Wished you had a massive garage so you could show off your collection and brag to your friends about what you’ve got that they don’t?
You’re not Jay Leno?
Well here’s three cheaper ways to do just that with some revhead worthy collecting games where hoarding is easy and encouraged..
Gran Turismo 2: ([easyazon_link identifier=”B00005B8LM” locale=”US” tag=”theworsdjever-20″]Playstation[/easyazon_link]) – Aka the sleep thief and developer of an unhealthy obsession with modifying everything.
While the graphics weren’t anywhere near today’s crystal clear wow look at the glint in the sunlight standards, it was the sheer scope of customization available across a whole range of motors that made this essential owning for anyone who owned a Playstation back in the day. While there were plenty of new cars to splash your winning cash on, it was the second hand market that held a tonne of appeal – with things such as the Mitsubishi Cyborg (aka the Mirage), the not appearing every day hand built Subaru 22B WRX, the occasional Honda NSX and even the humble Mazda MPV being able to be purchased, modified beyond belief and then raced accordingly.
Brakes, rims, ecus, fuel and ignition systems, weight reduction, aero – while these things seem pretty common in games today it was innovative and ground breaking when GT2 was released and spawned a lot of teenagers talking about the difference between forced induction and natural aspiration…
Okay so the license system was a bit tricky for new players and there were a few brands not represented in the big in game market (meaning if you lusted over anything Ferrari red you were going to be disapointed) but as games went back in 1999 it was the bees bits and simply couldn’t be beaten for sheer ‘Just one more race…wait, it’s 3am already?’ playability.
Add to that the amount of Nissan Skyline’s the game seemed to enjoy rewarding you with (The 400R, the Mines edition etc) and the chance to drive the terrifyingly power Pikes Peak Suzuki Escudo as well as other exotics, it really ate up all your spare time, your social life and made you wonder how your own ride in reality would go with a race spec turbo and insane levels of camber..
Forza Horizons 2 (Xbox 360, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00KSR396C” locale=”US” tag=”theworsdjever-20″]Xbox One[/easyazon_link]) – Roam the countryside and unlock cars you’ll never race.
What’s better than spending huge wads of cash on your latest automotive acquisition and then testing out your reflexes against a bunch of drivers in the same position? Taking your pimped out riced out super worked hi speed machine and racing it all over the country looking for cash, trees to drift around and hidden gems locked away for decades in barns ready to be restored. The world is open and begging to to raced all over.
It’s not a case of ‘I must use this particular car for this race’ more so ‘What do I want to drive in this race’ and the game will fill the rest of the starting grid with relevant competition. And once again the Forza series have really opened up their automotive friends list given you the chance to not only own a huge universe of cars but completely work them over beyond belief. Classics like the Datsun 510 and the Fairlady 240Z, exotics like the Aerial Atom 500 V8 and , classics like the Lancia Stratos and Bugatti EB110 Super Sport and amazingly even things like a Combi Van and a Willys Jeep.
Yes just let that sink in for a second – a classic Willys Jeep that not only can you find and restore, you can also paint bright red, stick huge Buddy Club wheels on and attempt to modify beyond belief if you’re that way inclined. (Amazingly spending thousands on the performance side of the Willys Jeep it doesn’t give you much bang for your buck at all – still it’s hilarious to drive past people on the road driving Ferrari’s)
Need for Speed 3 – Hot Pursuit ([easyazon_link identifier=”B00001NTSG” locale=”US” tag=”theworsdjever-20″]PC[/easyazon_link]): I don’t see the smoke but you’re headed for the fire.
With a list of fairly unobtainable cars in real life (like the Italdesign Schgeira and El Nino for example) and no purchase system nor the ability to modify anything, exactly why does this make this list? For the overwhelming amount of work modders have put into the NFS series like this one to allow you to download and install pretty much any car you can think of. Add that to the created editors that allow you to tweak your favorite car even further and suddenly your options are unlimited.
Someone even managed to get a Storm Trooper Land Speeder in there from Star Wars. It was a pretty epic day in pc gaming when that happened!
(In this link alone there’s a mind boggling 1743 cars you can plug into it!)
The community car editor was a lot of fun too as you could take the stats of one car and paste them into another. Which meant my home spun creation of a 70’s Dodge with a Mitsubishi Evo VII block and handling turned out to be a dynamite machine and keep going and going and going on straights.. (probably the stupidly long gearing I included through the editor..)
So if you have the hankering to be able to drive a 1989 Ford Laser in some sort of video game (and we’re not sure why but hey), now you can by creating it in NFS3 and going from there. Good luck trying to win many races with it’s base stats though…
So whats your car collecting game of choice?