25 Racing Games for the C64 - From worst to best

[@PatrickvonMassow]

"Oh yes!" about Stunt Car Racer - clearly my favorite, as well!

[@IsaacKuo]

What a clever way to get Hard Drivin' into a C64 driving game list!

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

Great that someone has finally noticed it :D So true.

[@grzegorz__]

One title is missing :) Revs came out on C64 too, and actually it was a very good one (and probably the first) racing sim(ulator).

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

I tried to add Revs to the video but I had huge problems to find out how to control the car properly. After a long time of trying and reading manual I was able to play it, but with reversed cursorkeys and also I sucked at it, so I skipped it :D But yes, It seems to be a very good racing game.

[@pigpenpete]

I was spared the pain of hard drvin' at the time because as an 8 year old I was terrible at the arcade version! If I had been any good at it I probably would've got the home port and been even more disappointed than I was with chase hq...

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

The controls of Hard Drivin on C64 and ST are really terrible and frustrating.For me almost unplayable. However, the intro is excellent :D About Chase HQ, it´s from all worse games the best one. It looks not great but at least it is somehow playable and you can see the cars in front of you before it´s too late.

[@robertmitchell5069]

I would have had speed king in there, good budget racer

[@StRoRo]

No matter how bad people call Chase HQ (2:09) I loved playing it when I was younger. 10 seconds left on the clock? No problem I still have 'til a week next Tuesday to catch up, it was that slow.

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

Chase HQ looks not great, but it is playable and the very first game in the list that is not just bad at all.

[@Pinov_Vox_VgVox]

Nice games!❤️

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

Thank you, great to hear you liked it!

[@ivanski28]

Speccy owner back in the day, I played C64 at other kids' houses. Given the C64's superior graphics hardware, I'm surprised how many stinkers you have here and i seemed to have had discerning friends cause they only had the good driving games on their 64s. This version of outrun is one of my faves and I prefer the music on it even to the arcade.

[@s.ferres4595]

Out run and wec le mans over Lotus and Monaco GP left me perplexed but are personal tastes after all. However, I share the podium

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

The rating difference between this games is often very very small. Lotus got a small bonus because of the music, graphics, speed and popularity, but in fact it is almost unplayable because of the low visibility. Out run does not look great but is all in all playable and also got a bonus for the fantastic music. Wec le mans was kinda boring, but was playable, fast enough and had fair controls. Btw. I have not only used my own opinion for the ranking, but also ratings from old german computer magazines like C64, Powerplay and ASM (if available).

[@kangarht]

chase hq2, outrun europe, and turbo outrun are all the same "road engine"

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Driving games are always a challenge on the C64, but a few did a decent job. The problem is that the joystick is about the worst control mechanism there can be for driving a car, especially one that is not analog. And the fact that very few people had paddle controllers (which would have been the ideal control for these games) didn't help. Then add the fact that the particular hardware specs of the 64 didn't lend themselves well to this type of game and it explains why the vast majority of these types of games are a disappointment. Some of these are playable with the CMD SuperCPU plugged into the C64, which runs 20 times faster than the stock 6510, but most games either crash or are unplayable because they run TOO fast, making _YOU_ crash!

[@sulrich70]

Pit stop 2. The best.

[@radius75_]

Where is Revs and Crazy Cars 3?🤔

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

I was thinking about to extend the list to 30 and add both games and a few more (days of thunder, 4x4 offroad) but then I decided to skip them and stick to 25 games. Revs looks indeed pretty good. I tried to record a video of it, but after 40minutes I gave up. The controls are ... very unusual. And Crazy Cars 3 was not that great in my opinion and also the screen was flickering in Vice.

[@radius75_]

@@worldofretrogaming2248 I understand that:) BTW there is a CC3 (arcade from tape) .crt "flicker free" crack version from EXCESS

[@ozzyyzzoful]

i'm the developer of cc3 and the flickering was due to interlaced mode to get 320x200 resolution instead of 160x200 :) the game has been always badly rated bcoz of a rushed development and no testing at all (Thx bastards @Titus) ^^ but technically speaking it's good for a c64 :) keep up the good work.

[@worldofretrogaming2248]

@@ozzyyzzoful Sorry to hear that. Cannot say much about the c64 version because of this flickering, but the Atari ST Version was very good!

[@jasonwilletts559]

Some absolute stinkers in there, Crazy Cars and Cisco Heat are prime examples of 💩

[@victorvance2573]

Although i must say i enjoyed Cisco Heat on Amiga and DOS.

[@RussMichaels]

some of those look more like spectrum games