Looking for a fun, easy driving game

poee

poee

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
257
My roommate has been playing GTA:SA for the longest time, just to drive around mainly, and listen to his MP3s in-game through his spendy headphones. Lately though, his mouse pointer doesn't move in the game, rendering it unplayable. Since I'm the resident tech support guy (?!), I tried in vain to make it work -- even after a new mouse and various re-installations, etc., and I'm sick of dealing with it. If he's not playing a game, then he's using up most of the bandwidth on our connection... so, I need to find him a replacement game. :rolleyes: Sorry for all the exposition.

Anyway, I'm looking for a game that has cars (and bikes, if possible) and pleasant scenery that you can just drive around and maybe do some jumps, not necessarily a difficult racing game, and certainly not a hardcore sim. Something that, like GTA:SA, you can easily drive with a keyboard and listen to your own music tracks in-game. I know nothing about these kinds of games so I was hoping someone here may be up on PC driving titles. Thanks for any advice!
 
zombie driver is a cool game, but you can't really play it as an open free roam game (that might have changed though). Each level is a mission that you have to complete in "x" amount of time

OP, any of the GTA games sound like they'd be what he's looking for. The Godfather, Scarface, True Crime and Saintsrow are all similar.

Also, he might want to check out Test Drive Unlimited. You have an entire island (in hawaii) to drive around and do whatever the hell you want. If driving is your thing, you can do that... but you can also race other people if you play online, that are also driving around the island. As you win races, you win money so you can buy better houses/garages and cars.

it's a pretty neat twist on the racing genre IMO
 
Thanks for all the info, this is great. Burnout Paradise and TDU seem to be the ticket.

"The Godfather, Scarface, True Crime and Saintsrow"

Which is the best of the 'GTA-likes'?
 
poee said:
Thanks for all the info, this is great. Burnout Paradise and TDU seem to be the ticket.

"The Godfather, Scarface, True Crime and Saintsrow"

Which is the best of the 'GTA-likes'?
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probably saints row althought I've heard good things about the godfather
 
I'll have to advice caution on TDU. It runs great and it seems like it's even made for the G25. But when i upgraded from an e7200 to an i5-750. The number of AI glitches skyrocketed!
 
i was disappointed with the notchy hills/rises in test drive. totally ruined the handling of the game for me. my car shouldnt hop just because im going over a hill around a corner...

my vote goes to burnout
 
i personally logged a lot more hours in test drive than in burnout. there was nothing more relaxing than coming home from work, firing up my f430, tuning to my radio station and going for a cruise around Hawaii. also if ur not going to be playing online, there is a simple fix for the ai cars so they arent going wacky around u
 
@AlmostEvil
Yes Please!!! I can't find a fix on google! Get the AI fixed and this game'll be perfect!:(

It's a driving sim, not a racing sim. This game showed the difference.:cool:
 
Carmageddon 2 and Carmageddon TDR 2000 are always fun. Also try GRID.
 
He went with Burnout Paradise and he likes the driving even better than GTA, only complains that it doesn't let him listen to his own music in-game. Does Test Drive Unlimited allow you to listen to custom playlists in the game? Are there any driving games other than GTA that bring your custom tracks into the game's radio station paradigm, with DJ's and fake ads, or is that a R* exclusive?
 
poee said:
Does Test Drive Unlimited allow you to listen to custom playlists in the game?
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Yes. Initially, there are four radio stations. But if you make a radio subdirectory in your profiles directory (It's in your my documents folder), you can add four more.

Each custom folder is its own radio station and whatever mp3 you put in it gets played.:)

Mine has initial D tracks ^_______^
 
Can't he just alt+tab and use foobar or winamp or something like that?
 
Test Drive unlimited is 50% off at the atari store now too using 'atari50'. Digital DL. not bad for 10 bucks.
 
Think the DLC content pack for TDU is also about $10. The game is simple pretty much but for some reason it's fun and relaxing for me... :)
 
TDU is fine as long as you stay on the road...I like the fact that you can deviate from the beaten path and drive just about anywhere, but the physics when trying to jump your car absolutely suck. I tried ramping some hills near the coast and barely got any air at all...I know that's not what the game is about but it definitely takes some immersion and fun out of things.

Just Cause 2 got that part very, very right. :cool:
 
Test Drive Unlimited 2's coming soon. Hope they fix the AI bugs!

BTW, if you guys are running at +100fps you might end up like me with the cars swerving and popping up all over the place. It didn't happen on my older system, and the glitches disappeared when i tried recording with fraps (both kept the frame rate at under 60fps).

And yes, i've already tried setting the v-sync manually on the ATI CCC, i'm still running at 100fps.
 
imyourzero said:
but the physics when trying to jump your car absolutely suck. I tried ramping some hills near the coast and barely got any air at all...I know that's not what the game is about but it definitely takes some immersion and fun out of things.
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if u want to jump, turn hardcore mode on. u just fly :D

Sly said:
Test Drive Unlimited 2's coming soon. Hope they fix the AI bugs!
Click to expand...

is there a release date?
 
test drive is as close to what you're looking for as you can get. That is unless your roommate was carjacking and shooting cops in between rides. :)
 
Driv3r.

TDU.

Burnout.

GRID.

DiRT2.

Motorcross Madness (think this is console only)

???
 
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