I bought my 7 year old his first PC for Christmas and he's looking to play a racing car game (after all, he does want to be a racing car driver when he grows up so it's good practice, right?) - with it being the Winter Sale it's probably a good time to pick one up at a more reasonable price.

But I don't play racing games and have no idea what would be most suitable for a kid of his age. From the little I've seen over the years, racing games have tended more towards the technical than motor-control/twitchy game-play.

I'd appreciate any suggestions and some information on what the suggested games actually involve - i.e. is it more light-hearted and gamey like say Mario Kart, or is it more technical and physics simulation based like the more recent Need For Speed type games.

Team Sonic Racing is like Mario Kart only with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

Spearthrower wrote:I bought my 7 year old his first PC for Christmas and he's looking to play a racing car game (after all, he does want to be a racing car driver when he grows up so it's good practice, right?) - with it being the Winter Sale it's probably a good time to pick one up at a more reasonable price.

But I don't play racing games and have no idea what would be most suitable for a kid of his age. From the little I've seen over the years, racing games have tended more towards the technical than motor-control/twitchy game-play.

I'd appreciate any suggestions and some information on what the suggested games actually involve - i.e. is it more light-hearted and gamey like say Mario Kart, or is it more technical and physics simulation based like the more recent Need For Speed type games.

A game I used to enjoys at that time, is Wacky Wheels.
Pros: It's age appropriate and cheaply available on Steam.
Con: It's from the DOS era so the graphics are dated.


Another suggestion is Lego Racing, but I don't know if that's still available on PC.


Edit. Good news, it's available for free on myabandonware.com
Does require an ISO reader/installer though. It appears that from Windows 8 onwards you can mount ISO files without an extra program.

By coincidence I bought my 7-year old his own gaming console this Christmas. Nintendo Switch (don't get her started was not too pleased with my choice!) He is now deep into his Minecraft level.

He used to play the free version online on my computer (just google 'Minecraft Classic') and he really got into it. While we were searching for online games we came across this resource. There are some fairly simple games here which might be suitable for your lad.

https://poki.com/en/car

On the same site we came across this game which is, well, a Spearthrower!

https://poki.com/en/g/the-spear-stickman

Cheers all... yeah, I think Team Sonic Racing is probably the one: he already plays Mario Kart and loves the Sonic character - no brainer!

Edit: Oh wait no... it's B1,335 - that's not at all a normal price even for AAA games here on Steam!

Edit 2: Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection is a much more reasonable B92

Colin McRae? The rally games are great