon §]

Excitebike was my first. Outside of the home, it was Pole Position II.

Speaking of poles, it'd be nice if this topic were one.

[Flack]

Indy 500 for the 2600! My brother and I begged to get it for Christmas....the big orange box with the special 2600 racing controllers. We literally played it for 3 days straight, stopping only for meals, church and sleep...regular race, ice race, tag, race to the dot...I think it's one of the most fun 2-player games for the 2600!

We used to play "tag" on that game. We would decide who was "it" and then you would have to chase that person until you tagged them, and so on. Really challenging on ice!

[diskoboy]

Sprint 2.

[ECWSandmanECW]

A Lotus game for the genesis.

[neuropolitique]

Enduro - 2600. My first and still my favorite.

[CYRiX]

haha Excite Bike any one? And if that isn't considered a racer than mario kart!



Hey I'm 15 years old calm down.

[FurinkanianFrood]

on consoles:

I'm not sure, I think I played something on 2600 or 5200 but I never owned any racers on those back then (or a 5200 at all, though I wouldn't mind having one, along with a controller adapter).

And I can't remember playing Pole Position back then in the arcade, though I probably did a couple times.

I remember playing Rad Racer, though I hated it (and still do).
The first racers I remember liking on a console were RC Pro Am and NES Super Sprint.

In the arcade: Outrun!!!

I still play the latter 3 occasionally.

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

Rad Racer!

[jdc]

The first racer was Mario Kart for the N64, back when it was my first and only system....but the racer that I spent the most time with was Top Gear Rally. That is, until I bought a PSX and Turismo.

[sabre2922]

Pole Position and Indy 500 on atari 2600 if I remember correctly playing Indy 500 with the paddle pads for the atari.

The game I remember most clearly though is Rad racer on NES MANY hours me and my friend that lived next door did invest in this game waaaay back in the day :D

[Stevie Boy]

RC Pro Am for SMS

[evil_genius]

Rad Racer with 3D glasses.

[Ulticron]

I think it was Pole Position, or a knock off of it, I know it was on the Vic 20.

[Arkaign]

Black and white, top view, wheel... don't remember the name.

[snes_collector]

I believe it was Super Mario Kart.

[Saabmeister]

Test Drive (C64)

[Snapple]

RC Pro-Am, then Excitebike, then Super Sprint. After that was HARD DRIVIN' for the Genesis, which I thought was one of the coolest games ever at the time.

I went back and played Hard Drivin', and I nearly ruined my childhood. Let's just say it didn't age well.

[Nesmaster]

Super Mario Kart, and it was an amazing thing at the time. Some heated races! :D

[Teknik_SE-R]

my first racing games were on the PC

test drive in teh late 80's gotta love the rain and being able to regulate the windshield wipers lol!

and then there was STUNTS (early 90's) probably the funnest racing game evar!!!! it had a track editor, kinda like excitebike, but it was 3d (one of the first truly 3d games if i'm not mistaken) the problem is it required you to make a complete track that was continuous and had a start and end. the way to get around it was to make a tiny little loop with start and finish in the corner of the editor map. then you could place anything you wanted on the rest of the map!!!! impossible combinations of lefthand corkscrews, righthand corkscrews, and loops that disoriented you to the point you couldnt tell what was up down left or right, huge jumps that went nowhere, jumps that whent straight into corkscrews, corkscrews that went into jumps, you name it. one of my favorites was to put a "never ending turning parking garage entrance" at the end of a looooooong straight and see who could come as close to it as possible before slowing down and still make the turn

the bitch was the "code wheel". it required you to input an answer to a question (that you had to find by aligning two symbols on the code wheel) everytime you played (much like test drive or abrams tank) my friend always lost his, and we would have to input wrong answeres until it asked a question that we knew the answer to.

AH memories!!

my first console racing game was pole position (on the 2600?)

[Teknik_SE-R]

oh and don't forget street rod... wanna race for pinks?

retro vortex of dooooooom!!!!!

[aegis]

Sprint and/or Night driver at the Arcade, two great games. Sprint was cool, it had oil spills, and it was multi player.

[aegis]

Black and white, top view, wheel... don't remember the name.

More than likely a sprint game.

[AMG]

The first racing game I ever played was Pole Position on the Atari 2600.

[Poofta!]

spy hunter on the nes... i know its technically not a racer, but whatever, it counts.

the next game i remember was Outrun, but i played that on my 486 pc. not arcade or sms.

[dcescott]

pole position.
If I got a score high enough for the three initials I would spin the wheel hard and press the gas pedal 3 times to get 3 random letters. Just something to piss off the attendant or owner of the arcade. Imagine a 10 year old boy swinging the wheel really fast and stomping down the gas pedal real loud three times. I got a huge kick out of that!

[alec006]

Racer,um my first, San Francisco Rush Extreme Racing for the N64.

[Pantechnicon]

I'm another arcade Super Sprinter. Good old black & white racing fun at the local Shakey's Pizza.

[zektor]

Mine was Sega's Turbo on the Colecovision. What a long drive that was...still driving! LOL

[retroman]

for me it was Auto Racer..i think that is what it was called....It was for the Intellivison

[Tron 2.0]

Arcade
Pole Position follow by Turbo.

I also remember how much suck at those when i was a kid :P

[videogameking26]

Rad Racer on NES

[Ed Oscuro]

I have no idea. The one I know I played first - that I remember playing first - was Mario Kart 64. Perhaps there was one I played earlier, but I don't really remember. Maybe I played F-Zero and didn't remember.

[k8track]

Super Bug, by Kee Games, for the Arcade, in my local Wal-Mart.

[Hep038]

Auto Racing on the Intellivision. I remember getting bored with the tracks and driving around in the woods, and to my susprise a hidden track! But if you crashed you were taken back to the origional track. I would spend hours trying to find hidden tracks, and I know on one map there was a drag strip that lead to nowhere. Me and my dad would get the 2 fast, bad handling cars (blue and tan I think) Drive to the drag strip and race. At the end of the road was a bunch of trees and who ever crashed into them first won. I think that game is where i did my first "drifting". LOL

[omnedon]

http://www.ataritimes.com/arcade/images/sprint.gif

Sprint


I was but a wide eyed boy in 1978, but the love affair had begun. 8-)

[9c1lt1]

Excitebike on the arcade

[Vigilante]

For me is was Night Driver. After that I think the next racing game I got was Pole Position.

[randyt7801]

Pole Position...who could forget the sound byte "prepare to qualify"

[briskbc]

It was either Night Driver or Poleposition. I vaguely remember a drag racing game for the 2600 for which I could not get the timing right when changing gears.

[MASTERWEEDO]

Either Rad Racer or Excitebike, i cant remember which we got first for nes

[XianXi]

First was pole position but the game that really got me into racing games was sadly rad racer, it's RAD!

But, Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Offroad will always be my all time fave.

[Quackaddict]

Arcade version of "Pole Position." Sounds like a damn fine name for a porno now....

[Joohan]

Pole Position. When I was a kid, I was damn near obsessed with the game

Was Pole Position also on the videopac? Then it was my first 2!