Looking for an arcadey racer to play - any recommendations?

[Kresnik]

Jay520 said:

I'd say get Burnout Revenge over Paradise. The gameplay, controls, physics, AI, etc are all fine in Paradise, but the fact that it's open world completely takes away the Burnout experience. Because it's open world, there are of course short cuts and alternate paths to take. What this does is seperates you from the rest of the drivers and most of the time, you won't even come in contact with another racer. Needless to say, in a Burnout games, which is focused on the slamming and fighting other cars, this makes the game boring. Basically, imagine all the action you love from Burnout games, and subtract 75% of it. At least, that's what it felt like to me.

Another problem with the open-world is the fact that you find yourself looking at your map a lot, making sure you don't make a wrong turn. I guess this is more subjective though. For me, it takes the focus from racing and fighting other racers and turns it to "who can pick the fastest route."

And of course there's the restart issue.

For Need 4 Speed games, I'd say pick up Most Wanted and Carbon. Most people agree that Most Wanted was the best version. Carbon was good too, but it was basically a Nightime version of Most Wanted with a few upgrades. I actually like Carbon more though. But of all the Need 4 Speed games, those two are the best imo. Pro Street was pretty fun, but isn't arcadey really. Undercover was bad. Shift was good, but isn't arcadey. People say Hot Pursuit was fun, but I thought it was just okay. And whatever the 2011 installment was...it was crap too. I can't even remember the name. 

And I personally reccomend picking up Grid and one of the DiRT games. They're awesome. Also, if you have a 360, pick up Project Gotham 4. It's sort of a mix between arcade and simulation, but I think you'll like it.

Thanks for a really nice reply, Jay.  To go point-by-point through some of the games you mentioned:

- Project Gotham 4 actually looks great from a Gamespot review I watched, but sadly I am 360-less at the moment.  I'll definitely check it out in the future when I pick up an Xbox, though.

- Dirt I can't imagine liking too much, just from having experience with previous Colin Mcrae games on PS1/2.  I don't think I'm a particularly big fan of rally games (I got a little tired of the rally-like courses in Motorstorm, really).  Grid on the other hand is something I'll definitely look into.

- Burnout Paradise, thanks for the feedback.  I hadn't though about Revenge in all honesty, I probably will now.  Did those issues with Paradise take away a lot of the experience for you?

- Finally, thanks for the Need for Speed feedback.  I just watched a Carbon review, it looked pretty decent.  Was the 2011 installment "The Run"?  I was actually thinking that one looked good, but perhaps it isn't.  Have you any thoughts on the upcoming Most Wanted game?