25 Best PS2 Racing Games

Kinetica is a futuristic racer from Santa Monica Studio, released in North America on October 16, 2001. You play a rider in a kinetic suit, a total merging of man and machine with one goal in mind: speed. The tracks run through future versions of Earth's major cities and out into space. It is a Y2K daydream of what the future would look like, and that is the whole charm.

A top three finish gets you through season one, but by season three you have to win every race. It was also the first game on the Kinetica engine, which later ran SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs and God of War. An art book, The Art of Kinetica, came in the box, and the game came back on the PS4 in 2016. Players named it exactly as often as Shox, the game one place above it.

Shox is an arcade racer with licensed rally cars on off-road courses in three locations, from an Arctic tundra to an Asian jungle. Electronic Arts announced it for the PS2 at E3 in 2002, and in Japan it came out as Rally Shox on January 9, 2003, under the EA Games label instead of EA Sports BIG.

Every race has three Shox zones where you earn medals for speed, and gold in all three sets off a shock wave worth chasing. Collisions cost you money. That is more realism than most rally games bother with. The few players who bring it up call it a fun arcade racer that is easy to pick up.

Downhill Domination is a downhill bike racer from Incog Inc. Entertainment, the studio behind War of the Monsters. The race event is made up, with fictional racers and a few unlockable pros. Unlike most bike racers, you ride downhill almost the whole way. It never came out on any other console.

Sony published it for the PS2, and it came out in North America in 2003, then in Europe from Codemasters in 2004. There is a bike shop with unlockable items, but you can only reach it in single player. Players named it a touch more often than Tourist Trophy, one place below it, but the Tourist Trophy picks got more backing.

Tourist Trophy is Polyphony Digital's motorcycle racer, built on the Gran Turismo 4 engine. It launched in China on January 26, 2006, then in Japan on February 2, and the North American version followed on April 4. That version came with seven extra motorcycles and a Semi-Pro Mode of its own. It is also one of only three PS2 games that can output 1080i.

The garage holds 135 motorcycles from 1961 to 2005, and you earn them by passing licence tests and winning championships. A photo mode lets you freeze any moment of a replay and print the picture on a compatible Epson printer. Players named Downhill Domination a touch more often, but the Tourist Trophy picks got more backing.

Burnout is where Criterion's series started, released on the PS2 in 2001 and on the GameCube and Xbox in 2002. It was in development for almost two years, and the 1998 film Ronin helped shape it. Its Championship mode pits you against three other cars on courses styled on European and American locations.

Win an event and a Face Off challenge opens up, and winning that unlocks a new car. Clear every European and American event and two endurance modes open up. Boost only works once the meter is full. It is the lowest of the four Burnout games on this list. Everything after it is faster and meaner, but this is where the idea started.

Test Drive: Eve of Destruction, called Driven to Destruction in Europe, is a Monster Games racer full of North American events, from a figure 8 race to school bus races. School bus racing deserved more games. There are 25 events in all, including Demo Derby, where the last car standing wins, and Gauntlet, where you drive a hearse and the rest of the field tries to stop you.

The PS2 and Xbox versions came out on the same day, August 24, 2004. Players call it overlooked and tell each other to go and play it. Players named it exactly as often as the two games just above it.

Rumble Racing is an EA combat racer heavily influenced by NASCAR Rumble, with 15 tracks to unlock and five championship cups to win. Each Gold Cup victory unlocks new worlds and tracks, and you can race alone or partner up with a friend. The new idea is the trick, and stunts in the air help you finish races faster.

Reviews were favorable. PlayStation Magazine gave it 4.5/5. Each track is different, with shortcuts and chances to pull off stunts. Making it took a lot of physics and calculations. Players call it underrated, a hidden gem that is worth tracking down. Players named it exactly as often as the games on either side of it. Big muscle cars, bigger jumps.

Street Racing Syndicate is an open world street racer from Eutechnyx, released on August 31, 2004, and meant to compete with Need for Speed: Underground 2. You can trick out more than 40 licensed cars with parts from more than 15 real-world makers, across 3 cities in the USA. Your goal is to live the life of a street racer, which here includes winning the respect and affection of various women in the city.

A separate Game Boy Advance version came out on October 4, 2005. Reviews of the console versions were mixed. It lives in the shadow of the game it was built to chase. Underground 2 sits fifteen places higher.

Burnout 2: Point of Impact is the sequel to the first Burnout, and the last Burnout on the GameCube. It was also Acclaim's last Burnout: the publisher went bankrupt in 2004, and Electronic Arts published the rest of the series. The PS2 version gets all the custom cars from the Xbox version, but no online play or custom soundtracks.

