I see that many people who post here seem to be infavour of a good story in their games, sometimes at the expense of gameplay. I think that many (action / racing etc) games neglect a potential source of fun by ONLY providing a storyline mode. There is (for me at least ) lots of fun to be had with "challenge" missions which are a test of the player''s playing skills, such as time-trials for shooting targets. Time challenges to see how quickly the player can complete a level, so that they can replay it trying to shave seconds of their time. Or testing their accuracy. Think of the VR missions in the Metal Gear series or the time trial in Mario Kart.

Games meant to have a story often wouldn''t make sense without it. Take ''A Link to the Past'' - what would be a test of skill in such a game? I can''t think of many action games that would fit really, except for FPS games, and playing online is just as good if not better as a test of skill for those IMO.

For racing games, it should be a given. I''m not into racing games, but if there are any without a time trial mode I''d guess it is because deadlines were being missed and the like rather than the designers not wanting to put it in.

A link to the past time trial: drop a player in a dungeon maze level loaded with spooks and skeletons. How fast can the player do it? To set it up you chose your equipment to go on link and the dungeon level, then a timer starts. Highscores store how many hearts you had on link, what equipment you had, and the time that you made. The dungeons don''t even have to be ones from the game. Just a simple made one full of rooms and doors, similar to the original zelda game dungeons. This would avoid the problem with some dungeons that you have to exit in and out of and find multiple entrances like some of them in a link to the past. Smaller single room time trials could be done to. A room full of bad guys. Clear it out the fastest. The player doesn''t need to know the triforce is stolen by ganon or all the master sword mumbo jumbo in order to go hack apart a ton of skeletons in a room as fast as he can.
Time trial modes should be in every game. Its an olympic event almost. Sure playing online against real humans is a good test of skill, but time trials are a completely different skill being tested. They don''t even have to be just time trials? Ever played Crazy taxy? The crazy box mode is just a large set of skill tests, testing all aspects of the game mechanics to their most extreme. The levels are designed to be insanely difficult to pull off.
Lets look at other skill testing games. Mario Sunshine does it. The modes where you are stripped of your little water backpack guy. They''re all about testing your skill as mario. Time splitters 2 did it. You can set up a kill a ton of guys in so much time mode. The hulk did it. Smash so many guys coming at yea in waves. Endurance modes. Soul Calibre 2 did it with their endurance modes and the weapon master mode. Full of skill tests.
Goldeneye on the N64 hid the feature nicely into the story mode, challenging the player to earn cheats by beating levels in insanely difficult times. The concept has been done alot in the history of games, and its for a reason to. The concept works.

A story is great to have in a game. It helps suspend disbelief. But modes where the game mechanics and gameplay are tested to their limit, challenging the player in new ways, or in a way that he really liked to play in the story mode, IMO is vital to the game being completely replayable. Multiple different modes in which the game challenges the player in many different ways is a nice spice to the overall game experience.