Originally hyped up as the Dreamcast’s Gran Turismo beater, when Metropolis Street Racer eventually surfaced it became clear it was nothing of the sort, and is all the better for it: you won’t find Sega GT on this list.

To use the game’s slightly cheesy tagline, it’s not about how fast you drive, it’s about how you drive fast, and as the first game to measure performance outside laptimes and race rankings it deserves its praise. Its Kudos system, where players are rewarded not only for winning races but doing so in style with power slides and slick overtakes, was a true step forward. More importantly, however, you’re only as good as your last race – if you return to a previously completed circuit and perform worse, your Kudos diminishes. You can even set higher goals for yourself – want to give your opponent a thirty-second headstart? Think you can win in an underpowered car, or keep your average speed above 100mph? This kind of player-led gameplay is a true innovation and extends the gameplay almost infinitely – you determine how you want to be challenged and then measure up to your own standards.

On top of this, MSR is accurately modelled on real-life cities – you’ll recognise the landmarks in San Francisco, Tokyo and London as you race along the three different districts in each city in hundreds of course variants. The game also uses real time to calculate the appropriate timezone, so Tokyo’s in full swing as the sun sets in San Francisco, and there’s mist, rain and downpours to contend with, both features Bizarre Creations have only just put back into Project Gotham Racing 4.

Equally important to MSR‘s brilliance is the soundtrack, all created by serial Sega Top 50 namedrop Richard Jacques (did I mention I met him once?). Each city has three radio stations playing distinctly different styles, from country to MOR rock and J-pop to jazz. Real-life presenters announce the songs, give “shout outs” and read sponsored links, adverts for real products (Tango’s being the best) feature and there’s even interference if you drive under a tunnel. That’s to say nothing of the quality of the songs themselves, which hit all the right marks in each genre whilst being highly enjoyable in their own right. Hearing I Can Still Believe at GameCity in 2006 was a highlight, and in its original form here it’s still a wonderful pop song.

I’m not a racing fan at all, but all it takes is a few laps with the Dreamcast wheel to realise it’s as fresh, enjoyable and important as when it was released those years ago. With Project Gotham now out of Bizarre’s hands, I wonder if we could see the MSR name resurrected.

That iconic title screen; the refreshing emphasis on pace, not precision; smashing through walls. There are so many hundreds of reasons why Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the greatest games of all time by any company, but you simply cannot extricate him from the modern day Sega we all know and love.

As fondly as we all think of Alex Kidd, he was never going to be a more recognisable mascot than Mario, particularly as his games were nowhere near as good (sorry, Alex – I appreciate you coming out of retirement for Sega Superstars Tennis, though). Enter Sonic and Sega’s whole position changed from under siege to undefeatable, creating a phenomenon that blew Europe and America away.

I could give a rich analysis of Sonic and everything he started in 1991, but it wouldn’t be anything you hadn’t read before, so here’s my account of why he’s so important to me.

The first time I saw Sonic the Hedgehog was at my brother’s new flat. As a family we’d always had computers – Atari STs, VIC 20s and so on – and this was my very first time playing on a video games console. I couldn’t believe it looked so advanced, with all the parallax scrolling and background animation, not to mention the speed. I don’t think I was very good at it, but my brother showed me the now-famous level select cheat and warped to the Final Zone. I was a mixture of jealous and terrified, I think.

After that I really, really wanted a Mega Drive, but at the time they were still quite expensive, so my parents compromised and bought me a Master System. I didn’t mind at all, as long as I got to play Sonic, and I have to say it’s a tough call for me to decide between the Mega Drive and Master System versions of the first game. The Master System holds so many good memories for me, and I spent hours and hours finding Chaos Emeralds and special stages, and the music and design still warms my heart. Having defeated the boss of Jungle Zone once, I leapt across a gap to finish the level and actually died, probably the only time someone has completed a level and then snuffed it. “Doing a Jungle Zone” is still a popular insult with my brother.

It goes without saying that Sonic is a fantastic game, and it is here on merit, but to me it’s so much more: it is a memory of times I can’t enjoy any more. I really fell in love with Sonic the Hedgehog, more so on Master System than Mega Drive. To me it was the start of a new passion without limits, and if my parents hadn’t bought me that Master System with Sonic the Hedgehog built in, I’m certain I would have turned out completely differently, which sounds dramatic but I’m convinced is true. I’m sure when most people look back at branching moments in their lives they think of jobs they didn’t get, lovers who left them and so on, but in my young life I can trace this James Newton all the way back to that day I first played Sonic the Hedgehog. I wouldn’t change that for anything.

