Best Playstation 3 Racers

[GhostDog]

What would you say are the best PS3 racers? I was looking into Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed but I don't think I need another kart-like game plus it's a bit pricey. I was also looking into Need for Speed: Most Wanted but it seems too much like Burnout Paradise only with real cars. I'll pass on it. I'll probably end up selling a handful of the racing games that I have since I have so many. I still have to even play some of them. Here is what I have:

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Awesome arcade racer with real cars from the company that brought us Burnout 3, Burnout Revenge and Burnout Paradise. Probably my favorite PS3 racer right now and overall a very well made game. Online still active with players from all over the world).

Need for Speed: Shift (Just got it and haven't put much time into it. It looks awesome. Seems to have better graphics than Shift 2 according to the comparison videos).

Blur (Currently playing. Graphics not that great but manageable. I'll have to spend more time with it but may very well end up selling it).

Burnout Paradise (Still looks great but disappointed that it strayed from the Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge formula. Glad online is still active. Now give us Burnout 3 HD already!).

Daytona USA (Digital download. Nice, bright and colorful graphics of the classic arcade racer in high definition and online play. You've all seen it in the arcades so you know what to expect. Wish we got Daytona 2 already).

Dirt 2 (Awesome game: a must-own for racing fans).

Fuel (Have not played it yet).

SSX (Need to spend more time with it).

Gran Turismo 5 XL Edition (Still sealed and not played).

GRID (Briefly tried it out. Seems like an awesome and must-own racer with great cars and driving physics. Shame there's no more online play).

Initial D: Extreme Stage (Japanese only import arcade port with Japanese text. Translation guide is available online. Still manages to get a handful of Japanese players online but I suck so bad at this game. Definitely wouldn't mind the latest arcade port to be released).

LittleBigPlanet Karting (Downloaded digital copy. Briefly tried it out and not sure why I bought it. May have to spend more time on it).

Modnation Racers (Have not played yet).

Pure (Have not played yet).

Ridge Racer 7 (Briefly played and seems fun. It's Riiiiiiiiiiidge Racer so hopefully you know what to expect here. Online play still available).

Sega Rally Revo (Driving physics seem really loose when the car is in third-person view but easier to control once in first-person view. Only did a few races so need to feel this game out more but it doesn't feel too special).

Used to own:

Dirt 3 (Was not thrilled by what I briefly played. Dirt 2 seemed better to me).

Split/Second (Graphics didn't look great and no real cars in the game. Seemed like a poor man's Burnout-like game with its own gimmick. I know many will disagree with that assessment. I have to admit I didn't play this game long and perhaps judged it too quickly).

Wangan Midnight (Japanese only release that did not capture me. English and Japanese text mixed in. What I really want is a Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune arcade port of the latest or previous installments. Can't believe these haven't been ported even in Japan).

Anticipating:

GRID 2 (Looks amazing from the videos. Codemasters and racing games go good together).

[kupomogli]

Wipeout HD Fury. Starts off slow, venom speed, so everyone can get into it, but most people won't be able to race phantom very well, if at all. Great series.

Test Drive Unlimited 2. This is my favorite racer this gen. The only thing that disappoints me about this game is that compared to the original Test Drive Unlimited which had 200-300+ races scattered about the island, there's not nearly as many premade on this game, however, the island of Oahu which is on the original game is also in this game as well as the island of Ibiza. According to Wikipedia, the games asphalt and offroad totals to over 1864 miles of road.

This is a somewhat of a simulation style game with around 100 races, but you can play created player races or create your own. If you don't want to race, you can just drive around getting all roads located on your gps, find hidden wrecks, find certain locations to take pictures, edit your car with different stickers, edit your avatar, take random odd jobs like deliver a car to a location without too much damage, bring someone to a location in a certain time limit, etc.

[GhostDog]

I looked into getting Test Drive Unlimited 2 before. Maybe I'll give it a chance sometime. One racer that I wish I didn't miss out on was OutRun Online Arcade. I loved the Xbox games and having it on the PS3 would be sweet. They removed it due to licensing issues.

[Leo_A]

Your location isn't listed, but unless you were European, your chances are as good now to still get Outrun Online Arcade on the PS3 as they were before. Since it was a Xbox 360 exclusive in North America, the only way to get it was to utilize the game share feature with a European that purchased it. You can still do it that way if you can find someone that bought it and is willing to share it since existing owner's can still redownload it. And since it was delisted right around the same time, most anyone that has it will have 5 activations instead of the new limit of 2 so there's always that chance you could find someone with a few activations left and willing to share.

And if you have any interest in Test Drive Unlimited 2, I suggest doing what I'm going to do soon. Buy it and play it now to enjoy it. The sequel wasn't nearly the sales success as the original was and that has been offline since last Fall now. And Atari's business situation right now also doesn't bode well. So enjoy it while you can since the online component is a large chunk of the game and when the servers get shut off that's it and you can only play single player.

Also, my favorite Dirt has been the original. That was the closest to a rally racer of the three. But if you want one with more variety, Dirt 3 is the way to go. It's everything Dirt 2 was but just with more of it. Grid's another fun arcadey racer from Codemasters. Had its share of issues but I played it to completion. An achievement was bugged on the 360 (Not sure about the PS3 but with the server turned off over there you can't go for trophy completion anyways) but the bigger problems were the heavy use of Mario Kart style rubber banding with the AI and severe physics issues with the open wheeler's and the LeMans prototypes.

