I was a big fan of the original Need For Speed for the same reason, the driving over large scenery levels was the whole point. The technology wasn’t quite there yet but I have fond memories of the first game on PC.

I mostly got it back with Test Drive Unlimited, which featured an entire drivable island (Hawaii I believe?) and you could free roam as much as you wanted between races. One of the races was of course an entire tour of the island and took one hour (and it was not that easy), it was awesome! TDU2 was total garbage, they forgot about the driving, the model was broken.

Recently Forza Horizon 3 recaptured that feeling perfectly, free roaming around Australia. It is easily the best game of the series. The newer entries were less interesting since they turned the game into a FOMO fest (lots of timed weekly exclusives and no game ending). Still, I am looking very much forward to FH6 to roam around Japan, but considering the locale I don’t think we will be able to skip the tuning scene this time.