Think Forza Horizon Invented Immersive Street Racing Games? Test Drive 5 From 1998 Says No

But the most important keyword in all of that is "almost." At least from a subjective point of view, some of the greats came before Y2K. There's a handful of late 90s PC and console racing games you could use as a focal lens to view these types of games from this era.

The original Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, the third installment in the series, or the original Colin McRae Rally, for example. Both hit the scene in 1998, in what was a landmark year in the history of driving sims. But these two games fall on the more arcade flavor.

Suppose your niche is more in line with street racing games with the best physics engine possible? Or perhaps the most eclectic and varied soundtrack for each car's engine? In that case, you'd be hard-pressed to do better in 1998 than Test Drive 5.

Laughable as it may sound, knowing what garbage the Test Drive franchise wound up becoming as one millennium changed to the next. But believe us when we tell you, by 1998 standards, the gameplay in TD5 was some of the best around.

This fifth installment in the Test Drive Series, dating back to the late 1980s, never lived up to the hype of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit. But those who remember it fondly remember something that was far more impressive back when a single-core Pentium 4 was the most powerful CPU chip available. Available on both PC and on the original Playstation with bespoke menu interfaces and sound bytes was published by Pitbull Syndicate.

Test Drive 5 welcomes you to the game with an opening song called Genius by Pitchshifter. Played on top of a scene of all the best 90s and classic sports cars carving it up. It's a scene that turns boys and girls into petrolheads. After an invigorating opening salvo, you're greeted by the main menu that looks so late-90s.

We're surprised it doesn't come with a poster advertisement for Surge soda. From here, you have the option of several unique game modes and unique tracks. Which, while not exactly impressive two decades later, were some of the most detailed race tracks ever digitally constructed in the era of Windows 98.

San Francisco, Moscow, Sydney, and Edinburgh, among a litany of other tracks on offer, provide the perfect backdrop for a lineup of cars whose in-game exhaust sounds were the best in the business 23 years ago. Each bespoke model, from stalwarts like the C5 Corvette and Dodge Viper ACR to rarer specialized cars like the TVR Speed 12, everything has its own distinct exhaust note.

Be it American Muscle, Euro Imports, or JDM titans, there were ample cars for all tastes. By late 90s standards, this was state of the art. By 2022's standards, the novelty is pretty gosh darn entertaining. Game modes like the cut and dry quick play mode are flanked by a custom race mode, time trial mode, drag race mode, and even a mode where you play as the police and try to spoil everybody's fun.

Police and NPC vehicles are aplenty in this very early post-DOS game. It sure makes you remember that even while Forza Horizon Five defines open-world racing games today, the framework on which the game operates is nothing new or novel at all.

In an age where an office full of desktops couldn't pull the same load as the average modern flagship smartphone, the idea that such a bold and ambitious game was even possible on such hardware is nothing short of astonishing.

So the next time you're in a classic gaming store and you see a copy of Test Drive Five on sale, assuming it isn't being scalped as a result of this article, you should absolutely pick it up.

Stay tuned for more racing game nostalgia and so much more right here on autoevolution.