For all your real car questions, there’s the ‘Which Car?’ section on this page, but what about your completely unreal fantasies? Say you wanted to drive a completely modded Ford Mustang on a race track? Well, for that and other driving related fantasies, we’ve got for you a few of the top driving games available in stores now.
Dirt 3 (PC/Xbox 360/ PlayStation 3 — Rs 568-Rs 2,279)
Dirt is a rally-focussed game that is fun for beginners and is also challenging enough for professionals. All sorts of rally cars make an appearance here, like 1960s rally cars, group B cars and the recent WRC cars. New to the third iteration of the game is the Gymkhana mode where you can live out all your Ken Block Gymkhana fantasies. When you’re done with that, you can post the video directly to YouTube, so your friends can also join in on the fun. It also makes for a great party game, courtesy new modes like Smash The Target, Capture The Flag and Spread The Zombie Infection.
Gran Turismo 5 (PlayStation 3 only — Rs 1,559)
After a lot of delays, Gran Turismo 5 finally made it into the market last year, and boy was it worth the wait! Unlike the previous versions of the game, in-race damage to the cars has been added, so it’s a much better simulator now. Gameplay is very engaging, especially in the career mode, but it’s not suitable for arcade style players. All in all, this is definitely one game all driving enthusiasts must have in their arsenal.
Forza Motorsport 4 (Xbox 360 only — Rs 2,749)
Some would call this the Xbox equivalent of Gran Turismo, while others would say that this one blows GT5 out of the water. We’ll just say that it’s at least on par with GT5. There are features in this game that allow for a greater degree of control over the modifications to cars, like wild engine-swaps. Fancy a V12 bi-turbo engine in a Fiesta? That can be arranged. Actual racing, though, is a toss-up between the two games, so it all comes down to which gaming console you have.
