I've been having a surprising amount of fun in the most mundane game:
FIA European Truck Racing championship.
Ordinarily I don't bother with non car racing games, I mean I'll try them, but usually 5 minutes is all I need in my quest to play every game ever just looking for the next bit of fun. But occasionally I'll give bike, motorbike, bus, go cart, truck, plane, train, unicycle racing a go.
The key has been turning all the fucking rules, regulations, penalties and mechanical damage off. And as it's an FIA game, there's a lot of fucking rules, regulations and penalties I can now ignore.
As they tell me for the millionth time my brakes are overheating but I have no water left because I emptied it all on the first lap to save weight, and as I barrel across cutting corners and using other trucks to get boosts around corners, I think this game could be more fun than destruction derby, because fun is supposed to be forbidden in serious racing games. And indeed fun in general is usually frowned upon.
But in among the slow boring races that take like 40 minutes (I love slow boring races by the way, better than menus and loading screens) there's something I'm really loving.
The way the trucks drift.
Just the weight, size and general slowness of it all is incredibly satisfying to plant full power mid corner and have the ass very slowly start to kick out giving you all the time in the world to decide if you want to be sensible and let off the power, or keep it planted and risk fishtailing up the whole next straight or eventually spinning altogether and having it take an hour to get moving again.
The drifts feel more satisfying than an arcade game, where drifting is basically on rails like outrun or ridge racer. And more satisfying than a car simulation where it's all over too quickly and you're back at a loading screen after hours of practice for 2 minutes of race.
The drifting is even more satisfying than in Forza Horizon because in that you can drift endlessly forever and there's no consequences to turning a drift into a spin and then keeping going.
Drifting is so easy to make fun... in real life (of course on approved circuits and with proper safety guidelines and medical facilities only. :owink: :rolleyes: :owink: ) and all the games just mentioned are absolutely great for it, but this has an element that's just so satisfying once you get all the bullshit simulation crap out of the way.