I like the Road Rash games on Genesis a lot.
San Francisco rush extreme racing 64.
Not my favorite, but I really liked Buggy Run from Master System
Rally Cross Beetle Adventure Racing Outrun
F-zero, Mario kart 64, diddy kong racing, rush 2049, cruisn USA, need for speed underground, that game at the arcade where 3 people can play and its on one screen with an isometric view
Edit: super off road
Super Cars (Amiga) Also have a fond memory of Death Rally
In nokia n-gage (the og and not the 2nd smaller version) there was a rally game, really good one… Then I like rally 3.
A game that no one I know IRL knows exists without me telling them:
Eliminator Boat Duel on NES.
Basically Super off-road meets Cobra Triangle.
Road Rash is still one of my favorites! I plan to play through the PSX version at some point since I only ever got the chance to play the Genesis ones as a kid.
Is Burnout old enough to be considered retro? 🤔
Because otherwise I, too, would have to say Road Rash.
Not much of a fan of racing, which is why my picks are what they are; Burnout has the awesome crash mode, and Road Rash is basically just a beat 'em up on wheels.
Although, I also really like Wipeout.
Rock and Roll Racing
Excite bike
Rock & Roll Racing is top tier.
Honorable mentions
Micro machines (that pool level!)
Cobra Triangle
Excite bike
We had endless hours of fun back in the day using the track builder and figuring out the exact spacing and combination of ramps to make your little dude crash out in a manner that flung his tumbling corpse the absolute maximum amount of distance. (Okay, so you never really die in Excitebike, but you know.) You can achieve significant hang time if you do it right.
Random unsolicited video game trivia: First run editions of Excitebike were actually Japanese Famicom cartridges bodged into Famicom-to-NES cartridge converters. They’re literally Japanese copies of the game, verbatim. This includes the theoretical ability to save out your track to the Famicom Data Recorder, which has only the minor wrinkle of never having been released in the US. This was baffling to us at the time, not understanding why the option was there when it self-evidently didn’t work (but your Zelda cartridge could save just fine).
Somehow my dad figured this out using the early Internet or Usenet or something, and then I had the actual answer. Still not actually being able to save, mind you, but at least I knew why you couldn’t. Except nobody in the schoolyard would believe me.
(I do know!)
Gran Tourismo 2 and 4, Ridge Racer Type 4, Burnout 3 Takedown and NFSU2/MW. I like a lot of racing games but these are my favorite retro ones.
Rc Pro Am was pretty great.
Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega, Super Maro Bro for the NES, along with Zelda, and Hotwheels micro racer. Blaster Master waa also a super fun game that I am on the hunt for. Far as Road Rash loved the PS1 version. Also play the shit out of Cruising the USA for the Nintendo 64.
Not sure it’s my favourite, but Wipeout XL/2097 deserves a mention.
Stunts was the best. You could draw your own circuits.
Yes!! This and Fatal Racing was my entire early teens!