I really liked Midnight Club back on the PS2. Would be cool to find similar for the Deck.
Any racing games that the community finds good on the Deck? Is it arcadey or realistic in the mechanics?
Forza motosport 4 work nice but is hard on the battery maybe 2 hours
Motortown has by far the most realistic and fun driving mechanics of any game that will run on the deck besides beamng, and the fun thing about Motortown is all the different jobs like taxi, trucking, pizza delivery and many others. It has racetracks and a custom racemaker but it isn’t strictly a racing game though I almost exclusively play it as such (timed taxi rides). I basically play Motortown like Midnight Club: Please Help My Taxi Driver Has A Deathwish -edition
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/
Offroad Mania is a rockcrawling quasi-racer. It has superb handling and softbody tire physics. Of note is the infinite obstacle course mode.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222040/Offroad_Mania/
Don’t sleep on the open source (with splitscreen) Stunt Rally 3, it is on the Discover app store in desktop mode. Don’t pass over the game just cus it at times has a silly theme, the tire grip mechanics are great and highspeed gravel driving feels great. In particular the rewind button is very nicely integrated too.
https://github.com/stuntrally/stuntrally3
There is also the venerable open source physics vehicle sandbox Rigs of Rods . Yeah it is old but it is still in development and the aged graphics = lots of battery life
If you want just a damn good rally game that does what it says on the tin and feels good mechanically check out Rush Rally 3.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2020860/Rush_Rally_3
If you want more combat driving than racing checkout:
Endgame Road To Salvation
it has splitscreen, and it is awesome! The most apocalyptic caravan simulator you can imagine
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264920/Endgame_Road_To_Salvation/
Chaos On Wheels
splitscreen, this one is a really good car combat game like twisted metal or vigilante 8. It isn’t really a racer I suppose.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623120/Chaos_on_Wheels/
Ashes Of The Union
roguelite monster fighting car combat game
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3091390/Ashes_of_the_Union/#app_reviews_hash
If you want to tool around (splitscreen) in arcadey cars in a family friendly humans fall flat crossed with gta game checkout Wobbly Life
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211020/Wobbly_Life
The all time best racing game on the deck is most certainly Bunny Hill however (of course it is splitscreen!).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1424350/Bunny_Hill/
One final odd suggestion, you can definitely fly drones in a drone simulator with onboard steam deck controls I don’t care what quadcopter people say. Liftoff is a blast, has a racing community and the freestyle maps are a joy to swoop around.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/410340/Liftoff_FPV_Drone_Racing
Saving this for Spring Sale picks!
I’ve got quite a lot of racing games - though I tend to only use the Steam Deck for the 3rd person arcade-like fun ones. I prefer realistic sims on a wheel & pedals setup.
Anyway, there’s probably some repeats on here, but these are all ones I have played on Steam Deck and felt worked well.
- RXC - Rally Cross Challenge (top down 3d Rally cross, arcadey but with semi-realistic handling)
- Horizon Chase Turbo (90s style rear-view arcade racer. Think “Outrun” or “Lotus Elite Turbo Challenge” etc)
- Art of Rally (already mentioned)
- Wreckfest (already mentioned)
- Descenders (downhill BMX bike racing)
- Rush Rally 3 (rear view 3d semi-realistic arcadey rally)
- Rush Rally Origins (3d top down semi-realistic arcadey rally)
This is my go to racer, the handling leans realistic but the damage model is very gamey in just the right way. It’s a ton of fun dragging across the finish line in a car that’s missing a wheel and most of its crumple zone.
Bought this on a deep sale last summer and love it on the deck. I don’t tend to play racing games much but the crazy tracks and destruction physics looked way too fun and I’ve played it a ton.
This was the one I came to recommend as well.
Anyone played Trail Out and compared the two on the deck?
NFS Most Wanted, the original, is fantastic, though it requires manual installation as it’s not on Steam.
Sadly the redux modpack version is just a bit too heavy as it includes a bunch of shaders and stuff you can’t disable. It runs, but you get maybe two hours. Vanilla barely taxes the deck.
I’ve been playing nfsmw on the ps2 emulator. Runs great
Trackmania is free to play*, but requires a ubisoft account. Arcade time trial.
Campaign last 3 months. First 10 maps are free. Whole capaign is behind a pay wall.
Fun little arcade/cart racer, leans heavy on drift mechanics if you are into that.
The drift mechanic reminds me a lot of Mario Kart drifting and maybe a bit of Trackmania. It’s really important to master to go fast, fun and challenging.
Circuit Superstars runs beautifully on the deck. Do not be fooled by its top down point of view, it actually leans towards simulation rather than arcade (aka “simcade”).
On the other side of that coin, BlazeRush is full on arcade mayhem. It is also top down PoV, which I find lends itself very well to portable gaming.
Circuit superstars is the only modern game that captured the fun feeling of top down racing that the original Generally had for me when I was growing up. Definitely a +1 recommendation!
Speed Dreams!
I mainly use my Deck for racing games and actually played a lot of MC3 using PCSX2.
Pretty much every PS2 era racing game can be emulated flawlessly nowadays.
A lot of them also got PC ports but getting them and running them takes some manual tinkering. But for the older Need for Speed games the PC version is the best way to go with all the community made fixes and mods.
I’ve also recently played through the PSP version of Midnight Club LA and it was pretty great, felt closer to MC3 than the main HD console version.
Was coming here to mention emulation as well. I don’t own a Deck, so not sure how it does with PS2 emulation, but if it’s good then OP could just play the MC games instead of alternatives.
There was NFS game on sale for like 2 bucks during the winter sale that was fun.
But I think Art Of Rally really shines as a steam deck racing game. It’s not arcadey, but not hardcore sim. Kind of it’s own challenging but chill racer. Can easily be played in short bursts when you have 5 or 10 minutes to kill.
Slipstream has an 80s vibe to it. The drifting is satisfying it’ll hold your attention for days.
I’ve enjoyed Hot Wheels Unleashed, 1 & 2. Super-super-arcadey.
I have been playing the crap out of Need for Speed Heat. Looks great, plays great.
I play Gran Turismo 7 on my steam deck via Chiaki. Wish they wud release on steam but for now this works.
