TORCS

By: Shabadage

On: December 9th, 2006

I was recently asked by a friend over MSN if there were any good, free racing games avaliable for the PC. I was actually quite astounded that he didn’t know of TORCS, easily one of THE BEST freeware PC racers ever made. Considering I didn’t see it up here on TIGS, I figured I’d add it in. (We need a “racing” category Mr. Yu!)

I feel as though I should explain something first, as TORCS has a rather interesting history. TORCS was inspired by RARS (Robot Auto Racing Simulator), which was a racing game where you didn’t drive, you programmed an AI to drive the car for you. I remember having quite a bit of fun a few years ago playing around with some (Horrible) AI for this game. This, my friends, was pure geek fun.

TORCS is basically the next evolution of that idea, allowing the player to race against other AI bots. Currently, the game boasts 42 cars, roughly 50 different AI opponents, and around 30 tracks to race on. While the graphics are not spectacular (If you’re a GFX whore, there’s always ChaseHQ2Evo [run Eu3E}3?kOoAO.bat before you try to play the game!], which has 2 cars and 2 tracks), they certainly get the point across, and TORCS is constantly being updated (though sometimes it takes a little while). You can even write your own AI opponents if you get bored. (May your attempts go much better than mine.)

Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t typically like racing games (like me!) you should at least TRY TORCS. I know it’s managed to find a permanent space on my hard drive.