I was driving around a lot over the holiday season, especially at night. As someone who rarely drives and was therefore a passenger the whole time, night is my favourite time to drive. Or rather, be driven. And because my life is less of a highway and more of a content farm, driving at night got me thinking about video games – specifically racing games.
I used to love racing games when I was a kid. Burnout 3: Takedown, Need for Speed: Underground, Project Gotham Racing 3, and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition were among my most replayed games between the ages of 10-15. Now, I rarely touch racers.
I could say the reason I’ve fallen out with the genre because it has shifted away from arcade fun into technical realism and has suffered for embracing scale. I could point out that the former two series are shadows of their former selves and the latter two no longer exist. I could. I’m not sure it’s the real reason.
From Racer To Gamer
This is where we head back to my life being a content farm. My favourite genre of game these days might be broadly described as ‘narrative’. Whether that’s a sprawling RPG, a linear action-adventure, or even a short visual novel, if I like the story, I like the game. Again, part of that is just because I do. It’s what I look for in movies, television, books, even music. But (also again) that’s not the full story.
Part of the reason I play narrative-heavy games is because there’s a lot to say about them. You remember that whole content farm thing, right? If there’s a lot to say about a game, there’s a lot to write about a game. And if there’s a lot to write about a game, I get to keep this job. I like this job.
It’s hard to do that with racing games. I never play them in enough depth to be able to offer much guide assistance, and there’s never enough of a hook for anything else. I’ve written a couple of things about racing games down the years, but I’ve never felt like they’ve been all that interesting. Some might say that about anything I’ve ever written, but I digress. That’s not going to change, but hopefully I am.
Games Are Meant To Be Fun
Most of the games I play I choose in part because I know I can write about them here at TheGamer. In a way, this is a good thing. I repeat, I like this job. I keep up with a lot of new releases each year because I know I’ll always find a way to cover them. I even manage to find ways to write about games like EA FC, despite them not lending themselves heavily to commentary, avoiding Ultimate Team, and knowing the deeper instructional coverage will be handled by more learned writers than I.
It’s not that I aim to up my racing game coverage in 2025, but to care less about whether every second spent gaming can be converted into column inches. And it’s not just a question of genres either.
I pride myself on being highly up to date with games, dipping my toes into most new releases even if I suspect I won’t like them. Even at TheGamer, a workplace with a much higher percentage of gamers than a regular office, I’m in the upper percentile for new games played each year. Conversely, I find it harder to dig out time to replay old games, or cut down on the backlog. While others here replay entire series or continue to make discoveries from yesteryear,
I’m lucky if I play more than a couple of games not from The Current Year.
So my plan for 2025 is to be a bit more open with what I play. I don’t want to lose my grip on fresh launches too much, but playing a few more games without the intent to write about them would be healthy, and racing games feel like the way in. Maybe I can kill two Bugattis with one swerve and just replay Burnout 3: Takedown.
Need for Speed: Underground
- Released
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November 17, 2003
- Developer
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EA Black Box
- How Long To Beat
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15 Hours