For some reason driving in games is very hard to make good; It’s either too quick, too slow, too hard to adjust, or too easy to adjust. Most games that implement handling a vehicle make it feel like an impossibility to make small adjustments and very much end up overshooting such as Grand Theft Auto V, Trackmania, RaceRoom Racing Experience, and Torque Drift. Before one asks, no I don’t use a race sim, nor do I believe one needs to have one in order to experience a great driving experience. Driving on a gamepad can feel just as intuitive as driving a real vehicle and Shenmue is one of the best examples.
For those who are unfamiliar with the cult classic Shenmue, it’s a martial arts, drama, rpg, video game originally released in 1999 where you follow Ryo Hazuki who’s on a journey to avenge his father who was murdered by Lan Di. In the game you’ll mostly experience walking or running around areas of Japan and asking people around for clues to get closer to ultimately confront Lan Di. Notice it’s not a racing game, which makes the quality of driving even more surprising! The first time you even touch a vehicle is about 17~20 hours into the game where you take a job as a forklift operator.
The forklift experience is superb! Especially driving on a gamepad; I can control the speed and direction precisely using analog triggers, make very small adjustments that meaningfully change the forklift’s trajectory, it feels akin to driving in real life with a steering wheel and pedals. It very much painted me impressed, considering this game’s age being older than most racing games whose whole experience is based on the mechanic of driving. Shenmue is a gem of an experience and its forklift portion demonstrates a dying art of game development—pride in one’s work. Driving isn’t even a main part of the game, they could’ve totally cheaped out on it and I would’ve justified it not being the best. But they put in the work, even for a small little thing that many won’t even remember and gave us the best driving that could be experienced in gaming history!