1992:  

The eagerly-awaited Super Nintendo finally arrives and brings with it the lightening fast futuristic racer F-Zero and the awesome Super Mario Kart. The former is fun, the latter is an all-time classic, especially in multiplayer. They both make arcade racers on the PC look very silly indeed.
(On the other hand, for more 'serious' driving on the PC there is Car and Driver, an early offering from the wonderful Looking Glass Studios - Stoo).
  Pictured: F-zero
1993:  
Ridge Racer appears in the arcades and radically alters our perception of racing games. It looks fabulous, it plays like a dream, and if you were really lucky you might get to sit in a real-life car (er, a Mazda) while you played. It even puts Sega's Virtua Racing in the shade, although the successful port of the latter to the Megadrive finally gives owners of Sega's console a half-decent racer.
Pictured: Ridge Racer

 

1994:  
With consoles ruling the roost as far as slick-looking arcade racers are concerned, PC games follow the example set by Crammond's benchmark. Papyrus produce Indycar Racing, easily superseding F1GP in terms of looks and certainly its equal in terms of gameplay. In the arcades, Sega strikes back against Ridge Racer with Daytona USA, a super-fast Nascar game with jaw-dropping graphics.

Pictured: Daytona USA
1995:  
Console's big guns come out to play. Ridge Racer is a launch title for the Playstation, while Daytona USA is ported to the Saturn. However, these are both bettered by more original titles like the smash 'em up Destruction Derby, and hyper-cool hover-racer Wipeout. With the 3DO now effectively defunct, its best games are converted to the PC, including Need For Speed, the game Test Drive fans had been waiting an eternity for. With a Pentium in every home (well, almost), PC racers started to benefit, with Ridge Racer clone Screamer proving more than a match for the glut of console conversions finding their way onto PC this year. In the arcades, Sega Rally is the new racer to wow the legions of narrow faced, slack-jawed youths.
Pictured: Need for Speed

 

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