BRGoF25 - An Introduction

Welcome to BRGoF25, a look at the Best Racing Games of the First 25 years of the 21st century. A love letter to the titles that defined the genre during this time of immense growth in the industry, transcended boundaries and broke the glass ceiling to become the very best that video games had to offer.

Inspired by Giant Bomb polling their users on what they say is their 10 best games of the 21st century, this series of articles will focus on the racing games that, in my opinion, rubs shoulders with the giants in the industry that make up what GB's users submitted themselves. These are racing games that you should find a way to play for yourself, regardless of your gaming preferences.

"If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

But first, we have to set some ground rules about what will make up the games on the BRGoF25 list. Here are some of the things I'm taking into account for what goes onto the list:

• It has to be released between January 1st, 2000 and December 31st, 2025.
• There can only be one game per franchise on the list.
• Similarly, there can only be one dedicated licensed title per license on the list.
• It has to be the best, both a great racing game and a great video game.

The one game per franchise/license rule comes from ScrewAttack using that rule for their Top 10 videos more than fifteen years ago. Stuttering Craig and Handsome Tom realized that on some of the lists it would be way too easy for one franchise to have a plurality of entries, leaving many more similarly worthy games from getting their due. Similarly, it'd be too easy for this list to have multiple Need For Speed, Burnout, and Gran Turismo titles and not much else, and I want this list to be more diverse than that.

And of course, it has to be a great video game. Transcendence is something I reference when talking about Ridge Racer Type 4 in my look at Andy Kelly's Fanzine for R4, and these games have to do the same thing in their own way. These games have to deliver the goods wire to wire and not leave anything for granted: they have to race good, drive good, go beyond being purely the act of driving in their own way through an enthralling and engaging single player that will have you coming back for more. And if that very basic act of driving and racing is all it's got, it has to be the pinnacle of that experience it's expressing.

The vibes have to be on point and the game must have full confidence in the style and cadence of racing it's trying to express and have you be fully bought in to that experience of racing it is performing. Looking good and sounding good will play a part sure, but graphically the vehicles you're driving are going from thousands of polygons and primitive textures to being mirror images to the reality they're trying to replicate currently with millions of polygons inside and out. It simply won't be as big of a deal and will be observed in the context of the time that the game was created, though some games on the list still look fantastic twenty plus years since their initial release.

Before going into the list proper, first will be the Honorable Mentions: a quick look at a few games that would have made the list, if not for that one game per franchise rule. They are great racing games that are also great video games you should play, but still have to deal with the fact that there was something better for one reason or another within it's franchise. There are many games I could mention in this regard, but it will only be a few before getting into the nitty-gritty; and a look at the game built on the best, worst vibes a racing game will ever have.