Mario Kart 64

Four friends, one screen split into quarters and a final round in the Block Fort arena — if you grew up in the nineties, you probably know exactly what's being talked about. Mario Kart 64 from 1997 brought crazy kart racing into three dimensions and became one of the definitive reasons to buy a Nintendo 64.

Against the sixteen-bit original, the game from Nintendo EAD made a fundamental leap: the tracks were now genuinely three-dimensional, full of hills, drops, bridges and shortcuts. The classic driving formula with thrown shells, banana peels and the dreaded blue shell remained, but the new dimension added depth and the chance to drift through corners for dear life. And then there's Rainbow Road — a rainbow track set in space that became one of the most iconic racetracks in video game history.

The true heart of the game, though, is the multiplayer. The ability to play with four people on a single screen made it a party legend. The battle mode, where you chase each other with balloons in arenas like the aforementioned Block Fort, is to this day among the most fondly remembered multiplayer experiences of its time — the shouting, the betrayal of your best friend just before the finish and the instant rematches became a ritual.

The game also introduced elements the series carries to this day: the characters' distinctive voices, a set of proven items and the notion of tracks as small thematic experiences. The controls were nimble, accessible to newcomers, yet with enough depth for those who wanted to polish the ideal racing line and shortcuts.

Mario Kart 64 is among the best-selling and most-played titles of the whole console and did much to establish „mario kart" as a concept in its own right. Many still claim that this very instalment has the best atmosphere for local battle — no online, no excuses, just you and three enraged fellow players in one room.

Why play it: The founder of 3D kart racing and the eternal king of party multiplayer — Rainbow Road and Block Fort are immortal.