Statistics have shown that there is a rapidly growing trend towards the demand of free online driving games to play today. Driving games are nothing new and they have indeed been around for many years, the first of which was widely regarded as Gran Trak 10, originally released by Atari way back 1974. Gran Track 10 was based around an overhead driving view of the race track and due to the computing limitations of the time it ran on very low resolution, chunky with white on black graphics. The object of this pioneering driving game was simple and straightforward, you had to beat the clock. The next driving game to become a hit was Night Racer, which was developed by Micronectics a few years later. Night Racer pushed the gaming envelope of the time by offering a 3 dimensional driving style, though as the technology was still very limited the actual course was marked out by simple small columns alone and the graphics again were provided in basic black and white format. As with Gran Track the object of the driving game was to improve your lap times and beat the clock.



Five or six years later driving games began to enter a more competitive dimension and this was thanks in part to Namco with the launch of the well known driving game, Pole Position. Pole Position allowed players to race against other track cars for the first time and it took driving games to a new level by improving the graphics, scrolling and the ability to drive real circuit layouts, in color! A few years later, around 1986, driving games really starting to hot up with the likes of Out Run, a game that put you in the seat of some of the worlds best sports cars whilst combing great graphics with realistic, albeit arcade style, adrenalin fueled game play.

Free online driving games were, however, were a much later addition to the gaming family tree. Early online racing games were playable but cumbersome, not pleasing to eye and slow to load, a real step backwards. It was not until the creation of a complete new web application, namely Flash, introduced by Macromedia in 1996 that things really started to get interesting again. Flash was a ground breaking tool which allowed for much higher end graphics, animation and interactivity to be added to web pages, elements that lend themselves particularly well to online driving games.

The rest we should say at this time is history and free online driving games rapidly became what they are today, faster loading, quick playing with visual graphics becoming in some instances inseparable from the more expensive PC or console based games. A great number of driving game styles can now be found and be played on the internet, with common titles that include car racing, truck driving games, 4x4 rallying, parking test games, boat skippering, on and off road motorbike racing and monster truck games and due to the advent and recent development of online advertising it looks like free driving games will be hear in many shapes and forms for many years to come.