Celebrate PlayStation’s 30th Birthday with 7 of Its Best Driving Games

The truck veered right and smashed into a guardrail. Was it my fault? I swore I turned the steering wheel left. Nevertheless, I kept my foot in it. Or, at least as much as I could tell. The gas pedal had so much play in the linkage that it was difficult to discern if I was giving any input at all.

My dad watched me struggle to pilot the off-roader around the course, working against the subpar equipment. After a few more crashes I limped across the line in last and the left the arcade dejected.

Ivan ‘Ironman’ Stewart’s Super Off Road was—and still is—one of my favorite arcade games of all time. But the unit in the Alpena Mall had reached the end of its life. Like many of the games in that dimly lit arcade, it was only a couple rough players away from succumbing to an “Out of Order” sign taped across its screen. It was 1997, and the glory days of mall arcades were coming to an end.

My dejection must have been palpable, because the next evening my dad brought home a brand-new PlayStation (much to my mother’s chagrin). According to my dad, the arcade incident was the impetus for buying Sony’s hot new console. Three decades later, I’ve owned every generation of the PlayStation, one through five.

The original device turned 30 this week: On December 3, 1994, Sony released the PlayStation in Japan. Unlike Nintendo, the PlayStation was marketed toward teens and adults, with edgy commercial campaigns and more mature titles.

I never really gravitated toward the blood and guts, though. I wanted speed—and I found it. These are the best driving games for the original PlayStation. If I missed one, let me know in the comments below.

NASCAR 98 (1997)

My collection of PlayStation games consisted primarily of racing titles, and it all started with NASCAR 98. It was Electronic Arts’ (EA Sports) first NASCAR title and was one of the games that my dad purchased with our first console.

I was captivated from the opening montage, which featured Molly Hatchet’s “Flirting With Disaster.” The graphics were amazing compared to most arcade games, and each driver was in the game with an exact replica of their car. I spent hours driving in circles.

This game also introduced me to cheat codes. I had my mom go to cheatcodecentral.com and print out the list of codes for this game.

Driver (1999)

Before I watched Bullitt, or any type of car-chase movie for that matter, I played Driver. This game was basically a 1970s action movie constructed in 1990s polygons. I’m sure I missed most of the references, but I really enjoyed outrunning the cops and playing a professional getaway driver. If you’ve ever played Grand Theft Auto, it’s a bit like that in the free roam nature of the game, but a lot less violent. Numerous video games, a movie, and even a novel were spun off of this first game.

Twisted Metal (1995)

From Death Race 2000 to Wacky Racers, battling cars is certainly not a new thing, but Twisted Metal was the first title to successfully bring the genre to the PlayStation. Rather than fighting for first, you fought your opponent with weapons dispatched from your vehicle.

Competitors attempted to destroy one another in different arena-like hellscapes with flamethrowers, missiles, and bombs. Rather than tanks or other military vehicles, you drove less conventional war machines like muscle cars, lowriders, or ice cream trucks.

Like Driver, they ended up making a Twisted Metal movie. I never saw it, however, as I didn’t want to to spoil the memory of staying up late with buddies trying to wreck one another.

Destruction Derby (1995)

I grew up going to the county fair to watch station wagons and big-bodied sedans smash one another to bits. Naturally, a derby game has to be on my list.

The Destruction Derby franchise was awesome and captured the smash-em-up essence of a good wreck fest. Unlike NASCAR or Gran Turismo, this game was goofy and featured drivers that seemed more like professional wrestlers.

Despite its quirky presentation, the damage model was pretty serious. All corners of your car started green but would turn more red after each hit. This prompted any player to start hitting with their trunk like a real derby competitor.

Gran Turismo (1997)

This is the driving game. There are others that I enjoy more, but nobody has ever done it like Polyphony Digital and its epic video game franchise.

In fact, I don’t think I owned a Gran Turismo game until maybe Gran Turismo 4? The first one, though, certainly left an impression and I played it whenever I could—at friends’ houses, through rentals, on those tiny demo televisions they used to put in a store’s electronics section . . .

For me, the game was most appealing for its car selection; Gran Turismo introduced me to a world of cars I had never heard of until I fired up that game.

Crash Team Racing (1999)

I never owned a Nintendo and Mario never really appealed to me, so I wasn’t aware at the time that Crash Team Racing was PlayStation’s answer to Mario Kart. Instead of Mario, the mutant eastern barred bandicoot and his troop of friends (and enemies) race on kooky tracks and try to slow one another with cartoon weapons.

The game is so similar to its Nintendo contemporary that when I started playing my friends in college Mario Kart tournaments, I racked up the wins.

Rally Cross (1997)

Since the earliest days of consoles, there has never seemed to be a shortage of rally games. Everyone has their favorite, from Sega Rally Championship to the latest WRC game. Mine is Rally Cross.

The first of the series was released in 1997 and featured only six tracks (with multiple configurations) and a handful of cars. What it lacked in options, it made up for in physics and door-to-door racing. Navigating over rough terrain was an important element in the game, and your car could flip over if you put a wheel out of place. With Rally Cross under my thumbs, Super Off Road was a distant memory.