OutRun 2

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JaySevenZero
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OutRun 2

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for OutRun 2 for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
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Iain[Ian]Ianson
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by Iain[Ian]Ianson »

For my very particular tastes, this is the last truly great racing game ever made. Virtua Racing, Daytona, Ridge Racer, Sega Rally being the others that came before.

I’m probably overstating it, but descending into, and drifting through just the right corner in this game, gives me about as much joy as entire songs, paintings, book-chapters or movie scenes that I’ve experienced.

Graphics, audio and gameplay in 100% perfect balance, in 5 to 10 second bursts, repeated tens of times in a single play session.
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TomFum
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by TomFum »

What can i say about Outrun2, This game is perfection personified. it IS the best driving game ever made imo. When this game out in the arcades i was there as often as possible getting my name up on the score board. Then as soon as i heard it was coming to xbox i got one and bought the game. I was amazing having the arcade version in my home. The Graphics, Music, everything about this game is just fun. Driving my fav ferrari with Jennifer by my side as i speed and drift through the courses, just amazing. The later releases of C2C and Online Arcade were alot easier than the original OR2 and i never got to play the Ps2 release of SP as it was japan only and now days commands a huge price, i will buy it at some point

I managed to make friends with Stephen Lycett from Sumo and used to race with him often, as well as the legends in the UK Outrun scene F40 and Noobsaibot.I became quite the player and i still time trial this game now along with many others in the Outrun Discord, Most of them world record holders, im not there yet lol

I have multiple copys of OR2, a first limited edition japanese xbox copy which cost me an arm and a leg, a Lindbergh and Chihiro copy and of course my signed xbox C2C copy that Richard Jacques Signed for me awhile back ( i dunno if Leon remembers that day) as well as PC, PS2 and PSP versions.

Im not great with words, you guys will sum this up probably better than i can but all i can say is i love Outrun2 its a perfect 10 out of 10 game, its a game that will stay with me forever. Thank You Sega and Sumo
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Workyticket
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by Workyticket »

Despite being a big Sega fan in the late 80s and 90s, for some reason I'd never heard of OutRun 2 until I found a copy of the original Xbox version. Any hype around the game had clearly passed me by, so playing it was a wonderful surprise.

The original OutRun, while never my favourite Sega game, was still a huge part of my early teens, the coin-op and Master System versions getting a ton of play. While OR2 immediately impressed with the graphical upgrades, it was the drifting mechanic that took the game to a new level. It gave the gameplay a new sense of flow, transforming corners from oft-frustrating momentum-stoppers to engines of even more fun.

After years of uninspired official/unofficial/semi-official sequels to OutRun (I'm looking at you, US Gold), here was an entry that legitimately improved on the classic. What's more, it would get even better with subsequent versions. OR2 is not only one of the best arcade racers of all time, but one of the best sequels also.
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Alex79
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by Alex79 »

Does Outrun 2006: Coast To Coast on the PSP count for this one?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by ratsoalbion »

Of course.
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AndrewElmore
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by AndrewElmore »

I have had the tab to this forum page open in my browser for almost a year as I try to figure out how to put my feelings on OutRun 2 and its antecedents into words. It can be an oddly intimidating collection of games to talk about in a formal context! A conversational setting is one thing, but committing written words about a game like this has proved a daunting task for me. So I'm just going to open the ol' brain valve, and let flow what may. I do hope this comes out with any kind of coherence, and I apologize sincerely if it does not! Here goes . . . Something. I hope.

The original OutRun is such a monumental work that it hardly needs an introduction in social circles such as this, digitally or otherwise. The very idea of being tasked with following that up is exponentially more intimidating to me than the idea of writing this comment, so I have to applaud Sumo Digital for even stepping up and cracking their knuckles to tackle a project like this in the first place. It's quite commendable, I think. Luckily, Sumo is an immensely talented studio, and as such they roundly knocked this one out of the proverbial park, I'd say. Or rather, shot a goal from midfield, as it were--I have to remember what podcast this is for, after all.

The original Xbox was quite a life-altering device for me, in that Halo directly influenced my career path. But it was Sega's resounding adoption of the platform as a relative Dreamcast successor that really elevated my excitement about the artistry of video games. Everything from the long-forgotten Sega Soccer Slam, to the more enduring cult classics like GunValkyrie, Sega GT Online, and Jet Set Radio Future were hugely impactful on my budding desire to enter game development myself one day. Suddenly the possibility space (so to speak) was widened beyond what my then-much-younger mind could have conceived of. But we're here to talk about one of those games in particular, so I'll get back to the point. OutRun 2 is an Xbox game, through and through. Developed for Sega's Chihiro arcade board, which is essentially an Xbox with a staggering 128mb of RAM (which can be achieved on retail Xboxes through modification), the home port was magnificent. Arcades had largely dwindled in the States by the early 2000s, relegated to the handful of larger locations that became travel attractions of their own. So to my great dismay, I've yet to encounter an OutRun 2 cabinet in person. Failing that, I've played the wheels off it on Xbox, and I've always had a wonderful time with it. The game is a magnificent wonder to behold on the right display, whether on a CRT or forced up to 480p on an OLED. The sky is an impossibly rich blue, the bright red Ferrari pops off the asphalt and out of the TV, and all of it blazes across the screen at a blistering sixty frames per second. It simply looks and feels like an arcade game in the absolute purest sense. The immortal soul of Sega has rarely been so elegantly crystallized. The game feels wonderful; sliding around corners and weaving in and out of traffic is just sublime. I love the way the game hides loads in those transitional highways, it feels like I'm entering a liminal road between space and time, traversing from one cartoonish approximation of a themed world to another. It's delightful. But even the loveliest gems have their flaws. OutRun 2 carries the era's tradition of baffling portrayals of women. There's really no getting around it, the game is inherently sexist in a way that I find very embarrassing. It's by no means a deal breaker, but it is rather silly and crass. Though given the output of some of its peers at the time, it certainly could have been much worse. My other issue with the game is, oddly enough, with the music. OutRun's music is legendary, and while these new tracks certainly fit the mood with their beachy city pop-influenced fusion arrangements, I just feel like the mixes and tonality are . . . off, somehow. The game's aesthetic certainly demands a thick layer of cheese, but it might just be a slightly-less-than-ideal type of cheese for the job. This metaphor has gotten away from me. There's just something a bit thin about OutRun 2's music. The compositions are good, but I often feel like it's just a bit afraid of commitment is all.

