9. Sonic The Hedgehog Super Shoes
Sonic the Hedgehog is a fast little guy most of the time, and the music that accompanies him running through the Green Hill Zone is almost as familiar to our ears as the blue blur of his spikes is to our eyes. But Sonic isn't just fast, sometimes he's really fast. With the addition of a pair of super-speed sneakers (and who didn't have them on their Christmas lists from the ages of 4 to 17?) Sonic would step it up a gear and hustle through the level at such velocity that it was all you could do to bite your lip, silently pray, and hope that you'd make him jump at just the right time to keep him away from Robofish, pits of spikes or worse. And when you bust open that little grey tele-crate with the picture of the red, white-striped trainers on the front of it, and the little victory noise rang out, it wasn't just your feet that picked up speed. The music stepped up the game too, the familiar theme tune gradually getting faster and faster as you ran and span and jumped and whisked past the star-topped continue-post in a whirl of blue and sparkling magic.