It was nominated for Console Racing Game of the Year at the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Edge magazine ranked it 75th on its list of the 100 Best Video Games in 2007. Players who love it keep it near the top of the series, and some even prefer it to Takedown. Players rank it four places above the original.

Need for Speed: Underground swapped the series' sports cars and exotics for the import scene, and it was the first in the series with a story-driven career mode and a garage mode. It sold around 15 million units. Every race takes place in the fictional Olympic City. It also brought nitrous oxide to the series for the first time.

In drift races the clock does not matter, so you take your laps at your own pace. Critics and players both took to it. It rebooted the series and left the earlier sports car games behind. An arcade version from Global VR came out two years later. Its sequel ranks thirteen places higher.

Need for Speed: Carbon is the tenth Need for Speed, released on October 31, 2006, on the PS2 and most other systems of the day, then as a launch title on the PS3 and Wii. It even reached arcade cabinets in 2008. Canyon events are exclusive to Carbon, special races styled after Japanese Toge racing on canyon roads outside the city.

Critics liked it, though some missed the police chases of the game before it. It was the first game in the series to get a PEGI rating of 12+. It is the only Need for Speed game that came out on a Macintosh. It is one of five Need for Speed games on this list.

Jak X: Combat Racing is Naughty Dog's spin-off after Jak 3, in which Jak and his allies are poisoned and have to win a combat racing championship to get the antidote. Being poisoned into a racing career is still a better origin story than most. It was the first Jak and Daxter game with multiplayer. Its driving is modeled on Jak 3's, and it swaps the series' action-adventure for arcade racing.

There are over a dozen customizable vehicles, each with its own handling. Save data from the earlier Jak games and Ratchet: Deadlocked unlocks extra drivers, Ratchet himself among them. The game was re-released on the PS4 in 2017. Players call it a fun racer, and some say it is their favourite on the PS2.

FlatOut is a demolition derby-style racer from the Finnish studio Bugbear Entertainment, built around a sophisticated physics engine. It is mostly known for drivers flying through the windshield. Dents depend on what you hit and from which angle. The North American version launched on August 1. It has sixteen cars, each with five skins.

The series later changed hands, and the third game, from Team6 Game Studios, was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews. A Wii game released under the plain FlatOut name in November 2010 was met with negative reviews too. Players are still playing it and call the FlatOut games a lot of fun. Its sequel sits four places higher.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix is the updated version of Rockstar San Diego's third Midnight Club, released in March 2006. The name comes from a partnership with DUB Magazine, whose sponsored races and customized cars run all through the game. It is an arcade-style racer that goes for wild, high-speed racing rather than realistic physics.

You race through open world versions of three American cities, Detroit among them, and the Remix raises the soundtrack from 98 licensed tracks to 124. Players love it for the customization. Midnight Club II, its older sibling, sits one place above it. If Underground 2 is about the garage, this one is about the show.

Midnight Club II is Rockstar San Diego's sequel to Midnight Club: Street Racing, and the first in the series with motorcycles. You race through three cities, from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Races are strings of checkpoints marked by columns of light, and in a few of them you can clear the checkpoints in any order.

Rival racers talk to you in the cut-scenes before races, and each has a unique theme song. Reviews were positive. The vehicles and cities were built from scratch. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix sits one place below it. Players named it more often than Ridge Racer V, one place above it, but the Ridge Racer picks got more backing.

Ridge Racer V was a PS2 launch title and the only main Ridge Racer released on the console. It dropped Type 4's approach and went back to a simple racer without a story mode, set in Ridge City. There are fourteen courses in Ridge City, and visual filters change how they look.

Namco brought in the Japanese duo Boom Boom Satellites and the German DJ Mijk van Dijk for the music. The soundtrack has a heavier sound, directed by Kohta Takahashi. 55 people worked on it by the end of development. It is the sleekest launch title the PS2 had to show off. Midnight Club II, one place below, was named more often, but the Ridge Racer picks got more backing.

FlatOut 2 is Bugbear's action racer, out in Europe on June 30, 2006 and in North America on August 1. It leans more toward street racing and the import tuner scene than the first game, and you get more grip in tight turns. An enhanced version, FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, followed on the Xbox 360 and PC in 2007.

A PlayStation Portable port of that version arrived in 2008 as FlatOut: Head On. The PC version reached Steam on August 26, 2008. It sits four places above the original FlatOut. It took the idea of the first game and turned the dial up on everything. Players call it a brilliant demolition derby racer, and they notice when it is missing from a list.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted followed Underground 2 as the ninth game in the series, released in November 2005 on the PS2 and most other systems of the day. Its street races and circuits all sit inside the fictional city of Rockport. You arrive in Rockport City driving a racing BMW M3 GTR, chased by a veteran police officer named Sergeant Cross who vows to end street racing.

