The Games That PlayStation Never Knew
Appreciating gaming gems from beyond the PlayStation universe
Buying a PlayStation in the mid-nineties was absolutely the right decision for me. I'm certain of this, despite coming incredibly close to switching to the Sega Saturn at the last minute.
The console's grey design, the sound of closing the lid, and that startup chime were central to my childhood. It brought me the cinematic stealth gameplay of Metal Gear Solid, the high-speed futuristic racing and electronic music of WipEout, the stylish drifting of Ridge Racer Type 4, and countless other games too.
These gaming memories were just as important to me as camping with friends, winning the dance-off at the school disco, or that feeling of standing up to the neighborhood bully. But even though I loved my PlayStation and the games that came with it, I felt like I was missing something.
Not all the time, just some of the time.
Of course, I knew about other consoles and would sometimes flip through different gaming magazines at the store. Just casual browsing—there was nothing wrong with looking, after all, right? I mean, how could you overlook games like Panzer Dragoon and Goldeneye 007?
Fortunately, I experienced these games firsthand since not all my friends owned PlayStations. Some had N64s and Saturns instead, which gave me the perfect chance to dive in and try them out.
My mate, let's call him "Saturn Steve," was a die-hard Sega fan, so I got precious controller time with his console. And, in a move that felt like a top-secret Cold War prisoner exchange, I even traded my precious PlayStation for a school friend's N64 for one glorious, whirlwind week.
Just a week. But it was enough to plant the seeds. Still, my heart, and my main gaming hours, belonged to Sony.
But despite those fleeting glimpses, some games always felt just out of reach. I'd catch them looping silently on a Saturn or N64 demo pod in Dixons — tempting, but off-limits.
Part of me always wondered what I was missing out on.
Games beyond the PlayStation ecosystem existed, and I genuinely wanted to experience more of them. Choice is just a part of life, after all. With that in mind, here are five games—the ghosts of gaming past.
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1. Sega Rally Championship (Sega Saturn)
This one hit hard, probably because I was so deep into the PlayStation racing scene. Don’t get me wrong, the PlayStation had the racing game genre fairly locked down, but Sega Rally is just a wonderfully free flowing experience.
Like most my experience with Sega Rally was in the arcade. Outside of Virtua Racing, it was the best racer I’d experienced in the arcade—only surpassed by it’s sequel, Sega Rally Championship 2.
“My goodness, you can play this on the Saturn? And it more or less looks the same,” I’d say to myself.
While I was mastering the power-slides around the fictional, neon-drenched city streets of Ridge Racer or meticulously tuning gear ratios in Gran Turismo, folks on the Saturn were doing something that felt more instantly gratifying. Thanks to Saturn Steve, I got to experience it firsthand, huddled around his TV, the roar of the Lancia Delta filling his bedroom.
“This is just like the arcade,” I’d say to Steve, hoping to come across as sincere and not entirely bitter.
Sega Rally just looked and felt raw in a way PlayStation racers, for all their gloss, initially weren't. Computer and Video Games magazine showed screenshots with cars looking like they were caked in grime, kicking up plumes of authentic-looking dust. The car genuinely seemed to glide over the track, but demanding constant correction.
I don’t think it was a particularly difficult game, forgiving really. But there was a grit to it, a tangible physicality that I wouldn’t really find on my PlayStation until Colin McRae Rally came along much later. And while Colin McRae Rally was (and still is) an exceptional game, it didn’t have the same unparalleled feeling of kissing an apex just right in Sega Rally.
Watching it run in an arcade, gripping that chunky steering wheel, or getting those precious sessions at Steve’s, it felt almost illicit. Like I was cheating on Namco and Polyphony Digital with this rugged, untamed beast from Sega. The roar of those engines, the co-driver's pace notes—it was intoxicating, and I always left wanting more.
Sega Rally epitomized the 90s arcade racer. Dare I say even more so than Ridge Racer?
2. Nights into Dreams... (Sega Saturn)
I genuinely didn’t know what NiGHTS was when I first saw it in magazines—only that it looked utterly, captivatingly magical. The screenshots were ethereal, filled with impossible geometry and vibrant colors that seemed to bleed off the page.
PlayStation, for all its strengths, didn’t really have anything like it. The closest I think of is, at least aesthetically, is Pandemonium. Though that wasn’t exclusive to the PlayStation and could be found on the Saturn as well.
My friend Steve had the game, and seeing it at his house was a revelation. Trying to figure out that strange analog controller (the "3D Control Pad"), I realized this was completely unique. There was no other action game quite like this one, with its dreamlike acrobatics wrapped in Saturn's distinctive surreal style.
No other game had an androgynous purple character named NiGHTS, spinning and soaring through obstacle courses that looked like they were made of cotton candy and pure imagination. It was impossible to categorize.
Before my usual session at Steve’s, I’d pour over previews, trying to decipher what it actually played like.
But even after playing it, it was hard to explain—"you fly through rings," "you collect Ideya," "it’s about the feeling." And that vagueness, that almost mystical quality, just made me want to understand it, to own it, even more.
Even now, I’m still not entirely sure if I missed out on a timeless classic or a beautifully bizarre, glorious mess by not having it on tap.
