Racing Games – Simulator or Arcade?

Whether an individual prefers simulators or arcade racing games is primarily determined by what they want to achieve, where their primary interests lie, and on the experience and skillset of the driver. Racing aficionados fall into one of two factions – those that drive and race for fun and those that have more fun tweaking the vehicles and experiencing realism.

Arcade Style Racing

Arcade racing games are great for people that just want to drive and have fun. They not necessarily interested in unlocking new vehicles, the dynamics of each car, or the physics associated with building a super speed machine. They just like to drive and if they happen to unlock a new car in an arcade style racing game, they’ll probably give it a try but it won’t be their primary objective in the game.

Arcade racing games have little to no learning curve in terms of vehicles or tracks. It’s easy to just hop in a car and floor it. The excitement level is firmly attached to making it through the course without crashing or doing so in record time. Sometimes the element of fun is largely derived from the fantastical scenery or futuristic cities and lack real-world variables.

Simulator Style Racing

The simulator type racing games are most popular with players that have experience in the genre. They want something they can customize and they want succeed based on their own merit as drivers.

A simulator emulates real-world conditions and responses based on the build of the car and the type of track. It can take even a driver experienced with simulators a year or more to achieve their full potential. Simulators have an extremely high learning curve.

Simulators trend toward realism on the road, not gameplay, and exceptional simulators are even used by professional drivers as practice sessions. Gamers will have the real-world experience of traction control and manual shifting to a cockpit camera. Cars are far more difficult to control and it requires the mental acuity to execute split second decisions.

Every aspect of the car is a high-level calculation for parameters that include speed, wind drag, weight distribution, suspension, and tire grip. The tracks are equally complex in a simulator. They have the ability to recreate every bump and nuance of the real track upon which the gamer is racing.

Simcades

It should be noted that some racing games are being dubbed simcade. They try to create a balance between realism and fun rather than emphasizing one over the other. The term simcade is a matter of hot debate among racing game enthusiasts since the term is somewhat open to subjective conclusions. For the subset of the racing genre that want’s a storyline to back up their adventure – modern racing games currently available aren’t supporting that desire.