Merry Christmas!

Possibly the King of puzzle games. ChuChu Rocket combines reactions and strategy to create the ultimate game of cat and mouse. Like every great puzzle game, its simplicity is its strength – use arrows to guide your mice into rockets, avoiding the cats and holes.

It was also the first ever online console game in Europe (Sega having already been first in America and Japan with the Saturn!) with frantic four-player arrow-placing aplenty. Even offline there’s much skulduggery to be had, with Kapu Kapu terrorising your opponents’ rockets and devouring whole strings of mice headed towards the safety of the Moon. Refreshingly there’s also a co-operative mode that lets you rebuild some of that broken trust.

The GameBoy Advance version was perfectly suited to the format, despite the loss of online play. Compensating for it however were 5,000 puzzles created by players from all over the world, although to solve them all would need a MENSA-level IQ and a life sentence. There’s also a cat and mouse sprite editor that lets you create your own characters, which I’m sure led to many ChuChu Rockets around the world becoming KnobKnob Rocket. I used mine to lead Sonics away from Robotniks, of course.

When the DS was announced, Sega revealed that Nintendo had specifically requested a touch screen version of ChuChu Rocket, which is why I’m so amazed it hasn’t happened yet, nearly four years down the line. It’s perfectly suited to the handheld – online play, a touch screen interface to place arrows and with double screens you could even do two-player on a single machine. If not a DS version, surely Xbox Live Arcade would give these little mice a good home? I know you’re reading, Sega!

What? A novelty demo ranking in above OutRun, Crazy Taxi and any one of a hundred Sega classics? Yes, actually. I know it’s short, but considering it’s more NiGHTS, it’s a wonder it isn’t positioned higher.

The joy of Christmas NiGHTS is revealed slowly over the course of a few months. It uses the Saturn’s internal clock to initiate different events – on April 1^st you can play as Reala instead of NiGHTS, for example. The real beauty, however, starts in November: the title screen reads “Winter NiGHTS”, and there’s a soft covering of snow on Spring Valley. From December, all the characters start to dress in Christmas-themed outfits (see the image above right), and wreaths, bells, Christmas trees and more all appear in the game’s levels. It’s odd to draw a comparison between NiGHTS and Animal Crossing, but it’s always good to point out that Sega came up with an idea first. After finishing the boss, you get to play a card-matching game that reveals presents, from rendered artwork to sound tests and more. Some games offer these as standard now of course, but for a game as beautifully crafted as NiGHTS to show itself off is always a joy. There are some less welcome presents, mind – I’d be happy never seeing the promotional videos again.

I could list all the presents and why they’re so great – Sonic fights a Puffy Robotnik! Dreams Dreams Karaoke! – but really, if I could be slightly cheesy a second, the whole game is a present. Yuji Naka was inspired to make it when he saw the extra content Christmas Lemmings offered, and his gift was given away in various forms – pack-in deals, send-off promotions, and in the UK a covermount on Sega Saturn Magazine. Obviously serving a dual purpose as a reward for fans and an introduction for NiGHTS virgins, it was a good piece of marketing all around, and the sort of treat we don’t see enough of.

I’m disappointed there wasn’t more use of the Wii’s internal clock in NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, which you might be surprised to discover hasn’t made it into this countdown. For a long while Christmas NiGHTS was as much a part of my Christmas preparation as presents and carols; I remember the first time I played on Christmas Eve and kept noticing a strange object whizzing around in the background. After evading me several times I managed to pause the game and saw a miniature Santa Claus and reindeer dashing around Nightopia. You cannot imagine how much this made me grin, and for that alone it’s worthy of a place in my top twenty.

I could easily have used Columns 3, with its vicious 5-player modes, or Columns Crown for its Flash Columns puzzles, but the original ate more of my hours than is perhaps wise to admit, so gets my nod of shame.

Columns’ greatest quality is its hypnotism. The ancient-sounding music combines with the glowing gems to create an atmosphere that switches between relaxing and frantic. Play long enough and you get “Columns Eye”, where it becomes possible to see through the screen and move the gems as if with the power of your mind. It lingers too – if I worked in a jewellers, all you’d have to do is whistle Atropos and it would be carnage. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen three similar items – three grooves in a wooden bathroom panel spring to mind -and thought "they’d disappear if I lined them up."

I can’t write too much about Columns, because surely everybody knows what it is by now. Sega seem more interested in pushing Puyo Pop on us these days, when really they have far greater puzzle games in their history, Columns and ChuChu Rocket in particular. Columns might be thought of as the poor man’s Tetris, but it’s every bit as rich.