F-Zero X

Forget items, forget adornments. F-Zero X from 1998 is pure, unadulterated adrenaline — thirty racing craft whizzing along futuristic tracks at a speed that makes your knees buckle, all at an unwavering 60 frames per second.

It's that smoothness that is everything here. Nintendo EAD, in collaboration with Amusement Vision, made a bold decision: to sacrifice graphical splendour in favour of perfectly smooth performance. Visually the game is austere, but the resulting sense of dizzying speed and total control of the craft through sharp corners and loops was something without equal on consoles at the time. Thirty rivals on the track also meant a previously unheard-of density of the field.

Unlike related racing games, you'll find no shells or power-ups here. All you have are your reflexes, your knowledge of the track and your nerve. You can spend part of your energy on a turbo boost — except that same energy is also your „health", so every dash for a boost is a risk. There's also the aggressive knocking of rivals off the track, which adds tactical cruelty to the driving.

The game doesn't skimp on content: dozens of ships, several championships and insane tracks with loops, jumps and passages where you drive along the inside of a tube. For players craving a challenge there was also the notorious X Cup with randomly generated tracks and the brutal difficulty of the higher classes, where a single mistake means the end.

F-Zero X remains to this day a benchmark for what a game built purely on the feeling of speed and mastery should look like. For lovers of arcade racing who want nothing but themselves, the wheel and the track without compromise, it's a pure adrenaline drug.

Why play it: Uncompromising speed, 30 ships and a rock-solid 60 fps — pure racing essence for those who want no excuses, only reflexes.