The Greatest Motor Racing Career Mode Ever: Release Date 1st December 2019

Before I start, you may be one of those people that hate football (just to be clear, soccer, yep, not afraid to say it), the first part of this prolongued thought in my head that I've decided to write down involves it, I do apologise, but I do like it, football I mean. Not for the overpaid players, not for the constant diving, but it's a sport, and i'm sure there are flaws in your favouite sport too that I'm not gonna bother investigating at a half-arsed level.

I dont normally want to play the yearly reincarnations of the FIFA [insert last two digits of year number here] game, but there's a new mode on this latest not-yet-released edition of the game called "The Journey", unlike your standard "be a pro" modes in the sport game of your choice, be it NFL or F1, there's a plot.

You are a 17 year old trialist, who has been invited to take part in some practice matches and training routines, along with your friend, whom you have been teen-long friends with long before start of the game as participants in an under-11s match in a football fluent region of London, flash-forwarded to the FA Academy of Football along with a group of 30 or so future-pros. Your aim is to perform well, interact with certain members of the training facility, be they youth coaches, agents, or even spoilt wannabes like a potential "villain of the piece" who turns up having just signed a professional contract in a flashy car blagging his mouth off before his feet have done any of the talking. If you do perform well, you're given the choice to play for any of the 19 Premier League teams in England, plus that Welsh one that's allowed in, somehow.

Once you're at (for instance, Liverpool, I'm sure Charlie Hart would want to pick West Ham) you're training, you're getting picked to start in pre-season games, you get the choice to say all the right things in front of the camera for TV, social media begins to fall in love with what you do, and you're on the subs bench for the first game of the League season, your career is not only taking off, it looks like it's not gonna crash, until two things happen...

...your best mate, the one who has been in this Hamilton and Rosberg like "Best Mates" situation since that under-lls game, starts to become distant, as if he's envious of how much better you are playing the game of football, begins to steal your thunder, I'm beginning to realise as i type this how much the plot has similarities to the first Tony Hawks Underground game (that was so damn good at the time) where you're doing all the tricks but your friend becomes your enemy. The other thing that happens is that Harry Kane becomes the latest big-money signing (a real actual footballer from real actual Tottenham Hotspur, no really, thats their name, they're one of the many million of football teams in London, no, there's not a London Football Team, you know what, google "Football teams in London" there, why am I typing, you do some research!), and because your mate "Fits the Coach's style of play" better than you do, despite your stunning Marcus Rashford x 10 debut, you are phased out of the team (I'm assuming this will happen no matter what, because i want to play it and I haven't found out yet), but despite this situation your character finds himself in, which has happened to millions of players since the dawn of the professional game, your manager wants you to go out on loan...

...wait a minute there was a point to this, ah yes! Finally something fresh from Fifa (fufhufuhefufhfuhh) no "your name here", "design your face", "pick your team", "ok, be a pro, go!", someone different, someone that actually speaks, talking to other people that also speak, almost like an adventure game, where people respond given the right attitude in the questions, or the responses you give, there may not be walking involved, but a lot of running, and kicking...

I want this, but not just in a football game, surely a racing game can give you the same kind of "mode", if not a whole game.

TOCA(/Pro/DTM/V8Supercars) Race Driver kind of started this off, at a basic career-mode level, going from the BTCC via the DTM and the V8s, all the way up to a World Championship, your character is an American, but that didn't stop you from doing laps in Astras, Vipers, Falcons, etc. and learning the ways of the racing force.

Another game that tried to emulate the character-based racing driver sub-woofer genre was R:Racing Evolution, a game that stems from Ridge Racer (hence the R then the colon), but instead of the glamorous array of polygons being of the grid-girl on the covers of every Ridge Racer based game since its inception, she's an ambulance driver that impresses a crew-cheif by driving her ambulance fast, and then deciding to give you (her) a chance as a racing driver, the theme is similar to TOCA Race Driver but the only difference (I can recall) is the ability to "psych out" your opponents by simply staying behind them until they fell apart at the seams and decided to crash (I cannot remember much of this game but i think that trick worked every time, even on the most pantomime of villains in your opponents in the finale).

Apart from those two, that's it! Race Driver became a career mode from your perspective, the only characters were those that talked to you before and after the races, not forgetting your Scottish engineer, or the agent, not any responses to give, no decisions to be made, except when it went to a different screen, or when it went to a race. Maybe the world wasn't ready/bothered about being someone else, or maybe I'm wrong, maybe FIFA '17s "The Journey" will spark other EA titles into doing their versions, Madden NFL for instance, not just the 32 franchises but also the college game, your guy developing into a pro via a few years at Notre Dame, 123rd pick in the 2019 NFL draft, and then instant hero being the MVP in the 2022 Superbowl at Wembley (or China, I dont know, maybe).

Codemasters' F1 2016 kinda hints at something, it still gives the TOCA Race Driver Esque Agents and Engineers, but your guy is essentially YOU, not someone with a voice, with their own ambitions, or an opportunity to cast your ambitions through their tale of rising to fame through either adversity or just being really damn good at driving a racing car.

