The Joys of Arcade Racers

     Greetings to the interwebs its the One-Eyed Nerd here again, and spring is now upon us. Time to get outside, hangout with friends and the family, hit a few thrift stores that hopeful are not overpricing their stuff, and hit a arcade and sit down for a friendly competition at the classics. It is funny to look back growing up in the 2000s on that I got to experience things that I don't think will ever happen again. Set before the second mainstream internet blowup and the early rise of the high definition TVs there still was a use for analog and that included hangout spots even the at that time the decaying arcade scene

 

     Now during this time I cut my teeth on machines that now looking back on, was some of the top of their time of gameplay, soundtracks, and the shear power behind some of them. My most earliest memory that I can think of with playing a arcade machine is NASCAR Arcade that was developed by Sega in the 2000s when EA owned the NASCAR licenses. Now granted I don't remember if it was good or not and I have never seen one in person ever since. Some more I remember was mobile ports back in the 2010s of Namco making ridge racer for the phones and Sega porting a faithful port of Crazy Taxi.

    Now yes we are talking about mobile games here that where free with ads and DLC to make extra money, but at its core they are great games. Go and look at the 100 best arcade racing games and you see the same developers behind them, teams made up of some of the greatest coders, musicians, and artists that make the teams and to top it off most of the ideas was them getting creative and not rehashing what has already been done. From Hydro Thunder with boats with rocket engines on the back of them and raceways that make no sense, Project Gotham Racing with real city's that where scanned in real life and a in game radio that feels real as you race around and a gameplay loop that prioritizes driving with style and leading then just having the best race line, Burnout incorporating reckless driving and being a total lunatic on the road to gain boost and take out your opponents and a literal mode called road rage, yes that is what you think it is, and Daytona USA the Jap's take on a redneck classic. The rabbit hole just keeps on giving and there are years and years of games as well as ones that are being made to this day. Now there is no way to say everything I want to in one post, it will take going to have each game having their own post. So I will end it here then, as my final word is that the level of creativity and skill to have to make a game that has to be easy for people to play and hard but rewarding to master is impressive, and on top of that a long lasting legacy that has formed. Here is to the classics and the newcomers. This is the One-Eyed Nerd saying good night and signing off.