- Soul Calibur. I don’t like fighting games, but Soul Calibur is amazing.
- Rez - Music, visuals and gameplay combined in a beautiful way.
- Test Drive Le Mans 24 Hours - Introduced me to the Le Mans race. So good. I never did do the real time 24 hour race, but me and my friends always fantasized about doing it one day.
- Sega GT - Unlike Gran Turismo, you could actually build your own cars. It had the license tests from GT, they had sponsors you could win, like McDonalds, Penzoil, and internet providers that have since gone out of business. They would sponsor your career and give you extra money. Such a great game. Unfortunately they had a terrible 3rd person camera. This is the game that forced me and my friends to start racing in 1st person and then after Sega GT, we couldn’t race in 3rd person again.
- Metropolis Street Racer - The beginning of an amazing series, the latest entry was Forza Horizon 2. I think this one had San Francisco, New York and London? Gosh, it’s been so long, I can’t remember. One annoying feature: the time of day was based on when you played. So when I got home from work and started playing every night, New York and San Francisco were always night courses, because it was dark there by the time I got home. I finally had to start messing with the Dreamcast system clock to race during the day.
- Vanishing Point - Another racing game on the console of racing games.
- Typing of the Dead - So cheesy and so funny, and so much fun to type.
- Jet Set Radio - I hated doing the graffiti, and getting on top of places. The fixed that in the sequel. But the original was still great.
- Shenmue - I loved the potential more than the actual game. A real place with realistic people walking around as you went around and asked people where you could find some sailors.
- F355 Challenge - This is the hardcore racing game that introduced us to tracks like Suzuka that I’d be seeing for years to come as a racing game fan. There was only one car in the game, the F355. The game was all about racing well in that one car against opponents using that same car.
Honorary Mention: Armada. I loved playing it for 60-75 minutes, but after that initial starting area, I could never figure out where to go and what to do. I must have been overlooking something obvious, but could never figure it out.
Honorary Mention 2: Ecco - about a dolphin with super powers. Very different. Eventually I got stuck not knowing what to do next. This was the days when I didn’t go to the internet to find answers when I got stuck, I tried to figure it out, and if I couldn’t, I moved on.