Crowning Moments of Awesome

[Amake]

Oddly enough, what springs to mind for me is mostly racing games. Breaking the sound barrier in Extreme G (the future-motorcycle racer with the missiles and lasers for N64), whereupon the track takes on an unreal, hypnotic quality of absolutely shocking sense of speed. Swooping up and down the hills of Wipeout 2097 in tune with the music, which is Firestarter by Prodigy. Firing a green shell in a moment of strange spatial clarity, downing my rival an inch from the finish line from like 70 yards away and just barely making it past him in Super Mario Kart.

And then there's any given moment behind the wheel of the faster cars in Burnout Dominator, where it seems like you're riding a missile flying in a trajectory only incidentally parallel to the ground, tangentially touching it rather than relying on a firm grip on it to maintain speed.

I don't even particularly like racing games.

On a distantly related note, it occurs to me the Burnout games lack a vital feature from SMK: Characters. You want instinctively recognizable opponents, with individual cars, gimmicks and driving styles. There's something wrong with a game based on the idea of pursuing a personal vendetta with your opponents and their primarily distinguishing feature is that they have a red arrow over their head.