An old-school 2D racer, developed and published for the Super Nintendo by a British company (Gremlin Graphics), way back in 1995.

Top Gear 3000 is a futuristic race game with tracks set on various different planets, with you driving fairly standard-looking sports cars.

What makes the game so good are the different split-screen modes – not only do you have two-player split-screen, but this was also one of the first SNES games to feature four-player split-screen (with the aid of a Multitap – a device that increased the number of gamepad ports). And – having had the pleasure of playing this four-player, with three other human opponents – I can confirm that Top Gear 3000 in four-player mode is superb fun. The tiny play window doesn’t really matter when you’re sucked into the race.

Top Gear 3000 is the third (and final) game in the Top Gear series, and definitely the best. In fact: it’s one of the best 2D racers around. Give it a spin if you can find a copy.

Note: in Japan Top Gear 3000 was released under the slightly awkward title of: “The Planet’s Champ TG 3000“. My guess is that we have Japanese publisher KEMCO to blame for that. It’s a terrible name.

More: Top Gear 3000 on Wikipedia