3. Wave Race 64 (Nintendo 64)
This one stung, pure and simple, because it just looked so incredibly fun. And thanks to that legendary "Console Exchange Week," I got to confirm my suspicions.
Jet skis. Bouncing across shimmering, beautifully rendered water, carving tight turns around buoys, launching off ramps with a joyful splash. It was a concept so simple, yet executed with such apparent Nintendo polish that it was instantly addictive during my brief N64 tenure.
Sure, PlayStation had jet ski games too, eventually. Jet Moto comes to mind. But nothing I saw on my PlayStation ever looked as fluid or felt as satisfying as Wave Race 64 did during that week.
The PlayStation was notoriously bad at replicating H20.
But the N64? It wasn't just a flat blue texture; it heaved, it reflected, it reacted. The way the jet skis bobbed and cut through it, the satisfying thwack as they hit a wave, the cheerful announcer – it was a little slice of summer in cartridge form, and giving that N64 back felt like ending a holiday early.
A genuinely delightful game that brings pure joy whenever it graces my screen. And Kazumi Totaka's soundtrack? It's every bit as perfectly suited to its game as the electronic music is to the Wipeout series.
4. Pilotwings 64 (Nintendo 64)
Here was another N64 title that, much like Wave Race, felt more like a delightful virtual holiday than a high-stakes video game—something I also got to sample during "The Great N64 Swap." And that was precisely its charm.
I began to notice that Nintendo games possessed a completely relaxed atmosphere that I hadn't yet discovered on PlayStation. Those types of games certainly existed on Sony's console—I've written them before—but Nintendo just seemed to have mastered that particular feeling.
Pilotwings 64 wasn’t trying to be edgy. It wasn’t trying to be cool or gritty. It was simply, joyfully, letting you fly. Letting you hang glide over picturesque islands, strap on a rocket belt for some aerial acrobatics, or gently parachute down to a target.
It was about exploration and the simple pleasure of movement in a 3D space, a genuine breath of fresh air. It just felt so wonderfully calm.
There was a serene, almost zen-like vibe to it, a quality I wouldn’t come to truly appreciate in games until much later in life. Back then, neck-deep in the attitude-laden 90s, I thought I needed constant chaos. Turns out, a part of me was probably craving the exact opposite—and Pilotwings 64 was already offering that peaceful escape way back in 1996.
5. Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)
Alright, let’s not pretend. Let’s be brutally honest with ourselves. This is the one.
The one we all glimpsed over our magazine pages. The one that made us stop dead in the game store. The one that, during that brief, magical week of N64 trading, completely blew me away. This trio of games I managed to spend time with genuinely felt next-generation, but Mario 64 more so.
This was especially striking considering that many PlayStation titles still had me feeling like the 32-bit era was just getting started. But we all know how quickly technology advances.
No matter how many fantastic 3D platformers the PlayStation eventually got —and it got some absolute belters—nothing, nothing, quite touched the revolutionary impact of Super Mario 64 at the time.
It didn't just feel like a game; it felt like a glimpse into the future. That sprawling, secret-filled castle serving as a hub world? The sheer, unadulterated joy and freedom of moving Mario in full, glorious 3D with that newfangled analog stick? It felt limitless. Actually playing it was transformative.
I spent so much time looking for all the stars. At no point did this ever feel like a chore, especially as my brother would occasionally pop in to offer a hand too. A rare moment shared by two brothers who were distant from one another not by geography but age and aspirations.
PlayStation had the brilliant Crash Bandicoot. And I loved Crash. But Mario 64 was a different beast entirely. It was a paradigm shift. And every single moment of that week I spent with it, leaping, triple-jumping, and "Woo-hoo!"-ing my way through those vibrant, inventive worlds—I knew I was experiencing something that would be talked about for years to come.
It made returning the N64 the hardest part of the deal.
Looking back, I don’t feel cheated. Not at all. My PlayStation was my faithful companion. Even after that illicit N64 week and those fun Saturn sessions at Steve's, I always came eagerly back to my PlayStation.
It was home.
It had its own distinct, groundbreaking magic that the others couldn't replicate either—the birth of cinematic gaming, the CD-quality soundtracks, those sprawling JRPGs. Metal Gear Solid. My gaming childhood was rich and wonderful.
But these five? They’re more than just unplayed or briefly-played games. They’re a reminder. A reminder that no matter how fantastic your chosen console is, there’s always something incredible, something alluring, happening just out of reach on a different piece of plastic and silicon.
And you know what?
That constant sense of "what else is out there?", the playground debates, the magazine rivalries, the sheer variety blossoming across different platforms—even the desperate measures like a week-long console swap—that was kind of what made that whole era so incredibly exciting.
The grass wasn't always greener permanently, but it was definitely fun to visit the other side of the fence. And ultimately, it always made me appreciate my PlayStation even more when I came back.
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Maybe one day. Too many gen 7 games to play first before I start going that far back
Enjoyed this! I was a PC kid but very envious of my N64 owning friends. For me it was the 4 person, split screen living room Goldeneye deathmatches that made me really feel I was missing out.
Interestingly, I had PlayStation and N64 friends, no one I knew owned a Saturn. It's only relatively recently I've been trying out some of it's library. Definitely agree with the raw fun of Sega Rally Championship.