Two games of the same genre compared

For this homework I chose addictinggames.com as the portal for choosing the two games of the same genre. I decided to play Car Games. All of the games available involved using a vehicle as the core mechanic, not just cars. If we dig deeper in that broad genre we had racing, parking and many more. I chose two racing games to see what they offered. The first game I played was ‘Grand Prix Hero.’  Based on the picture I could tell it was a Formula1-style car game. By that I mean just the cars used, not the way it developed. This game was in third-person view and it’s HUD only displays your position in the race. It consists of four races and the goal is to get as much points as possible by finishing each race in the best position you can. Additional to the basic racing concept of arriving first to the finish line, there were some turbo-boost icons in the game so you go faster for a period of time, and you could also grab coins that appeared in the race track so that between races you get the chance of upgrading your car’s speed, acceleration, grip or turbo boost power. Even though the gameplay was kind of awful, filled with drop frames(not because of the computer but because going slower meant less frames per second or seconds per frame I would say, so the faster you go the more decent it got), awkward physics of slipstream, a stupid crash system, and finally not compelling visually, I would say this was the game I enjoyed the most out of the two I played. But not the one that defined better the genre. The added features of car-enhancing, coin collecting and boost grabbing wouldn’t be what I think means “the better example of the genre.” That for me means the one that is closer to just the core mechanics of the genre, so the one without less extra features. Which  by no means diminishes the game with more stuff, I just think it makes it a clearer example. So the second game I chose was ‘Electric Racing.’ This game is better visually with more developed 3D models, a constant frame-rate and a HUD that showed you your speed and location in the race. Gameplay wise, it differentiates itself  from “Grand Prix Hero” because it doesn’t have the boosts and the coin factor. It also has the “buy upgrades after a race” feature  and an odd mechanic of “friction” which means by getting close to other cars you fill a battery that makes you go faster. Something I specifically didn’t like from this game was the lack of slipstream physics. Finally, I would say again that this game is a better example of the genre, just because there’s less layers between the core-mechanic of the genre and the game. Racing Car games don’t need coin collection, or upgrades between races. Car games are on it’s nucleus, just racing with a car. But things like the one of the game I first mentioned add layers that, if well applied, make the game even more fun for some people. One of them, me. I discovered this a while ago when I got Gran Turismo for PlayStation 3. I didn’t like it and went back to games like MotorStorm or Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Today the same happened, but with smaller flash games that, at the end of the day, have the same mechanics as the AAA games I just mentioned.