There are a few games that stick out in my mind as far as pure excellence is concerned and for me anyway, racing games have never really been my favorite, especially full of shit ones like Mario Cart where the people you pass magically warp to be right behind you even if you have been driving flawlessly.
F-Zero, despite only having 4 vehicles and 15 tracks managed to stay interesting for a very long time
The graphics look a bit silly these days but back in 1990 this sort of pseudo 3-d was truly breathtaking. The fast paced gameplay didn't slow down as the game apparently was designed perfectly with the processing capabilities of the Super Nintendo in mind.
The 4 vehicles varied in capabilities such as how much damage they could take, acceleration, and top speed. I chose the green vehicle just because I liked the look of it best. It was a pretty well-rounded unit that could take a decent amount of damage as well.
The driver was known as "Wild Goose" and no, I don't remember why.
At this point in time we had been exposed to a number of racing games but F-Zero took the pace to a higher level. Also, the music in-game was pretty intense and the difficulty settings were actually nicely spread out. Medium wasn't 20 times as difficult as easy, for example.
This was also the first game that I recall playing where mastering the "drift mechanics" were very necessary to victory. Cutting corners extremely close could mean victory but of course this was very risky because of you flubbed it just a little bit, you would find yourself in last place.
Future installments of F-Zero would see graphical improvements and a massive amount of new vehicles to choose from but for me at least, nothing could compare to the original. I actually feel as though the later games on Gamecube had way too much happening on the screen at one time and the new 3-D technologies implemented made the game a bit of a mess and therefore not near as much fun.
This came out during the prime-time of my gaming life and I spent many hours hanging out with friends trying to get the top times. As far as racing games go, this might actually be my favorite racing game of all time. It is ranked by many publications as being one of the top 100 games ever made.
You can download the ROM for free here if you want a bit of a blast from the past. Good grief. it's really been 30 years hasn't it?