Genre: Racing
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

The back-and-forth scrolling backgrounds in F-Zero are up there with "Super Monaco GP", the "Final Lap" games, or any other number of the best titles in the arcade racing genre: flooded watery areas, scorching deserts, fiery hellscapes, and everything in between. The vehicles are drawn from an absurd number of angles, and it's cool that they were able to fit all of that into the Super NES's memory. The "Mode 7" track is impressive to behold, and the game moves at a rapid pace with no framerate issues at all.

Yumiko Kanki and Naoto Ishida tag-teamed F-Zero's soundtrack, and it almost sounds more like something Sega would have put out during this time period: totally bad-ass bass lines, crazy riffs, even some "guitar" solos which sound like Don Veca's work on the much-later game "Road Rash 3". That moment the "Big Blue" race begins, with the sampled drums and horn, deserves to be as iconic as "E1M1" or the beginning of "OutRun".

In F-Zero, the "B" button works the throttle, while the "A" button triggers a limited-time turbo boost, one of which is acquired after each completed lap. The track designs are ingenious, and reward memorization and practice. There are four selectable vehicles, with varying cornering and acceleration capabilities. Strafing with the "L" and "R" buttons is essential to both improve cornering radius, and to make fine-tuned adjustments.

Everything seen in the two-years'-later "Super Mario Kart" was initially created here. While it lacks two-player and pure time trial modes, F-Zero feels like a finely-tuned machine: the one-button throttle and brake setup, combined with the car physics, is wonderfully balanced. The game records the best times for each track, and it's fun re-playing "GP Mode" over and over to set new records. As a very, very early Super NES game it might feel a little bare bones at times-- but it's a super solid racing game with an incredible aesthetic.