Forza Horizon 2 remains a personal revelation and what I would call the perfect racing game. You could play it the way you wanted fepending on your mood, your car and your settings. It is the only game that has given me thrills comparable to OutRun, Sega Rally, Gran Turismo, GTi Club, Shutokō Battle and Gran Turismo all in a single package. Basically I just miss Daytona and Le Mans 24 and I would not need to play any other racing game. It’s a shame FH2 is the last game in the series that never came out on PC. FH3 and FH4 are really good games as well, of course. But I think FH2 was the true gem and perfect alchemy of what they were trying to achieve.
That’s not why i am posting here, though. My favorite racing game ever is Sega Rally Championship, and since @whatsarobot created both this topic and the “just bought a Sega Saturn” topic, I really want to call to your attention Sega Rally Championship Plus which is a game you should immediately buy for your new hardware. It’s quite cheap, too.
Released roughly nine months after the original game in Japan, SRC+ added tons of cool features. The game ran slightly better, was compatible with the Saturn’s modem to allow online races, unlocked the secret car (Stratos) and secret track (Lake Side) immediately, and – most importantly in my eyes – was fully compatible with the Multi Controller, i.e. the Saturn’s analogue controller released with NiGHTS into Dreams… a few months before SRC+.
The original SRC recognizes the Multi Controller, when switched to analogue mode, as the SegaSaturn Racing Controller (the official racing wheel released with Daytona USA). Whether this is a bug or a precaution, it comes with some inconveniences I won’t bother listing; suffice to say it doesn’t really beat either playing with a genuine Racing Controller or with the perfectly tuned standard controls on a regular controller.
SRC+, on the other hand, really makes use of the Multi Controller, allowing you not only to use the analogue stick but also the analogue L and R triggers for gas and brake pedals, and the numerous face buttons to handle shifting and camera settings. A multi Controller will also not cost you much. We are talking about at most a joint ¥3000 investment for the game and the controller.
All this while maintaining the flawless balance of arcade controls vs simple but clever physics that made the Sega Rally port so special. Thanks to the brillance of the tracks – especially Forest, still to this day the greatest video game race track ever designed in my book – and the fine yet approachable tuning possible with the car settings, I still see this port as the most fun time attack arcade racer ever released. But now with modern analogue controls. It’s incredible. The next thing you need is friends to compete with your times.
