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As we await the glorious return of our favorite racing series (in the form of Burnout Revenge, which you can play for yourself on this month’s disc), our thoughts turn to other great racers of PlayStation history. If you haven’t played these, your racing life is not complete.

ATV Offroad Fury / PS2

Big air, massive open areas, and awesome track design make ATV Offroad Fury an undisputed racing classic. A simple yet rock-solid control set and a repertoire of several dozen tricks are set to a rockin’ soundtrack. But with the obvious exception of Burnout, no racing game matches ATV's ability to deliver a great crash. These aren’t just your standard brush-yourself-off crashes—they’re downright biblical, seemingly projecting you to the end of the world—and way past it—making for a fun ride even when you fail.

Pub. Sony CEA Dev. Rainbow Studios

Burnout 3: Takedown / PS2

Without having reviewed Burnout Revenge, we have to stand by our Game of the Year for 2004 for this essential list. We say there’s no better arcade racer on any system, and if you disagree, there’s something wrong with you. The beauty and speed of this slick game irretrievably spoiled future racing games for us. Just try going back to Gran Turismo after taking a lap in Burnout’s F1 car; you’ll feel like you’re driving a golf cart. And with more races and race types than any three other racers, you just can’t beat the replay value.

Pub. EA Games Dev. Criterion

Gran Turismo 4 / PS2

Some would call the Gran Turismo series the king of kings. Others might call it a snoozefest. But whatever your opinion, there’s no denying that it represents the pinnacle of real-life car culture. What other racing series has actually inspired people to go out and buy a car based on how it performed in a game? There isn’t one, and Gran Turismo 4 continues the trend of racing excellence with an amazing selection of cars, the best tracks in the world (re-created down to the smallest bit of graffiti), and people! Yes, no longer are you in control of driverless phantom cars!

Pub. Sony CEA Dev. Polyphony Digital

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition / PS2

Whereas Burnout and Gran Turismo are heavily in the arcade and simulation camps, respectively, Midnight Club 3 manages to straddle the two. It has the insane speed and somewhat wacky driving mechanics of a Burnout-style game, but it has the customization and physics of a driving simulation. No other game even comes close to having the number of cool things you can do to your car here, and what makes it even cooler is that you genuinely feel like you have a unique ride when you take it online to race against other drivers.

Pub. Rockstar Dev. Rockstar San Diego

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 / PS2

Speeding is fun. Speeding, being chased by cops, and outrunning them is even more fun. Which is why the Hot Pursuit games are the most memorable titles in the Need for Speed series. Hot Pursuit 2 makes no apologies that it’s an arcade racer, but it carries a depth that includes some 49 licensed vehicles on 15 tracks. Car handling is tight as a drum—which is important when half a dozen cops are on your tail and barricades, spike strips, and barrel-hurling helicopters await you down the road. Forget the law—you have a race to win.

Pub. EA Games Dev. Black Box

CTR: Crash Team Racing / PS1

Yes, it’s a cartoony mascot racer. Yes, it’s utterly derivative of Mario Kart. Yes, it’s on a 10-year-old system. But it’s one of the finest-looking games on that system and is still one of the most entertaining party games available, thanks to its riotous four-player splitscreen modes. As with any cart racer, it’s simple to pick up and play, but the elegant drift/jump/boost system adds a layer of complexity and strategy that rewards skilled play. We’re hoping the forthcoming Jak X can top it, but we’re not holding our breath.

Pub. Sony CEA Dev. Naughty Dog

Moto Racer / PS1

We have yet to play a more elegant and accessible motorcycle racing game. Arriving at the dawn of the DualShock, Moto Racer controls like a dream, letting you hit ridiculous speeds with utter confidence in your bike’s maneuverability. Although Moto Racer 2 came out a year later and added a motocross mode and a track editor, in doing so it lost the original’s simple accessibility. Either game will do right by you, but if you put a gun to our heads and forced us to choose one, we’d have to go with the original.

Pub. EA Games Dev. Delphine Software

Rage Racer / PS1

If you need to know how track design can make or break a racing game, you needn’t look any further than Rage Racer. To this day, it has some of the most dynamic track designs of any Ridge Racer game. Since the Ridge Racer series’ awesome drifting mechanics are also a part of the package, Rage Racer instantly became one of the best racing games on the PS1. It’s also one of the best-looking PS1 racing games. Rage Racer even has some customization—which, at the time, was one of the many features that fans of the Ridge Racer series were begging for.

Pub. Namco Dev. Namco

Sled Storm / PS1

Do not confuse this PS1 gem with the inferior PS2 title of the same name. While the PS2 game feels like an attempt to add some snowmobile treads to SSX, the original game is a more serious racer with realistic mountain courses, branching and hidden pathways, a nice assortment of upgradeable snowmobiles, and controls like warm butter. Our biggest complaint is that the game is disappointingly easy to beat, but considering you should be able to find it for around 10 bucks these days, you should get your money’s worth.

Pub. EA Games Dev. EA Canada

Ridge Racer / PSp

All you need to know about Ridge Racer for the PSP is that it features a collection of tracks from every single Ridge Racer game ever made, including the excellent tracks from Rage Racer. That alone makes it one of the best racing games, but it also has some of its own cool features. Namco added a turbo-boost option that you can power up by utilizing drifting techniques. At first, this seems like a feature that has no real place in a game like Ridge Racer, but it fits in seamlessly, making a fun game even better.

Pub. Namco Dev. Namco

HONORABLE MENTION

You’ll notice this list doesn’t include some of the more specialized race genres—NASCAR, F1, and so on. That’s because we wanted to focus on the widely accessible games rather than the niche markets. But if you think we left out a game that every race fan should play, by all means let us know.