Call me a stupid fanboy, but the IDAS series has the best arcade racing since Daytona USA.
Basically, if you've been living under a rock for a while, Initial D has taken the anime and manga world by storm. With it's funny characters, nice cars, sweet drifting and real mountain passes, it's no wonder the series is loved by hundreds of thousands across the world.
And anything that nice, needs an equally nice game series. And that's where the Sega Rosso team comes in.
The Initial D Arcade Stage line of games so far has v1 v2 v3 and v3 installments, with v4 being the most rare as it was released recently, and has some highly expensive equipment in it.
All 4 arcade cabs have a special magnetic card reader, which spits out printed cards which allows you to keep track of your cards which you tuned, and you driver which you can deck out with different clothes (drivers are only availible in v4).
You normally have three driving modes: legend of the street (which you try to beat all of the ID characters of the anime), time trials (self explanatory. when you finish, it'll give you a code which you can input at the IDAS website to track your times)
VS. Battle (you vs another guy, if you have to cabs hooked up. Battle for points which you can spend on parts, and a better battle record)
And Bunta challenge (not availible in v4. Go up against Bunta, the ID anime character, who has the highest driving skill out of all the characters. when the race is over, he evaluates your driving skill)
The driving engine is highly unrealistic. Allowing you to drift around sharp corners at over 280 km/h (but that's the most fun part!)
With over 30 cars to choose from (from Toyota to Nissan to Suzuki), you can upgrade your car of choose with various parts.
The game is easy at first, but when you're far enough into the legend of the street mode, the characters are REALLY hard! And every time you but the LOTS mode, the game gets EVEN harder!
But the difficulty can be set by the operator in the test menu, so your difficulty may vary.
Controls also vary. The steering wheel can be adjusted by YOU in your options menu, so you can set it to extremely hard to turn (hurts your arm! X( ) or no feedback (like turning a stick of butter on a frying pan) Other controls are the gas, brake and stick shifter.
In conclusion, if you can find any of the series, find it, play it, and buy a card so you can play again another time. This game is WORTH it to find and play.
In conclusion