This is the best implementation of mid-00's aesthetic - that mix of gritty, earthy, dark greens/blues/oranges and steel-neon cities out of a frutiger aero background. It whizzes by at 700 MPH, and it feels like it. It goes for pseudo-realism and it still looks good two decades later. How does it do it? The story mode is balls-disgusting hard, but with such quick hooks objectives and ever-teasing, escalating difficulties - you can't get through that door? that one boulder is gonna make you stop playing? - it dangles the carrot so well. Great fuckin soundtrack, and there's more than one person I know who got into electronic or ambient music from this. The characters are so distinctly goofy sci-fi, and they don't need to be there or fleshed out like they are, yet they are! And then there's the astronomically-high skill ceiling that's fun to watch, and fun to just graze every now and then with an absolutely perfect slide or snake before you absolutely eat shit off the track like Icarus. Anyone of any skill level can at least enjoy it.

I've been trying to stick all my five star rated games with some kinda commentary, but what is there to add here? Go play it! It speaks for itself. It's so effortlessly cool, such a tightly built game with grand feel, few flaws, and zero friction between it and its experience - just a raw test of skill, and people still keep pushing its limits year by year.