Best PlayStation 3 Driving and Racing Simulation Games

In gaming it’s very easy to focus on the latest consoles and technology and games and to compare everything with the 4K ultra realistic graphics of today. But the gameplay in many of these titles hasn’t changed much over the past 15 years. Since the seventh generation consoles such as the Xbox360 and PlayStation 3 the technology has been able to render 3D objects and landscapes in full HD resolution at respectable frame rates. First person shooters, open world adventures and driving games, have all the features, fun and challenges of the current software offerings but just at a lower resolution.

So in this video I’ll be focusing on the PlayStation 3 and its great library of driving simulation games.

These are games that give you a real driving experience, especially if you’ve got a force feedback steering wheel and pedal set. If you haven’t looked into this yet then please do check out my budget racing simulation video where I build a complete racing setup using a PlayStation 3 for under £100 or $100. If you’ve already got your PlayStation 3 then do consider adding the wheel set for about £50 or $50. It makes an enormous difference to any driving game, putting you right in the driving seat.

I’m not listing these games in any particular order, but really grouping them roughly into styles for track and road driving simulation, off road simulations and arcade style games that still simulate the driving experience.

So strap yourself in and let’s take our PS3 out for a spin.

Test Drive Unlimited 2

First up we’ve got Test Drive Unlimited 2. This is an open world simulation where you start with a basic car setup and have to compete in various challenges and events to earn money to progress in the game. The game is set on two islands, Oahu and Ibiza and while you’re on an island you are free to drive around and explore at will.

There is a story arc that you generally follow which gives you increasingly challenging  race events to compete in over three main car type categories, Asphalt cars, Off Road cars and Classic cars. For each category you need to get a license from the driving school which is a great way of teaching you the characteristics of each style.

The ultimate aim is to progress to the top level and win the final Solar Crown Championship race.

What’s great about this game is that it is a proper simulator set on public roads with all the local traffic to contend with. Even during races you’ll meet oncoming cars, traffic junctions and have to contend with turning vehicles just when you’re going at top speed. Everyone on the island is very courteous and indicates when they are turning so you do have to watch out for this to help avoid crashing into them.

Driving accuracy is great and the game makes good use of the force feedback on your wheel.

Overall a great driving and racing simulation, especially if you’re after a more relaxed gameplay.

Gran Tourismo 6

Next we’ve got Gran Tourismo 6. Surprisingly this is only one generation behind the current Gran Tourismo release. Released in 2013 it’s probably the best you’re going to get for the PlayStation 3.

The game is a circuit based racing simulation but offers 30 accurately modelled tracks spread across stadium, mountain and country settings. On top of this great variety of tracks you’ve got access to around 1200 cars which should keep you going for a long time as you’ll need to earn in game money to be able to afford to buy them all.

The game itself is one of the few titles on the PS3 that runs natively in 1080p full HD. Many other games are rendered in 720p and upscaled, but in GT6 you’re getting the full detail which really does lift the graphics in this title.

As usual you start at the bottom of the car ladder racing stock hatchbacks, but with a bit of skill you can easily start to earn some prize money, as well as rewards for completing driving skills sections. As you earn you can start to fill your garage with increasingly exotic machines.

Simulation accuracy is very good with a full range of settings options that allow you to start off with plenty of driving aids and slowly remove them until you’ve doing it all yourself. Again having a force feedback wheel will transform the experience, and indeed the wheel I recommend in my setup video is one specifically designed to partner this game. You’ll compete in various formulas for cars from stock hatchbacks to touring cars to track cars with various levels of competition in each so as you progress your racing will get more and more difficult to win.

So if you want the best racing simulation for the PS3 this would be my top recommendation.

Dirt 3

So far we’ve been looking at track and tarmac games. Next we’ll look at one of the best off road racing sims, Dirt 3.

This game sees you competing in a wide range of gravel and tarmac tracks across a number of race types. You’ve got traditional rally stages where you race point to point  with a co driver calling out your pace notes to describe the road ahead. Rallycross where you race around off road circuits against other cars. Trailblazers which are basically hill climbing tracks. Landrush events are like rallycross but using buggies and trucks on stadium based tracks with loads of jumps and bumps. And Gymkhana competitions where your driving skills are tested and you have to pull off various stunts and tricks to earn points.

The simulation features are excellent giving you a lot of control over your car setup and realism so as your skills progress you can again turn off the driving aids to get more and more of that true driving feel.

So if you fancy an all out, off road racer this is probably to one to go for.

WRC 5

While Dirt 3 gives you a wide variety of off road situations WRC 5 focusses in on rallying.

This is another great PS3 title that manages to capture the excitement of this sport. The game offers a very realistic simulation of both the rally cars and the rally stages. You have endless options for the car setup and a full range of driving aids to help you get some experience in the game before you start to remove them to get a more challenging and realistic driving experience. If you’re a real petrol head you’ll enjoy tweaking your car setup to get that extra bit of speed and grip out of the vehicle.

The game itself is great fun with the track and road looking great.

