Six classic car games of the ’90s

The decade was the age of the console wars – the battle for attention between Nintendo and Sega before a new, surprise player entered: Sony.

Known as the ‘fifth generation’, this was the era when consoles started to become common, almost essential, features in our homes. Progress is gonna progress, of course; the advancements of the previous decades did not slow in the ’90s. So let’s take a look at six notable games, some you’ll remember fondly and one you won’t – the one that assumes the mantle of weirdest game of the decade, and maybe the weirdest ever.

Twenty-six years on and everyone still loves Mario Kart. Created by Shigeru Miyamoto and directed by Tadashi Sugiyama and Hideki Konno, the original release, Super Mario Kart, was created because the makers wanted to display two players on the game screen simultaneously. However, due to the limitations in hardware, to achieve this they needed to keep track designs and other features very basic – inadvertently creating a lot of the game’s characteristic charm. Mario wasn’t in the kart from the beginning, either – when developers were observing how the overtaking driver looked from the opponent’s screen, they decided to try Mario. He looked great. Wahoo!

If you ever went to an arcade, cinema or bowling alley in the ’90s or later, you’d find these two stalwarts. In fact, so popular and loved are both these machines that you’ll still find them around the place. Both games were made by Sega – Daytona USA went on to become one of the highest grossing arcade games ever, thanks to its awesome texture-mapped graphics, and Sega Rally complemented its offsider perfectly by offering an alternative to racing grippy tarmac: getting sideways on dirt. If only we had a dollar for every dollar slid through the coin slot of these machines in the ’90s. We’d be loaded.

It was 1986 when Maverick high-fived and whooped, ‘I feel the need, the need for speed,’ in the classic American flick Top Gun. But eight years later, in 1994, kids started saying it in a different context – at the control of a sports car in their lounge rooms. The Need for Speed propelled a trend that Gran Turismo perfected in 1998: realistic gameplay and ‘car nut’ levels of attention to detail. And as with Gran Turismo after it, Need for Speed was followed by sequel after sequel. The game also featured a totally bangin’ techno soundtrack to pump up the player as they raced. (If you ever played Need for Speed, you’ll remember the tunes.) The Need for Speed was a hit, even if it often overwhelmed the processing power of the consoles of the day and took forever to load.

Imagine sitting at the wheel of a bus meandering slowly through a featureless landscape for eight dreary hours on a desert highway from Tucson, Arizona, to Las Vegas, Nevada. Unless you’re a zen guru, this might sound like torture – but in 1995, famed illusionists-cum-entertainers Penn and Teller came up with Desert Bus: a computer game that turns this bleak concept into digital reality. Though the game never made it to a commercial release, its mere existence makes it worthy of inclusion. The gameplay wasn’t easy, for many reasons: the bus would list to the right or left at random; the game couldn’t be paused; and the only exciting moment was an occasional rock to dodge. What do you get for spending eight real-life hours at the controls of a bus, keeping everything on the straight and narrow? One measly point. Fool you once. After which you get to take on the return leg for a shot at another. Fool you twice.

For as long as there have been car games – we’re talking way back to the [golden age, the ’70s](link to article?) – there’s been some kind of Destruction Derby. Hugely popular, this game, released in 1995 and featured on different consoles, was a simulator of the mad real-life sport. As your poor car’s damage accumulates with the carnage it endures, it becomes only harder to control. Sounds stressful, right? This sends you on a destructive spiral – panels beaten in, smoke pouring from the bonnet, and a steering wheel with a mind of its own – and hope is your only passenger.

If computer games are all about fantasy, open-world action-adventure game Grand Theft Auto is one that’s best left in the gaming world – unless you think prison is a liveable address. Arriving to PC in 1997 and then jumping to Sony PlayStation the following year, GTA was celebrated because the player can do whatever the heck they want – as long as they complete missions that include causing carnage in the city and stealing. Despite some calling the graphics shoddy and the design careless, Grand Theft Auto is a cult classic.

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