For Instance:

F1 2019

PLOT: 16 Year old Scott Wisner spotted by a friend of a friend of [insert f1 team cheif here] while powersliding a kart around Buckmore Park in the rain, he decides to become your agent and pulls a few strings, suddenly you're on the grid for the first round of the GP3 championship at Catalunya, you take control as the lights go out (with race commentary from the guys that do the regular work on the sky f1 channel), your engineer giving you pointers, your targets are set, you achieve them, you get attention, a lot of sponsors, you're gonna need them, you're gonna need to keep them happy in order for them to give you more money to go racing, not only on the track, but off it, you have to say the right things to them, to the cameras, even to your team-mates, they may not all agree with you, more targets are set, maybe some odd ones here or there, but your goal is a GP2 seat, maybe even the title "GP3 champion" would help, or not, you could have a sponsor's cheque or two in your back pocket for the new season, and a more difficult, but faster challenge awaits you, dare you take this money to one of the less competitive F1 teams usually on the back row of the grid? but with that comes the social media stigma "you're a pay driver, you dont belong in f1" that hacks at you distracting you from your persuit of a decent F1 seat, unless you actually pull some decent results off and silence the televisionside critics, suddenly a representative of Force India shows up in your inbox, "Nico Hulkenburg has had a big crash, he's ok but we need a replacement for the British Grand Prix", do you take up the offer, do you want to see yourself qualifying P12 for the start at Silverstone three seasons into Scott Wisner's career mode, managing to achieve a spectacular 3rd place finish standing in champagne soaked overalls talking to Mark Webber / David Coulthard / Martin Brundle / Eddie Jordan in front of a packed Parc Ferme > Pit Lane > Tarmac > Run off area > Grandstand saying how "this was for the team" / "I deserved this, I have arrived", or do you wait in GP2 for something better to come along later?

We're a long way away from something as inspiring as "the journey" (if not more in depth) in a racing game, but I cannot help thinking about it.

Here are a few other ideas, it doesn't have to be in F1 (Disclaimer, these aren't actually happening, these are just dreams):

Race Driver 4: BTCC

Based on the entire package that gets seen on ITV4 of a Sunday afternoon, you work your way through the support categories, Ash Sutton style, into the main event, we've been dying for a BTCC game that they still wont deliver.

NASCAR: The Next American Hero

Having watched the Last American Hero, and Tron: Legacy, I'm sure it would be inspiring to see Jeff Bridges playing an older version of Junior Jackson as a mentor to either his grandson (much like the grandfather of the main character in FIFA's "The Journey"), or an up and coming speedway prodigy through the ARCA series, Camping World Trucks, XFinity Series, and then the Sprint Cup.

Papyrus Presents: Grand Prix

There's going to be a film theme with these next two, much like the Junior Jackson story in stock cars, we're all aware of Grand Prix Legends, but what if you interlaced the 1960s grand prix scene with the characters from the James Garner film? (Now i can see the social media interaction thing not happening with this one )

Le Mans: A Life in Racing

How dare i? How dare i take the Steve McQueen film and run it through the computer? maybe not in the era, but maybe modernised, I wrote about how a modernised version of the old film wouldn't work, but would it be so bad if Michael Delaney's relative was involved as an Audi driver, not just at Le Mans but throughout the entire WEC calendar, maybe even a few Audi backed endurance races here and there, social media buzzing between the races "@RacingFan wrote: Hey @HoltDelaneyAudi, I found a picture of your granddad, why is he flicking the v to someone?" Interviews with John Hindhaugh here or there.

Forrest Evers: Grand Prix (or maybe a more inspiring title)

This one may need explaining, unless you've read the book "Formula One" by Bob Judd (maybe the game can be called that? ), it is set in the late 80s era of Grand Prix racing, which may be difficult to replicate. It may not be convincing at first, but given a bit of work could be something, if its possible to introduce "Team Arundel" ,Forrest Evers' team where most of the characters in the book come from, into the current grid of F1, maybe even the bizarre 1986-1989 hybrid season that this book circulates around.

Forrest Evers is racing driver entering the twilight of his time in F1, a race winner but never champion, slowly starting to get fed up of where he is, but then things start to get crazy, he becomes a victim, he crashes the car but he doesn't realise it, as the story gathers pace Forrest realises he's being sabotaged, but how? It takes a lot of difficult convincing at first, the team decide to sack him, amid race fixing allegations, after he crashes for the third race running on the same exact lap as the previous races, but when his replacement is killed in the next race on the same lap, there are major concerns.

There may be a bit more to this theoretical game than just doing laps in an F1 car (late 80s or modern), there might have to be some LA noire style investigating by Forrest, maybe even some Quick Time Event based action scenes, maybe even some gta style fisticuffs. But I doubt the current F1 licencing would agree to it, and if it were to be attempted, an entire fictional grand prix grid never works...maybe if...

Wipeout 3019

It always amazed me how in-depth the characters were in the instruction manual of the first Wipeout game, also the plot on the Wipeout: Fusion website, so detailed, and yet, the game was just...a game...hovering vehicles doing laps. There's no real teams, no real drivers, anything is possible, add the ideas of interaction between drivers, engineers, agents, sponsors, fans, and you've got one hell of a Wipeout sequel to add to the franchise, all it has to do is play well, there are no simulation details to worry about. Game on!

Here endeth my gibberish, feel free to throw in a few ideas, good racing everyone