Test Drive Off-Road 2.
So I grew up playing Test Drive 5 a lot and was quite a fan of the game as a kid. That said, I noticed inside the case, it showed the cover of Test Drive Off-Road 2, which depicted a yellow Hummer driving through a river and kicking up water. Okay, not only did I love Hummers as a kid, but the simple idea of going offroad, being able to drive through a flowing river was something that fascinated me back then (heck, it still does
) and the fact it was Test Drive was another. At a young age, I really wanted the game and a lot of wild fantasies as to what it would be like and thought it would be fantastic, but I didn't have an easy way to get it for a long time and never saw it anywhere.
Fast forward to 2015, many years later, I finally found it in a game store for like $2 and some change. While I was happy to find it, I didn't get my hopes up too high because I had gotten some games I wanted as a kid, namely 007 Racing and Twisted Metal 2, and ended up not caring too much for them. I didn't necessarily think it was going to be bad, it's just I had got older and I deemed a lot of what I had expected it to be as a kid as unrealistic expectations based games I had gotten in the past and didn't think it would be as good as I originally anticipated.
I was so wrong. The game was every bit as good I had originally anticipated as a kid, perhaps even better and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Theirs a lot I could say, but the vehicle selection was interesting and had ones I had never heard of. The tracks were a total blast to drive on, especially since driving through water was required on some of them. The AI was not as absurdly overpowered as Test Drive 5 and actually felt beatable, unlike the others I played. So, not only did it live up to my childhood expectations, but it exceeded them! So much so, it completely overtook Test Drive 5 as my favorite Test Drive game even with nostalgia included. It's easily the 2nd best PS1 game I have ever bought and is somewhere in my top 5 list of games I bought in the 2010s. Years later, I still find myself wanting to play it at random times rather often and it's become a staple of my PS1 library now.