i’ve got some balls is awesome. especially because it was a free game!
i didn’t like the crashday demo very much.
also i disagree about the controls on sunrise. i dunno i guess i just really like the way the car handles in nations, and how it moves on the track fairly realistically, like you can’t take corners to sharp or anything. i’ve found myself having more problems controlling the cars in sunrise – i end up oversteering more often than not and having to make minor corrections all the time (on my digital gamepad) and it’s hard to go in a straight line off jumps and stuff. mostly on the SUV car but also on the fast car and the rally car to some extent.
i would say that buying a psp is ALMOST worth it just for gripshift alone. maybe you should wait a while and get a used psp real cheap in about 5-10 years 
and… since you liked ballance, let me suggest one more game … “best friends”
http://www.download-free-games.com/arcade_…bestfriends.htm
… man i love games like this!!
let me also suggest trickstyle
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/trickst…tyle/index.html
it was OK, i played it quite a bit, a little more trick oriented than i would have liked but still definitely a solid game
oh shit also, i almost forgot if you wanna check out some older games in dosbox…
http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/skyroads/ skyroads, great stuff
also, alpha waves
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?nam…ame=Alpha+Waves
edit: ok i will throw in one more, powerslide
http://pc.ign.com/objects/003/003124.html
on the surface, it’s a dirt track racing type of game, but if you look at it a little differently you can get a lot of enjoyment out of this – basically my friend and i turned this game into an “urban exploration simulator” … by taking the cars on parts of the track that you’re not really designed to go, climbing up mountains and on top of buildings and stuff… you get a sense of accomplishment when you set a goal for yourself and then you spend an hour trying to do it and you finally achieve it… … for example, in multiplayer mode there is a “stunts” level with some ramps and stuff, there is this quarter pipe on the side of a building where if you go up it fast enough, you jump about 200 feet into the air, and you are right next to the top of this building… but there is no way to get on top of the building… EXCEPT… if you have a friend sitting on top of another building 1000 feet away … and shoot a fireball at the EXACT right time, hitting your friend and boosting him on top of the building. me and my friend spent hours and hours perfecting this technique until we were finally able to get on top of this building. what did we see? the end of the world and another building to jump onto, and a great view down… nothing spectacular, but awesome when you realize it’s somewhere you’re not supposed to go
[/nerdy rant]
all of these games require precision and timing, similar skills to what trackmania requires, just in slightly different applications. 
back me up io 
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