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Back in 1985, Sega released a game called Outrun, which used their latest super-scalar technology to deliver fast, smooth semi-3D graphics and a great gameplay experience. After a lot of success in the arcades, it was ported to Sega's most successful console, the Megadrive (Genesis in the U.S.) where it gained even more praise. During the following years, Sega established themselves as the leaders in the arcade racing genre, producing titles like Sega Rally, Daytona USA, Sega Touring Car and Scud Race in the arcades, which all pushed the boundaries of 3D graphics at the time. However, after the failure of the Saturn, things began to go downhill, and it's been quite a while since they produced a racing game of such calibre... possibly until now. It's only fitting that it's the sequel to the game that started it all off, almost 20 years ago.
Anyway, sorry for the history lesson - you probably want to know whether this game is going to be any good! Well, first of all, this is no Burnout 3. I mean, the concept may sound similar - street racing, with traffic trying to get in your way - but this time you can hit another car and bounce clean off. At its most basic form this title does not try to do anything new - it's aim is simply to deliver the same, pure arcade racing experience that was so popular during the late 90's, just with better graphics.
For those who remember the original game, the sequel stays pretty close to its roots. There's only one 'track' in OutRun 2, but it's split into many stages that are all inter-connected to form a tree structure. Basically, you start on one stage, and at the end you get to a fork in the road where you can choose left or right. Which way you go determines which stage you face next, and also the difficulty level. This continues until you pass five stages and then complete the game, but the real replay value comes from taking the paths you haven't chosen before, and completing all 15 stages. The game's difficulty is taken from the arcade racers of old - it's basically a race against the clock, with your timer increased every time you hit a checkpoint at the end of each stage. There's also traffic on the roads, but this is really just there to distract you and slow you down.
All of this basic functionality has been perfectly preserved in the Xbox version, including zero load times between stages. When you play the game, it will seem like one massive track, since you just drive straight from one stage onto the next with no pause (although the background change does give it away a bit...). A load of cool additions are also evident, including full online play via Xbox Live and a load of extra challenges to increase the game's length after the arcade mode has been completed. Some of the challenges you can participate in range from performing special tasks to impress the lovely lady riding in the car with you to overtaking a certain number of cars without hitting them. Really, these sound like pretty simple add-ons, much like the mini-games in Crazy Taxi, but with a multiplayer mode in which each player tries to gain the highest score across several of these challenges, it could turn OutRun 2 into more of a party game.
As you'd expect from a game written on the Xbox's equivalent arcade hardware, the graphics are nigh-on identical. All the nice light effects and reflections on the car have been preserved, and run at a super-smooth 60 frames per second. The handling is also the same, which should please fans of the drifting style found in the original. Another nod to the 1985 version appears in the music, which consists of remakes of the original tracks, including the famous (or is that infamous?) Magical Sound Shower. These should send owners of the Megadrive game into a nostalgic trip down memory lane, but those who missed out back then will probably be wondering what all the fuss is about, since they haven't aged all that well compared to modern game music.
Overall, OutRun 2 is going to be a pure arcade racing experience, which should please a great deal of people in this age where Gran Turismo games are so unbelievably common. It's no coincidence that Criterion, the creators of the Burnout games, bought their own OutRun 2 arcade cabinet before developing Burnout 3. They realised that this game captures the essence of the old arcade racers, and wanted to grab a piece of that for their latest title - they probably didn't know about the Xbox conversion though...
We'll have more news on OutRun 2 and hopefully a full review a bit closer to its release in late October, so be sure to check back!
Marc Hull
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