POD

The Good
In POD everything is about speed (on the basic tracks you never had to brake). For a long time this was the fastest and most beautiful game residing on my harddisk (writing about the Glide-Version; the game ran very well on my former P90 with Voodoo1 card; comparing the visual quality between the hardware accelerated version and the sw-version is like talking about two different games) and who cares about realism anyway (I hate simulations :-)).
It was the first racing game I have played where you could leave the main track and search for shortcuts.
The game featured superb multi-player support (including split screen). Maybe not extremly realistic, but predictable car handling (including different cars with different behaviour and the possibility to tweak with their settings) and futuristic to plain weird scenarios.
Everybody who has been repelled by the s/w-versions should give it a second look (preferably Glide and not Direct3D).

The Bad
Only one (although great; about 12 minutes) audio-track. There would have been enough space for more on the CD.

The Bottom Line
Visually stunning and very fast fun-racing game with great playability (even though simulation fans might hate it).