^^I love this game too. I was surprised how fun it could be :)

Competing for high scores, even just locally, was a blast :D

41. Mario Kart: Double Dash, GC (2003) Nintendo (last year 39)
In this case, the lack of online play was a double-edged sword. Yes, you couldn't play online, but that also shielded you from the horrors of Snaking if none of your irl friends engaged in that deplorable practice. Mario Kart DS failed to make the list this year precisely because of snaking. Double Dash is an objectively better game than Mario Kart 64, which lands further up the list due to nostalgia, and should be remembered for its character-specific items which helped vary up the gameplay.

40: this game was the second time that its publisher introduced a character explicitly called "Dark ______," although it was the second time for that franchise that an evil clone of the protagonist was used.

My #41, as guessed by Pezus, is Shadow of the Colossus. I bought this soon after I purchased my PS2, because it was cheap and it had great reviews. So glad I did. It's a breathtaking, heartbreaking, melancholy modern classic. Unlike many action-adventure games, Colossus eschews high-powered graphics, complicated control schemes, and huge inventories, and instead focuses on mood, atmosphere, and emotion. This is a must-play game.

So 41 was Tomb Raider 2. 40 is another game from the series earlier on the list; this time the 2nd installment.

Bit Trip Runner?

Close, but that's the 4th installment of that series!

OoT?

Introduced. I'm counting Dark Link as the same character between games, i guess. What was the next Nintendo game to introduce someone explicitly called "Dark?"

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes?

This one's right. Dark Samus who came after Dark Link (excluding Shadow Mario as Shadow), but not counting the SA-X, the first evil(ish) Samus clone.

And then, of course, we had Dark Pit (Pittoo)