These nutjobs are driving at nearly 500km/h on a racetrack in the sky, plummeting to their deaths with a single slip-up. This was the vision the game wanted to sell me, but I didn’t bite until I reached Master difficulty.

At that point the game expected nearly flawless driving and a pinch of good luck. Maneuvering through tricky courses already feels like threading a needle. Add to that managing boost, dodging slow back-markers, hoping the AI plays nice, and praying an explosive car doesn’t stall right in front of you on the last lap. The rubber-banding is practically holding you at gunpoint, ensuring that you’ll lose position as soon as you mess up.

Sure, it has a serious lack of content, but it’s so fun and thrilling to return to that it doesn’t really bother me. The tracks and music are incredibly memorable, the difficulty is still there after hundreds of runs, and there’s always a story of upsetting defeat and narrow victory emerging from the unpredictable situations it puts you in. Gonna be replaying this one for a long time.