Top Racing Games Of 2014

Ever wanted to find out what it is like to get into the racing experience but don't know how to experience the same 200 miles per hour feeling with popular NASCAR drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, or even the road-racing warriors like Shane Van Gisbergen, Will Power, or Sebastian Bourdais that tear up the road-courses every season. For some that rather race on two-wheels, Moto GP has come out with MotoGP 13' and with MotoGP 14' on the way in June 2014 that offer anyone to experience the same twists-and-turns that Nicky Hayden, Colin Edwards, and Valentino Rossi have fun on their Ducati and Honda super-bikes. Many individuals use racing games as an alternative to experience the ways to learn how to create setups, master the racing line, and even in-line with having fun as the most important way for entertainment. Even if there is no way you can make it to the big leagues of racing, the racing video games like NASCAR 14', Forza Motorsports, and MotoGP 13' are now out on the Playstation 3, XBOX 360, and incoming with the Playstation 4 and XBOX One that are on the way with bringing the experience to you. Also, many have experimented with iRacing which is the only racing simulator now on the PC.

NASCAR may be one of the most popular sports in the United States, but is also one of the most influential sports for young kids that look up to their favorite stars as an inspiration. To start off with the racing game topic, NASCAR '14 is a hit for many individuals that love to watch the NASCAR Sprint Cup guys race around the ovals and 2 road courses. This game is put out by Eutechnyx who replaced EA Sports as developer back in 2011 when they released NASCAR: Inside Line. While EA Sports created the NASCAR games that featured a wide variety of racing for the Whelen Modified Series, Camping World Truck Series, Nationwide Series, and Sprint Cup series. Eutechnyx only decided to feature the Sprint Cup Series with the chase, season, and career modes. The game gives anyone the chance to create their own Chevy, Toyota, and Ford car with custom logos and as well as a way to race online with other gamers across the world. While the downfall for NASCAR '14 includes the change of developer and inconsistent testing of the game, this newest NASCAR game can be great graphics-wise. The only thing is that most of the lag and how fast the game came out should be noted that NASCAR 14' somewhat meets the satisfactory for some and can be made for those that have expert experience with NASCAR games.

On the other end of the stick and on another topic of racing, many individuals have looked at Forza Motorsports 5 for the XBOX One as the #1 console game that makes racing more unique with the fact that everyone does not race alone with computers. The racing is more competitive with ways of completing challenges in different cars like Ferrari's, Aston Martin's, Lamborghini's, and thousands of other sports cars and classics that makes the racing more real than ever. The online multi-player does require an XBOX Live Gold membership and makes racing fair depending on your racing experience and rating. This game is very similar to Gran Turismo in line of any cars that you can use to build up your garage. The graphics are made up of 1080 pixels that make up for high-definition viewing. Forza Motorsports 5 develops a career setting for your different classes of cars and features top-notch detail that makes up for the background like the race-tracks, crowd, changing skies, and shiny reflections that come off the cars. A perfect game and the most talked about game of the year from people like me and others.

I know what you might be thinking right now with considering that console racing games are the only thing being talked about as the top or the best of this year in 2014. This is true; but, their is one particular game in general, and if you want to call it a game or a simulator that is the only racing series game and simulator that features many classes of racing from entry level racing like Legends Cars and Street Stocks to Daytona Prototypes and Formula One cars that make up for the only simulator featured online for the PC.

This simulator racing game is called iRacing, which is a world-wide racing simulator that is a learning simulator from many types of racing experience whether the average racer is a novice or 20 year veteran in the racing world. iRacing uses 3 different servers that make up for the network of racing and has a participation system for getting paid to race for 10 weeks in a wide variety of classes. The payout is small, $12 to be exact for participation. There are fixed and open setup classes for many different series and provides a way to learn race-car setups and the racing line for the different race-tracks, just like the Pros. Every racer is classified by class licenses, iRating, and Safety Rating that make up for the different splits that you wind up in.

From a personal note, I ran a full year with iRacing and learned a lot with racing on the ovals and some of the road-courses. I ran mostly the entry-level classes since I wanted to keep my position in the real-world of racing the same with SIM racing and learn everything I need to know before moving up. The classes of racing I raced in included: Legends cars (oval and road course), street stock, late models, national impala (K&N Series), Mazda MX5, and spec racer-Ford. I did well each season and capped off 2013 with over a hundred wins and many runner-up finishes that got me to five divisional championships. I even did well in the Peak Stock Car Dream Challenge that iRacing and Peak hosted this most recent season, even though I didn't win a free ride with Michael Waltrip Racing and their driver development program.

iRacing may have more opportunities than the console games since it is more understanding and more trustworthy by other 50,000 that use this game as fun entertainment and a learning curve for some that work on hand-eye coordination and how well they respond to wrecks. Even this simulator holds contests with sponsors that anyone can participate and also provide anyone to start up leagues and make hosted sessions for those they rather race privately than out on the public sessions iRacing provides.

However, while the benefits speak for themselves when it comes to a place like iRacing, there are a few drawbacks that really turned me off into leaving after this season. These drawbacks includes too many changes that are made to the servers and with how the cars should be setup. iRacing has had a bad habit for making the racing unique on many occasions in turn that make the cars drive like the real deal as well as making the setups convenient with the real-world; but, iRacing changes from real-live racing with how the chassis geometry should be set to made-up sets that are inconsistent and do not make sense to anyone--even to the experts. The upgrades that happen with iRacing after every season can affect your computer performance in a case that you maybe cannot use the simulator like you used to. Not everyone's desktop or laptop computer can be compatible with running on iRacing, since iRacing make accusations that you can race with any type of computer. Another drawback is that iRacing's points standing system is confusing and not used with real-world racing. The points system used by iRacing is called "the drop system", which means every racer runs a maximum number of races before your lowest points become drop-points. If you score 99 points in one race and 101 in another race, then you would earn 2 extra points to your points total.

Anyone can have fun and still learn with this type of game; but, be aware that this is not a free method like with what you can play online on your PS3 or XBOX 360 on some occasions. Their is a $5 start-up membership for starting with this software program and later $12 every month; but, is really cheap for anyone to race.

Racing with four-wheels is not the only type of racing around in the real world and in the line of racing-games, you can race bicycles and motocross bikes on the dirt tracks; but, you can talk more high-speed racing with MotoGP that is similar to the World Superbike series in a way that they travel across the world to places like Italy, Argentina, North America, France, Japan, and more countries that host these 180 to 190 miles per hour machines.

MotoGP has come out with yearly games just like a similar setup to the NASCAR games except all the MotoGP games, including MotoGP '13 that are prepared the right way with Milestone games as the developer behind the game. The big rider names that I mentioned earlier like--Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden, and Colin Edwards are a part of the game as well as with the different moto classes such as Moto 2 and Moto 3. The riders can be customized with different suits along with custom bikes that you can use to race online. There are 20 plus tracks in the game along with changing weather conditions. The best part is that the bike handling and feel is the same with the physics compared to the real deal. In your very own paddock, their are setup tips that come down from your pit crew that help you get a better competitive edge. As always, you can upgrade your team with newer equipment since you got to start somewhere.

It is best to say that this game has a lot of the realism with Forza Motorsport as the graphics are top-notch on top of experiencing a video game that is similar to real-life racing. So, If you don't have the funding to start a superbike team, then you can still obtain the same experience as in real-life with MotoGP '13. This is my #2 favorite racing game of all time and is considered recommended to anyone.