Drifting around corners, gliding between traffic and reaching the next stage with seconds to spare feels every bit as good as its 1984 brother. Coast to Coast improves on OutRun 2 by adding routes across America to the classic courses, and the horrible-sounding “Heart Attack” mode, combined with the “OutRun miles” system of unlocking extras, keeps this an engaging single player experience.

I’ve intentionally included this much higher than the original OutRun, even though I said in my first post that only the top twenty are in sequential order. OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast takes all the best elements of the original and updates them; from the cars’ handling to the classic European-flavoured routes, it’s an extremely faithful sequel. The new music isn’t quite so consistent in its quality, but Shiny World stands out as an extremely strong track with a brilliant bassline and a lead guitar line to make your ears explode. That’s to say nothing of the stellar remixes by Richard Jacques, which take the Latino essence of the originals and infuse them with a Euro dance-stroke-carnival euphoria that’s infectious enough to start a conga at a moment’s notice. If you’ve ever seen Mr Jacques play Magical Sound Shower live, you’ll appreciate the dexterity and complexity of these reworkings.

Did I already mention there are rumours of OutRun Online in development by Sega and THQ? Let’s hope Sumo can muscle in there as well!

Each level in Comix Zone is based on an issue of Sketch’s comic, divided into frames along the way. Not just a gimmick, it serves as the game’s strongest asset, as enemies are drawn, erased and smashed through paper boundaries along the way. It almost goes without saying that the game has a great art style, with long-limbed characters and nicely drawn backgrounds, but it’s worth noting that it perfectly suits the game’s style and all moves beautifully.

The fighting itself is better than your average scrolling fighter, with plenty of moves at Sketch’s disposal, from spin kicks to uppercuts, and there’s also a wide range of inventory items, including a page-shredding superhero and Sketch’s pet rat, Roadkill. The little rodent proves invaluable when it comes to revealing secrets hidden within frames and has a nice little electricity attack when called on.

I can’t think of much bad to say about Comix Zone. The music is a little on the rough side – the Mega Drive just wasn’t supposed to do rock – and a two-player mode would have gone down well, but ultimately it’s a great fusion of graphics and gameplay to create a truly unique fighter.

If you’ve never played AfterBurner, it essentially set the template for huge numbers of shoot ‘em ups that followed – the Panzer Dragoon series in particular borrows heavily. Piloting your F-14 Tomcats, you obliterate all approaching enemies with your vulcans and lock-on missiles. It’s completely gratifying, and the evading enemy fire with a barrel roll is one of the most satisfying shoot ‘em up moments. AM2’s output in the 1980s produced some of the arcade’s finest titles, and AfterBurner sits proudly with the best.

It seems like a recipe for surefire commercial (if not critical) success – take the world’s best-selling consoles, mix it with the game world’s most recognisable characters, the Olympic licence and release it around Christmas. Luckily it was also a huge word-of-mouth success, as its accessible take on track and field entertained everyone who played it, and it sold out countless times in the run-up to Christmas. It’s had long-standing sales though, rarely (if ever - I forget!) dipping out of the all-formats top ten, and with the real Olympics I’m sure its sales will see another boost pretty soon.

Enough of its success though – it is actually a good game, at its best in the multiplayer events that combine plenty of frantic Remote shaking with skilful timing. There’s plenty to unlock as well, from extra standard events to the “Dream Events” that mix athletics with game elements such as Green Shells and Super Sneakers. For such a casual game there’s plenty of depth to it, and even if you haven’t got three friends you can still get plenty of life by challenging the scores on the online leaderboards.

There are rumours of a second Mario and Sonic Olympics to be released around this Christmas, and in all honesty I can’t think of too much they could introduce to improve it. Online multiplayer, more characters and events and Wii Balance Board support would be welcome additions, but the original is a truly classic sports game that will still be as enjoyable ten years on.

Crazy Taxi’s impact diminished somewhat with each sequel, but that’s likely because the original is as close to playability perfection as can be. The sheer joy of leaping over those first three hills is on a par with any arcade moment you could mention, and the sheer scale of the map gives you endless choice with routes and customers in search of that elusive Crazy ranking.

The second game in the series adds a Crazy Jump that, while fun, maybe makes the game a little easy. Having said that, the Mini Golf-based Crazy Box game is absolutely stupendous - you speed up to a giant golf ball, fling your cab into the air and try to send the ball as far as possible. Like all the best Crazy Box games, it’s simple, built around a few skills and is unbelievably addictive.

The home versions have added various minigames, and the PSP’s Fare Wars even adds two-player gameplay, but for sheer fun you can’t beat those solo three minutes in San Francisco.