I did find that this game does show the difference between the older consoles and the new. The car and track are full of detail and the car physics are excellently modelled. But obviously the PS3 only has a certain amount of processing power so you’ll find the surrounding scenery a bit sparse and undetailed. Having said that though, while you’re driving you’ll be concentrating on the road and car so won’t really notice this shortcoming.

The game offers around 400km (around 250 miles) of rally stages across a range of terrains with full weather simulation.

So if you want to full rally experience have a go at WRC 5.

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit

Racing simulations are great fun and give you that real driving experience. But sometimes you just want an all out blast around the roads with some unleashed driving carnage. The Need for Speed series is here to offer that to you and the Hot Pursuit edition is probably my favourite.

The setting is a small US county with some great public roads to race on. Speedsters like yourself are gathering here to compete in events and against each other. Naturally the police aren’t so happy with this so have decided to invest in a full range of exotic sports cars to boost their ranks, which I guess is fairly standard practice for the American cops, please do let me know if this is true in the comments.

So you have a choice of whether you want to be a racer or a cop. Well actually the game is even better than that as you get to be both! You have two career paths running at the same time and can take both racing and pursuit tasks whenever you want.

As a racer you have to race against others while avoiding, or destroying, the chasing police. As a cop you have to take out the racers by ramming, blocking or using non lethal weapons such as an EMP pulse.

Driving simulation is still great, especially with the wheel setup, and you’re able to get really good feedback as you drift, skid and crash the cars. While the driving simulation accuracy is not top of the agenda you do still feel like you’re driving the car rather than playing an arcade game which I feel adds significantly to the experience.

So if you want a full blown wreck fest go for Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.

So Many Games to Choose!

So those are my top picks. But the great thing about the PlayStation 3 is that you can easily get hold any game you want. Original disks are still widely available and cost only a couple of pounds or dollars, but failing that you can very easily mod your console and start to use legally obtained backup files to give you instant access to the entire system catalogue. This is great if you want to just browse through games to find out if you like them.

For example lets go through the process of finding a Nascar game to try out.

If you have a look online for some games this one here, Nascar The Game: Inside Line seems to get a great rating. To play it we need 2 files; the game ISO disk image and a decryption key file. I can’t show you exactly where to get these from but just have a look around as they are not so hard to find. Do off course check out my retro gaming copyright video and make sure that you are fully authorised to legally download this content before doing so.

Once you’ve got the files we can put them onto our USB gaming hard drive and simply plug it into our console. This step does hide a bit of setup so if you want to now how to create a USB gaming drive for your PS3 check out my NTFS drive video.

Once the drive is attached we can mount the game and we’re straight into the game play.

This game is actually a very good simulation of Nascar. I’ll admit it’s not a racing series that gets much coverage in the UK as oval racing doesn’t seem to be a thing here, so for me it was also a bit of an eye opener into this genre.

I will be honest and say that the idea of driving round and round in a circle didn’t seem so exciting, but once you’re in the car it’s surprisingly difficult to mater the racing. Especially with so many other cars on the track all going at very much the same speed, overtaking becomes a nightmare and incredibly challenging to do without ending up in a massive car pile up.

So do give this title a go if you want to experience oval track racing.

Other games of note

So finally then a few other games I enjoyed playing which you’d class as racing simulations.

F1 2010 – 2014

The F1 series of games gives the PS3 a fantastic simulation of the F1 seasons from 2010 to 2014. This is a very detailed modelling of all the race cars and teams from each season. The 2013 edition also includes a number of vintage cars to allow you to race in for example Ayrton Senna’s Williams, or Mario Andretti’s JPS Lotus. You can tweak a whole range of car settings and race tactics and the game offers plenty driving aids to get you going which you can then remove to get closer and closer to the real driving experience. Definitely one to try if you’re a Formula 1 fan.

Grid Autosport

The Grid series is another great race driving simulation and the Autosport Edition takes this firmly onto the track with a true race sim game. Again you’ll have to work your way up the racing ladder by competing in various race series and progressing with your team. There’s a top level of detail for the cars and environment and the real world modelling will give you a true to life feel for the cars. Definitely one to take for a spin.

Need For Speed Shift 2

Need For Speed Shift 2 is a slight departure from the road racing series onto the track. Again you’ve got the full driving simulation experience, but in this game you’ll need to progress up the ranks of competition and cars from stock saloons to GT Endurance racing. The car physics and crash dynamics are top notch so you’ll have endless hours of fun with this one.

Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends

My final game is the Ferrari Legends version of Test Drive. If you like Ferrari’s this is one specially for you. You get to race in pretty much all of the race cars and most of the road cars using the driving engine from Test Drive. This one gives you a great driving experience with the AI drivers giving you a proper challenge. Not always because they are much faster than you, but sometimes because they will cause mass pile ups and accidents to test your reflexes. Great fun and well worth a try.

So that’s my top racing simulation games for the PlayStation 3. If you got a console do give them a try and don’t forget to have a go at modding your system to get access to try all the games. If you haven’t got a wheel and pedal set I highly recommend the Logitech Force GT set which you’ll see in my budget racing sim video.