Racing has been a gaming staple since practically Pong (1974's Gran Track 10, to be exact) and both helped popularize multiplayer in higher-end arcades (where gamers could compete against each other side-by-side in replica cars) and pioneered 3D gaming by appearing to drive directly into the screen rather than side-scrolling.

But at certain point, aside from growing ever more realistic, the racing genre started, well, going in circles.

Lately, though, there's been a while host of new racers which have given the genre a much-needed fuel injection.

Split/Second
(MultiPlatform)
Disney Interactive's go-to racing studio Black Rock made a splash with last year's off-roader Pure, and have followed-up that trick-friendly quad-bike game with the genre-pushing Split/Second, an arcade-style game set in the world of reality-TV where racers traverse a booby-trapped, built-for-television town. They can blow-up buildings, drop bombs, collapse bridges and even make airplanes crash in hopes of gaining an edge of opponents by destroying their cars and changing the course. Essentially, S/S takes the  gleeful, anything-can-happen combat of a Mario Kart-style racer and welds it to a crisply realistic now-gen simulator to add depth to the driving mechanics and then amps it all up to summer action movie levels to create the most explosive racer since Burnout. Works for me since the genre needed to be turned (literally) upside down.

Art Style: Light Trax
(Wii)
Nintendo's "Art Style" WiiWare (and DSiWare) line likely turn off some gamers by mere virtue of using the word art. But these ultra-designed yet minimalist titles -- think of them as the Louis Ghost Chair of gaming -- are as wonderfully fun as they are sleekly beautiful. Light Trax keeps that streak alive with a racing game inspired by Tron's light-cycle scenes, in that you play a streak of white light racing against coloured streaks of light. The perspective shifts between 2D and 3D and though there's no need for steering -- speed is achieved by hitting the slipstream of the beam beyond you -- its not as simple as you'd think. There's no multiplayer, but it does boast an amazing techno soundtrack and an addictive racing experience like no other. 

ModNation Racers
(PS3)
Sony took the cutesy DIY aesthetic of their landmark LittleBigPlanet and applied it to a Mario Kart-style game to create the first 2.0 racer. ModNation Racers offers a fully customizable experience, from designing your own avatar and building your own car to creating your own unique tracks with simple-to-use editing tools. By allowing shared user-generated content, MNR has an almost unlimited source of new tracks that vastly and deeply increase the gameplay and develop a community. All told, it's a cheeky, self-aware game confident in what it's bringing to the racetrack. 

Blur
(Xbox 360)
Created by Bizarre, the good folks behind the popular Project Gotham Racing series, Blur sticks is perhaps the most traditional of the bunch, but it's fast-paced enough to pull ahead on a crowded track. It's an arcade-style combat racer game which combines a realistic look (complete with real-world track locales from San Fran and LA to Barcelona) with cartoonish (and yes, Mario Kart-ish) power-ups and combat items to add a stratgic and explosive element. It's beautiful, quick and boasts a 20-car multiplayer (or four-player local split-screen), but Blur also incorporates social networking and customizable multiplayer modes. It's hardcore, but not beholden to, y'know, reality because what's the fun in that?