this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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Need for speed: Porsche 2000 (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 hours ago by eru777@lemmy.world to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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Need for Speed: Porsche 2000 (AKA porsche unleashed) was released 26 years ago. It did something different from other videogames. You could drive across the beautiful European countryside, and explore this particular car brand and its history.

I haven't found other games that allow you to basically travel through europe's most beautiful landscapes with your car and just take in the scenery like that. It was right before the whole trend started with "tuning" culture, spurred by the fast and the furious franchise. (love or hate it, it changed the whole landscape)

What other games would you say are similar to this experience?

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[–] Hond@piefed.social 6 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

NFS4 is IMHO pretty close. The career structure is a bit different and while the tracks arent exclusively in europe a lot of them are. Be sure to check out both the PS1 and PC version. They're similar but also quite a bit different. Maybe you like one better than the other.

In NFS HP2 you are more like a globetrotter with only a few greece based tracks. Career structure is a lot more arcadey. Imho still hits a similar vein. Be sure to play/emulate the PS2 version which is way better.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 has the entire island of Ibiza to drive on. Its not exactly an euro trip. But its pretty good at making you feel like you are on vacation with expensive cars to chill out with.

Then there is World Racing which exclusively has Mercedes Benz cars and a few euro based maps. World Racing 2 sports mostly VW cars.

Test Drive Ferrari Racing Legends would be another car brand exclusive game. Never played it though.

Driv3r's Nice map is pretty awesome. The game isnt so much. I still boot it up every now and then to fuck around in Nice.

Beamng.Drive has an awesome Italy based island to drive around on.

Assetto Corsa has tons of great european road courses as mods. Its still just a sandbox and setting all the mods up is a pain in the ass. But damn i lost so many hours just cruising around on eg Battenbergring with a few NPCs.

The TT: Isle of man 2 is on motorcycles but i believe all tracks are based in europe(there are others besides the isle of man).

A third of Burnout 3 is located in europe. I like those tracks a lot. But it isnt exactly a 'chill' game.

There are tons of eurojank games developed by Davilex where you exclusively drive around europe/germany/the uk/france/etc. They are kinda trash but also kinda cozy. With eg mobygames you should find most of their output.

But yeah, i never realized how rare it is to have euro-centric racing game like NFS Porsche Unleashed.

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 1 hour ago

before the whole trend started with "tuning" culture, spurred by the fast and the furious franchise. With a game called literally "Need For Speed", I dunno...

[–] squirrel@piefed.kobel.fyi 4 points 2 hours ago

This was my favorite NFS game

[–] Lembot_0006@programming.dev 3 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

I was playing it again just a few years ago. The game aged like milk. With shit. Yes, milk with shit. But for its time it was nice, yes.

Other games? In some of the older Test Drive games you were able to drive off the road, drive into the barn and ride over a chicken. It was a shock to me. It looked more realistic than a real life. And it was rain there. And you could use... no idea how they are called in English... those rubber thingies that clear the windscreen from the droplets or dirt... It was cool.

[–] Cypher@aussie.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

The word you were looking for is windscreen wiper, and it’s funny how such minor inclusions used to be amazing and now they would go completely unnoticed!

[–] eru777@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

It has aged yea, but in 20 years there have been no games to emulate this experience

[–] fulg@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I was a big fan of the original Need For Speed for the same reason, the driving over large scenery levels was the whole point. The technology wasn’t quite there yet but I have fond memories of the first game on PC.

I mostly got it back with Test Drive Unlimited, which featured an entire drivable island (Hawaii I believe?) and you could free roam as much as you wanted between races. One of the races was of course an entire tour of the island and took one hour (and it was not that easy), it was awesome! TDU2 was total garbage, they forgot about the driving, the model was broken. They instead focused on the whole “influencer” garbage, it was really bad.

Recently Forza Horizon 3 recaptured that feeling perfectly, free roaming around Australia. It is easily the best game of the series. The newer entries were less interesting since they turned the game into a FOMO fest (lots of timed weekly exclusives and no game ending). Still, I am looking very much forward to FH6 to roam around Japan, but considering the locale I don’t think we will be able to skip the tuning scene this time.

[–] dracc@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 hours ago

Thank god for that. I've seldom played a game as unfair as nfspu. The amount of times my car flew out of a corner because the map geometry is totally broken is through the roof. And the AI cars always weigh like dump trucks in collisions.

[–] tensorpudding@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I forgot about this game, was pretty neat. A good way to learn about all the cars they made. If you find it in a PS1 game bargain bin somewhere check it out.

[–] eru777@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

True, although the PS1 version is like a completely different game. Most PS1 versions of games were, due to the limitations.

[–] Hond@piefed.social 2 points 1 hour ago

The driving physics are sadly horrible on the PS1 version.

[–] greyscale@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 hours ago

This is kinda why I played eurotrucks.