Within the last month, some amazing racing games have released. It’s been something of a micro-renaissance. These games — Wreckfest, Danger Zone 2 and Onrush — succeed because they avoid more serious-minded gear-grinding in favour of going fast and crashing loud.

While there’s joy to be had in examining a 1958 Aston Martin DBR1 up close in Forza Motorsport 7, these recent games aim for the platonic idea of cars many of us had as children. Fast, smashy and bright.

Sometimes, you just want to hit the road. Photon Highway takes cues from games such as Audiosurf and Temple Run to create a randomised highway through the stars. It's great for those times you want to sit back and cruise away from life's problems.

Every single time you do a drift in Mario Kart, you charge up a speed boost that unleashes when you exit the drift. But there's a lot more happening under the hood when it comes to this speed boost: How fast it charges, how long it lasts, and whether or not it's actually going to shave any seconds off your final time. That all depends on what kart you choose and which track you're on.

Now that Nintendo has removed the fire hopping advantage from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, there's a different high-level technique players need to master: soft drifting. The only problem? Soft drifting is much harder to pull off in Deluxe than it was in Mario Kart 8.

In my search for the best kart in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I paid almost no attention to the bikes. Neither did any of the build recommendation websites that I cited. That's because a lot of the bikes in Mario Kart 8 didn't used to be viable in competitive play. Turns out, I shouldn't have been so quick to write them off. As of MK8 Deluxe, bikes -- specifically, inside drifting bikes -- have become contenders once more.

You should probably be playing video games on your microwave or doing absolutely anything other than watching it slowly count down while your leftovers are getting nuked.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try and use video games to learn how to operate a manual transmission. After several hours behind a fake steering wheel I've determined I need several more hours behind a fake steering wheel.

"It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile," Dominic Toretto famously said at the beginning of The Fast and the Furious, "Winning's winning." Well let me ask you this, Dom: have you ever played Mario Kart?

Ever since Nintendo made its surprise announcement that Mario Kart 8 was getting a new high-speed difficulty level, excited fans have had one question: what would it do to Mario Kart?

People cutting their teeth online in Mario Kart 8 know this moment all too well. Say you're racing towards the end of the track. You're in second place. Maybe third. Things are still close, close enough that you're not going to give up just yet.