The Best Racing Games For Virtual Tuners

As any true gaming petrolhead knows, one of the most important parts of racing in the virtual world is making your car your own. Just like IRL, adding that unique style stamp or tweaking your setup to shave a few tenths off your time is vital, so we’ve rounded up the best games for customising your ride.

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F1 2013

The game developer Codemasters gives us next level virtual tuning with its series of F1 racing simulator games. Before each race the driver and crew are in the garage where they can make adjustments to the car. The front and rear wing angles, braking balance, ride height, spring stiffness, tyre alignment and gearbox can all be changed, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Online forums host a place for gamers to share the details of their setups on certain tracks. Depending on weather conditions, lap speeds and distance, the cars need to be adjusted accordingly, and even the slightest change to the car’s suspension or aerodynamics makes a noticeable difference on the track.

Need for Speed World

The NFS series is known more for its customisation options than for its realistic racing, and NFS World is no different. In NFS World, the player can drive and modify cars from within six different classes categorised in Street, Race, Pro and Ultra stages, with the latter featuring the ultimate performance motors. Unlike Codemasters’ F1 games, specific tuning tweaks aren’t available, however a certain part may make the car perform differently in areas like speed, acceleration and handling.

Players can upgrade parts like tyres, brakes, suspension and transmission from a vast catalogue. For those who need a little bling for their ride, NFS World offers thousands of combinations of paint colours, aftermarket add-ons and vinyls for you to live out your Fast & Furious fantasies.

Forza 5

The 200 cars available in Forza 5 grows monthly with each new car pack release, and every car comes with the option to upgrade with performance parts. The difference with this game is the parts are much more specific than others: upgrade cams and valves or add a turbo rather than choosing to ‘upgrade engine.’

The intuitive system begins recognising what the gamer likes in terms of paint schemes and cars, creating suggestions from user generated content within the cloud. Forza 5 gives the gamer all they could desire in tweaking performance and exterior design. It also has realistic physics and sharp graphics.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition

Bringing it back to the old school, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition just turned nine years old. Yes, it is an old game, but it offers an incredible amount of options for its time. Although it doesn’t have the greatest physics or a realistic feel, the arcade style race game gets credit for offering such a wide variety of vehicles and options. Players can choose to race tuners, luxury sedans, SUVs, trucks, exotics, muscle cars, sport bikes, and choppers in five different race styles. While most modifications are just for looks, some actually affect performance. Body kits, rims, exhausts, nitrous, turbos and more can be unlocked by winning races or finding hidden items.

The Crew

Due to release in fall of this year, The Crew promises to be the perfect mix of customisation, racing and exploration. While details of the game are few and far between, short trailers and clues dropped by the Ubisoft team lead us to believe that customization options will be one of the game’s better features. The licensed use of hundreds of cars with promises of vehicle suspension, steering, engine and body modifications have the gaming community abuzz wondering if true to life upgradable parts will be offered.