Played as part of CONQUERING MY CHILDHOOD

The first thing you'll notice when you play this game is that the physics have a complete mind of their own - you'll bounce straight off kerbs, clip underneath other cars or slide straight up the side of them, and a lone lamppost will send your 160mph supercar into a double backflip ending with you upside-down and facing backwards, all at the whims of the game. Physics this bad should cause a game like this to be dead on arrival, but I've had a lot of fun with it in spite of that!

Part of the wonky physics also work to the game's benefit - in particular, handbrake turns are disgustingly sharp and responsive and let you snap around corners in a way that I haven't seen in anything not called Crazy Taxi. Past the physics, the game has a lot of charm and cute little details that show that the devs had a good time making it, and I also like the more freeform structure of the game - the closest thing to a "story" mode is a kind of short thing that doubles as a weird tutorial, and the progression is focused on unlocking cars and skins - though that might be in part because I've been juggling a lot of longer games at the same time.

Also worth mentioning that this game has a pretty extensive modding scene - it made me aware of the idea of mods when I was like 6, and I was surprised to see that it's still (somewhat) alive today. Just a cool side note.