When Codemasters announced its intention to make a racing game based on a popular line of toy cars, the project sounded like a cynical ploy to make a quick pile of cash. In fact, the game originally began life under the iffy title of California Buggy Boys before the Micro Machines branding was applied. Despite Codemasters’ reputation for cheap-and-cheerful budget games for home computers, Micro Machines proved to become one of the most playable racing games available for the Nintendo Entertainment System when it made its debut in 1990.

Playing to the humble NES’s meagre hardware, Micro Machines was a simple, top-down racer where tiny toy cars zipped across such everyday landscapes as a breakfast table or a garden. Fast and highly addictive, the Micro Machines games really came to life when played against human opponents, and the brilliant Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament for the Sega Megadrive offered a hugely entertaining four player mode.

4. Burnout 3: Takedown – PlayStation 2

The Burnout series arguably reached its zenith with this third entry, where the elements established in the first two games – the boost bar, which rewarded reckless driving with a pulse-quickening burst of extra speed, and the spectacular crashes when said reckless driving inevitably went awry – were honed into a game of pure racing perfection. Brilliantly designed courses through built up cities and twisting country roads served as the backdrop to some of the most rewarding, addictive driving thrills yet achieved on a console. There’s nothing quite like driving along the wrong lane of a highway, the oncoming traffic skidding to avoid you, until your boost bar fills and you’re propelled forward into the screen past your opponents.