Racing on the Game Boy Color was a bit of a magic trick. The hardware was not able to draw real 3D, so every studio had to fake the speed somehow. Some looked down on the track from above, others drew a road that seemed to rush toward you. A few cartridges even had a rumble motor built in, which made every crash feel like the handheld was annoyed with you personally.
A small French studio called Velez & Dubail did more with this console than almost anyone, and its name turns up on this list more than once. The rest come from Kemco and from Nintendo itself, working on a movie licence. Here are the 5 best Game Boy Color racing games.
5. Test Drive Le Mans (2000)
Test Drive Le Mans is based on the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. You can race the entire 24-hour endurance course or take part in a simpler arcade mode, and we know which one most people picked on the school bus. In North America the game was sold under the Test Drive name. The Game Boy Color version was made by Velez & Dubail, the studio founded by the programmer Fernando Velez and the graphic designer Guillaume Dubail.
It is the least talked-about game here, but players who have played it recommend it warmly. If you enjoy the rally game further down this list, this is the next cartridge to find. The same studio made both, and you can see the family resemblance in the roads and the colours.
4. Top Gear Pocket 2 (2000)
Top Gear Pocket 2 was developed by Kemco as a sequel to Top Gear Pocket. Like the first game, it has you driving rally cars, this time through closed-circuit courses. The first cartridge had a rumble motor but no battery, so you wrote down passwords to keep your place. The sequel's international release flipped that around: no rumble, but a battery that saves your progress. In Europe it was sold as Top Gear Rally 2.
When it came out, IGN reviewer Craig Harris considered it one of the best racing games on the Game Boy Color and said it had been "tweaked and refined as a quality racing game". He liked that the difficulty climbs as you go. Players still name it among the console's best racers today.
3. V-Rally: Championship Edition (1999)
V-Rally started on the PlayStation. A single-player version for the original Game Boy came out only in Europe in 1998, with pseudo 3D graphics and the Arcade and Championship modes. It had four cars and ten tracks in total. The Game Boy Color got an updated version in Europe on 9 April 1999 as V-Rally: Championship Edition, and in North America on 4 June as V-Rally: Edition '99. It is essentially the same game with colourful graphics and 20 tracks, and it will not run on an older Game Boy.
That is twice the tracks of the Game Boy original, so a full championship takes a while. Velez & Dubail made it, and players still bring it up whenever Game Boy Color racing comes up. If your cart says Edition '99, it is the same game.
2. Wacky Races (2000)
Wacky Races uses the story and characters of the cartoon created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The PC and PlayStation versions came from Appaloosa Interactive, but Velez & Dubail made the one for the Game Boy Color. Eleven racing cars compete across circuits inspired by the cartoon characters, and each vehicle has its own strengths and weaknesses. You pick up floating pink coins called Wacky Tokens to use your vehicle's special abilities. Finally, a racing game where cheating is the whole point.
Players who own it rate it among the best games on the console, and not just among the racers. With cartoon cars and special abilities, it is the closest thing to a kart racer on this list. Japan got the Game Boy Color version on November 22, 2001, under the name Chiki Chiki Machine Mō Race.
1. Star Wars Episode I: Racer (1999)
Episode I: Racer is based on the podracing sequence in The Phantom Menace. The Game Boy Color version has entirely different gameplay from the 3D versions on PC and home consoles. The hardware could not draw those tracks, so Nintendo R&D1 and Pax Softnica built one-on-one racing duels on short, linear tracks seen from above. The cartridge also has a rumble feature, so your pod shakes in your hands when things go wrong.
Critics were cooler on it than on the console versions, and GameRankings gave it 69.44%. Players who grew up with it still love it anyway, and one summed it up as "Rumble pack, frustrating, and fun!" It is the Game Boy Color racer the most players remember, by a clear distance.
Which one to play
There you have it, the whole list of the best Game Boy Color racing games. Five is not a long list, but each of these gets real speed out of a handheld that was never built for it.
If you are not sure where to start, play Star Wars Episode I: Racer. If you want a proper rally game with a save battery, pick Top Gear Pocket 2, and move on to V-Rally when you want more tracks. For a cartoon racer to play with a younger fan, Wacky Races is the one. And for a hidden pick, track down Test Drive Le Mans.
