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This Xbox launch title did something radical: instead of following preset race tracks, you could pick any line down a whole mountain. The gimmick was fame—impress photographers and film crews, land sponsorships, and become a media sensation. Plus, the hard drive let you load your own music onto the console, a showstopper feature in 2001.
The Nintendo 64's launch-day counterweight to Super Mario 64: a flight sim that asked you to slow down. Hang glider, rocket belt, gyrocopter — drift through rings, snap photographs of the scenery, stick the landing. For a lot of households it was the second cartridge in the drawer, and secretly the most peaceful thing in the house.
The game that showed the world what 3D could be. Super Mario 64 launched the Nintendo 64 by dropping Mario into an open, explorable castle, and its analog-stick control and swooping camera quietly wrote the rulebook every 3D platformer would follow.