25 PlayStation Games You Must Play Before You're 25

17. Crash Team Racing

Cultural consensus be damned, I'm saying Crash Team Racing absolutely destroys Mario Kart in every respect. Hell, it took Nintendo's flagship racer until its eighth instalment to introduce a speed that CTR had been showing off since 1999.

Yes, really.

The feel of the karts and array of characters are perfect, but it's the level design where Naughty Dog applied their mastery of 3D platforming to racetracks and obstacle courses. Secret levels and passageways abound as just the right amount of chicanes are balanced with blisteringly fast straights and home-stretches ripe for overtaking.

I really can't recommend CTR enough. It gets mentioned alongside Mario Kart and occasionally Sonic All-Stars, but the Orange Marsupial's first vehicular outing is truly the finest of them all.