GAME LOVER

When the Autocar team aren’t on the road, we’re often in front of a screen pretending to be. Here are some of our favourite driving games

MICROPROSE FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX

1991, Commodore Amiga

I stand by a claim that I made in a ‘Why I love…’ article earlier this year that Super Mario Kart is the greatest racing game of all time. But if you’re looking for realism, you can’t beat Geoff Crammond’s early 1990s masterpiece.

Okay, realism is a relative term (compare F1GP’s blocky 3D graphics with today’s photorealistic efforts), but Crammond’s game was one of the first true F1 simulators, in which you could play a full season – practice sessions and all – and tiny set-up changes would profoundly affect your car’s handling.

It even offered multiplayer action, although none of this online nonsense: play-by-mail allowed you to save games onto a floppy disk and post them to a friend. Glory days.

JAMES ATTWOOD

GRAND THEFT AUTO 3

2001, various systems There are few video games that proved truly game-changing, but GTA3 was certainly one: a world where you could go anywhere and, infamously, do more or less anything you liked. Yes, even that…

The producers didn’t (or couldn’t) license any real vehicles, instead not-so-gently reimagining existing famous designs. Even today’s driving games mostly lack the visceral thrill of real driving at speed, but some 25 years ago few things matched the joy of driving a stolen unmarked FBI sedan real fast through dense, chaotic city streets, pursued by endless cop cars, choppers and even tanks if you were really naughty.