I should have known!!!
I just bought Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, only to remember the harsh realitly that I really despise racing games.
You know that feeling?

It's not that I don't like playing them, they are simply too hard for me.
If I have to try a track/level more than 3 times to win, I get frustrated. Of course, normally I keep playing until I achieve the Gold Medal, but after the 9299812 try it's not because of fun but because of frustration. It feels like luck, not competence when I win such races.

I even cheated in GRID several times to beat the unfairly faster competetion. There was a nice option to remove one file from the data folder thus immobilizing the other cars. Boy, that was fun...

So the question is:
Is there any good looking, easy and fun racing game for me out there?

Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box. Unfortunately, it's got DRM (Origin), but on the plus side, it's not Steam.

Actually, I think the retail box version has Securom-online, so pick your DRM.

I thought there will be talk about race sims. Thought wrong.

If that games are hard for you perhaps try TrackMania?

By the way I can't help it... on what difficulty did you play?

I never considered NFS sims. Granted I've never played one beyond the 1st Most Wanted but even that was very generous with the physics. No one asked but since we're on the subject, the 1st High Stakes is hands down the best NFS EVER!!!!!

I think you're probably not looking for a racing sim at all, but for an easy arcade racer.

I found the recently released "Truck Racer" very easy, but I wouldn't really recommend it for its current price. It's not a bad game, but very bare-bones - thoroughly average in most respects. Also, truck racing might not be exactly the subgenre you're after ...

It's hard to recommend a racing game where you can win races reliably in three attempts max ... this means that you expect to be able to win races without even studying the track layout. There's nothing wrong with that approach per se, it's just very unlikely for game designers to cater to it.

You may want to have a look at "Fuel". The races are extremely varied (with regard to vehicles, type of race, and difficulty), and there are tons of them. You'll have a lot of choice and will probably find a lot of races that can be won on the first attempt, just be prepared that there are also harder races in between. You are free to choose your races and there's also free roaming in a huge consistent open world, if you enjoy exploration.

Definitely _don't_ try TrackMania. I love that game, but if you aren't prepared to try a track 50 times or more until you hit all the turns and stunts perfectly, then it can be massively frustrating. Personally I really enjoy the feeling of finally beating the gold medal on a track after five hours of trying, but it might not be everybody's cup of tea ... ;)

I used to play a little racing game, it was RC carts or something like that, very simple (and old) not sure the exact name.

Or Skunny-Kart, but I preferred Wacky Wheels.

may I suggest Slipstream 5000? granted it's an arcadey airplane race game but if someone pulls ahead of you, shoot 'em

As far as I'm concerned, a split screen Mario Kart game is what you're looking for.

You might like some of the earlier Need For Speed games - the original series / "first generation" might be a bit dated graphically (depends what you consider "good looking"). High Stakes / Road Challenge was probably my favourite out of them - it has a career mode, pursuits and car damage.

Underground 2 and Most Wanted (2005) were my favourites out of the "second generation" NFS games. Nice customisation options, crazy chases (in Most Wanted), pretty easy to play.

I haven't actually played any of the newer / "third generation" Need For Speed games.

Race Driver GRID is pretty good, found it to be a bit trickier to play than the NFS games but still quite forgiving. The Le Mans 24-hour (24-minute in-game) races take a bit of effort.

(all the PC racing games I've played were played using a keyboard...)

While a different game Judas' comment does remind me that the best Track & Field sim on GOG is Flatout.

I remember having a lot of fun on my PS1 with GrandTourismo2 at least until I wanted to achieve the last license which was such a pain in the ass that I left the game and never touched it again.

Well I thought, maybe I'm wrong with that, but that GrandTourismo thing was a Racing Sim, hence the name in the topic title.

I love racing games when I can play them with barely no effort, almost casually.

NFS Hot Pursuit did frustrate me various times during play, I even quit playing for a long time once, before I finally came back and finished it.

Grid I enjoyed more, even though it has an AI that frequently annoys the heck out of me.

Another thing that usually pisses me off is how long racing game campaigns tend to be. They frequently are HUGE with a LOT of repeating races and circuits.


Carmageddon 1 and 2, on the other side, seemed to get WAY easier now that I'm 29, instead of 14.