These games were incredibly impressive actually. I guess many of you reading this were not born yet when this title came out, but the systems were so weak compared to todays systems, and yet the game managed to feel smooth and quick.
All these abstraction layers we have today may make it much quicker and easier to make a game, but its truly impressive to read about these guys who handcoded assembly to make these games shine. It wasnt just a game to these guys, it must have been a passion to create it.