Josie Maran plays Mia Townsend and Dean McKenzie plays Cross. Underground 2 sits five places higher. The cops are half the fun here. Hot Pursuit 2 sits three places above it. It is the third of the five Need for Speed games on this list. This is the one for anyone who wanted the cops to take street racing seriously.

Auto Modellista is Capcom's cel-shaded racer, first released on the PS2 and later on the GameCube and Xbox, with a hand-drawn, cartoon-like look. Underneath, it plays a lot like Gran Turismo, with cars you can modify and customize. Its six tracks include the real-life Suzuka Circuit and the Mt. Akagi mountain pass.

You can even swap engines, putting an EJ20T into a Subaru 360. After a middling first reception, mostly about how short it was, Capcom modified it for North America. You can race up to eight drivers online or one friend in split screen. In Japan it came back with those changes as Auto Modellista: US Tuned. Players keep recommending it as one to pick up next to the better known racers.

Burnout Revenge mixes racing through rush-hour traffic with vehicular combat, where the cars themselves are the weapons. Rush hour has never been this much fun for anyone not stuck in it. In Road Rage you wreck as many rivals as you can before time runs out or your own car is wrecked. There are 77 cars, and some can only be used in crash events.

It came out on the PS2 and Xbox, with an Xbox 360 version in March 2006. A Burnout 3: Takedown save file even unlocks a car for it. Players say it deserves a place in your collection, and a few call it their favourite racer. Players rank it five places below Takedown.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is the sixth Need for Speed and the direct sequel to Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit. EA Black Box made it for the PS2, and EA Seattle made a distinctly different version for the other systems. It goes back to the chase arcade experience instead of a racing simulation, so you have to outchase the cops as well as the other drivers. You race exotic cars, or switch sides and chase speeders as a police officer.

In 2002 it won Console Racing Game of the Year at the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. The soundtrack has eight vocal rock songs and seven instrumental rock and electronic songs. Players named it almost exactly as often as Gran Turismo 3, one place above it.

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec was the series' first step into the PS2's generation, shown at E3 under the working title Gran Turismo 2000. It was meant to be a launch title, and its development focused on the new hardware. That focus cost it cars: it has 180, far fewer than the game before it. It also had six unlicensed Formula One cars that you could win from endurance races.

Every 25% of the game you complete earns you a car as a special prize. Up to six players can link consoles together over i.LINK. It sold over 14.8 million copies, the second best-selling PS2 game behind Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Players rank it two places below Gran Turismo 4.

Need for Speed: Underground 2 is the eighth Need for Speed and the direct sequel to Underground, and it is all about tuning cars for street races. It was the first in the series with an open world, the fictional city of Bayview, where you drive freely between events. Bayview is based on San Francisco and Los Angeles. Brooke Burke voices Rachel Teller, who guides you through the game. Hot Pursuit 2 sits two places below it.

It sold around 11 million copies and broke sales records in the United Kingdom. Players often name it next to Midnight Club 3, the other street racer built around customization. Players put it highest of the five Need for Speed games here.

Gran Turismo 4 has over 721 cars from 80 manufacturers, from the 1886 Daimler Motor Carriage to concepts for 2022. It was planned for 2003, slipped by over a year and a half and lost its online mode on the way. There are 51 tracks, many of them new or reworked versions of old Gran Turismo favorites. It came out in Japan on December 28, 2004, and in North America in February 2005.

It was one of the highest-selling games of 2005 and the fourth best-selling game on the PS2. It can output 1080i, which almost no other PS2 game could do. Its engine also runs Tourist Trophy, further down this list. Players call it the best looking racing game on the PS2, and many say the best of its generation.

Burnout 3: Takedown is the third Burnout from Criterion, and its big idea is the Takedown: you slam rivals until they crash, and each one fills and extends your boost meter. Boost itself comes from risky driving.

Next to the circuit races there are modes built around Takedowns, and one about causing as much monetary damage as possible at a busy junction. Criterion started on it in June 2003, on the condition that EA would not interfere in the creative process. It became one of the highest-rated racing games of all time, and it won three British Academy Games Awards and two Spike Video Game Awards. There are over 60 race events around the world. Players usually name it next to Gran Turismo 4, Midnight Club 3 and the Need for Speed games. Players named it more often than any other racing game on the PS2.