And my favorite simcades of this generation haven't carried the Forza or Gran Turismo name but instead have been Codemaster's three HD Formula One releases to date. I'd suggest picking up F1 2011 if you at all enjoy motorsports. It's cheaper than F1 2012 will cost you and has a lot of subtle improvements over their first outing the year before with F1 2010 (And F1 2009 on the PSP/Wii the year prior was farmed out to Sumo Digital as was the Vita and 3DS versions of F1 2012 and are to be avoided if you ask me). And F1 2012 was mostly just a yearly update with a bit of polish.

Also if a Xbox 360 is in your entertainment center right now or you contemplate adding it down the road, be aware that games with no server support left from Codemasters like Grid (Which has a nice looking sequel slated for this year) are still fully online over there. The gamer hosts their own matches in those games on the 360 like the vast majority of non EA 360 software. And with the standard Xbox Live matchmaking functionality handling that side, there's nothing for Codemasters to shut off on you over there.

[GhostDog]

Your location isn't listed, but unless you were European, your chances are as good now to still get Outrun Online Arcade on the PS3 as they were before. Since it was a Xbox 360 exclusive in North America, the only way to get it was to utilize the game share feature with a European that purchased it. You can still do it that way if you can find someone that bought it and is willing to share it since existing owner's can still redownload it. And since it was delisted right around the same time, most anyone that has it will have 5 activations instead of the new limit of 2 so there's always that chance you could find someone with a few activations left and willing to share.

And if you have any interest in Test Drive Unlimited 2, I suggest doing what I'm going to do soon. Buy it and play it now to enjoy it. The sequel wasn't nearly the sales success as the original was and that has been offline since last Fall now. And Atari's business situation right now also doesn't bode well. So enjoy it while you can since the online component is a large chunk of the game and when the servers get shut off that's it and you can only play single player.

Also, my favorite Dirt has been the original. That was the closest to a rally racer of the three. But if you want one with more variety, Dirt 3 is the way to go. It's everything Dirt 2 was but just with more of it. Grid's another fun arcadey racer from Codemasters. Had its share of issues but I played it to completion. An achievement was bugged on the 360 (Not sure about the PS3 but with the server turned off over there you can't go for trophy completion anyways) but the bigger problems were the heavy use of Mario Kart style rubber banding with the AI and severe physics issues with the open wheeler's and the LeMans prototypes.

And my favorite simcades of this generation haven't carried the Forza or Gran Turismo name but instead have been Codemaster's three HD Formula One releases to date. I'd suggest picking up F1 2011 if you at all enjoy motorsports. It's cheaper than F1 2012 will cost you and has a lot of subtle improvements over their first outing the year before with F1 2010 (And F1 2009 on the PSP/Wii the year prior was farmed out to Sumo Digital as was the Vita and 3DS versions of F1 2012 and are to be avoided if you ask me). And F1 2012 was mostly just a yearly update with a bit of polish.

Also if a Xbox 360 is in your entertainment center right now or you contemplate adding it down the road, be aware that games with no server support left from Codemasters like Grid (Which has a nice looking sequel slated for this year) are still fully online over there. The gamer hosts their own matches in those games on the 360 like the vast majority of non EA 360 software. And with the standard Xbox Live matchmaking functionality handling that side, there's nothing for Codemasters to shut off on you over there.

I don't know anyone that has OutRun Online Arcade...

[Leo_A]

I thought about mentioning Sega Rally Online Arcade, but I see it's now delisted.

It was essentially a hybrid of Sega Rally Revo and Sega Rally 3. Sega Rally 3 was the arcade version while Sega Rally Revo was the console release. So SROA was a way to get the arcade unique content to home since track layouts and I think the updated desert track were unique to the arcade.

It's not a pure arcade port though since some elements come from Revo (The car's I think are from Revo rather than those featured on the arcade cabinet). Glad I bought it when I did last summer since I enjoyed it.

If that and Outrun Online Arcade are any indication, people should buy Daytona USA if they have any interest in it before it's too late. Their license with the International Speedway Corporation for the Daytona USA trademark isn't going to run forever and when it expires, it goes just like those two games did when their automobile licenses expire.

I don't know anyone that has OutRun Online Arcade...

I'd help you out if I could but I bought it for the Xbox 360. I briefly asked around a few times hoping to trade some games for the PS3 version since I didn't want a version of Outrun to go unplayed by me. But I didn't have any luck and PSN points cards that could've allowed me to just purchase it with my UK account by importing one arrived too late to market.

If you don't already have it, Coast 2 Coast on the Xbox or Playstation 2 is the better deal anyways. A lot more tracks, better performance, and a lot more content in general. Only thing OOA had to offer was HD (At the expense of some significant frame rate drops and some other issues from what appeared to be a rush job), a few animations that had been absent in earlier ports, and now it's the only version of the Outrun 2 family with online leaderboards and multiplayer still going (On the 360 at least, I wouldn't be shocked if the servers have been pulled for the PS3 release... only matters anyways at this point for the leaderboards since multiplayer has been a ghost town for years).

What would you say are the best PS3 racers?

If classic arcade releases count, Sega has released a arcade emulation of Super Hang-On on PSN (Far superior to the Genesis version and one of the best 2D sprite scaling arcade racer's of all time). And the Data East classic Bump 'n' Jump is available as a compatible PSP Mini from G-Mode/G1M2 under the alternate and lesser known name of Burnin' Rubber.

Both are worthy downloads in my opinion.