As for its sequels and the like, OutRun 2006 appears to be by all accounts an excellent expansion of OutRun 2. Unfortunately, the Xbox release received a very short print run and has become quite hard to come by, with PAL copies fetching upwards of $200USD, and American copies indeed now climbing up towards $500USD. It's a tragedy, really. Even the PS2 port is well into triple digits now as collectors slowly decide en masse to "settle" on a slightly less ideal port. So my only experience with the game is from brief stints of "faffing about" (did I use that correctly?) in emulators, which doesn't quite feel like the experience I'm necessarily looking for. As an avid PSP sicko, I do have that version of 2006, however! And I can confirm that, although it's an impressive conversion to be sure, the unlocked framerate drops so low so often as to give me motion sickness, which is something I've only very rarely encountered in games outside of the occasional venture into VR. I'm told it runs much better on the Vita, whatever that's worth, but I haven't tried it for myself as of yet so I can't confirm. There's also OutRun 2 SP, a Japan-only expansion that only appeared on the PS2 that adds a great deal of content. It's also become tragically unattainable, but our mutual friend John Linneman has a copy and is all too happy to sing its praises, so I'm sure it's great! My last note of consideration on the topic is that of OutRun Online Arcade, a game that was tragically delisted along with its Sega Rally and Afterburner companions on the 360 and PS3 some years ago. The good news is, the PlayStation 3 is remarkably easy to jailbreak these days, allowing these games to live again! I did this to my spare PS3 slim that I picked up for a song at a thrift store (sorry, "charity shop") some years ago, with the intent of using it as a region-free blu-ray player, seeing as the UK gets all the good boutique releases of classic Hong Kong cinema and the like. But I soon found out that it's quite a trivial task to load it up with lost and delisted games on there that are unattainable otherwise. Though with the recent massive developments in PS3 emulation on the PC, I'd wager it's worth giving OutRun Online Arcade a shot there if you've got the means! Speaking of which, Xbox emulation has come a very long way as well. That might be an easier route to take!

To sum it all up, I love OutRun 2 in all its flavors. It's a wonderful game. An exercise in simplicity, honed to the finest point that it likely ever could have been. I would love to see it return to modern platforms soon for the sake of accessibility and public consciousness, but any time there are real-world external licenses involved, that water becomes, unfortunately, quite murky. The game is a shotgun blast to the face of vibrant colors and sounds and feelings. To play OutRun 2 is to take the experience what it means to live, stuff it in a carbonated can, shake it up, and spike it on the ground, exploding everywhere. To play OutRun 2 is to heighten the sense of existence itself--all of life's joys and idiosyncrasies big and small--and compress them into a bag of "crisps", for just a few moments of bliss. To play OutRun 2 is to briefly inhabit the dream of a hyper-real world that exists entirely for your momentary leisure at neck-snapping speeds. To play Outrun 2 is to live harder than you've ever lived before, even if only for half an hour or so.

Three word review: Bluer, Bluest Skies
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AndrewElmore
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by AndrewElmore »

^^ wow that's quite long, even for me. I'm so, so sorry! it's a game that inspires Big Feelings. ^_^
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Alex79
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Re: 594: OutRun 2 series

Post by Alex79 »

Outrun 2 represents perhaps the pinnacle of arcade racing games to me. Whilst not as iconic as it's predecessor, the game is arguably more interesting and fun to play with its deeper driving mechanics, higher sense of speed and various different modes.

I first played Outrun 2 back on the OG Xbox, but the version I've spent the most time with is Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast on the PSP, which has never been uninstalled from my Vita since the day I added it. Even now the game looks and handles great, and it's a game I come back to time and time again.

A few years back we were in a seaside arcade and I spotted an Outrun 2 cabinet, which was a real surprise given the fact most of those places are now overrun with those awful ticket machine games. I made the most of it and had a good few goes, but I'm never very good when sat behind an arcade wheel and pedals for some reason - I'll take a controller over those any day of the week!

Outrun 2, along with the original Sega Rally, is the driving game I most wish could be made available on modern systems. I can only assume that licensing issues are holding both games back, so fingers crossed that one day we finally see a proper Outrun 3.
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Scrustle
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Re: OutRun 2

Post by Scrustle »

Another good episode, and also the second (somewhat) recent episode of the show on an old racing game franchise that I recently dabbled in myself. The other being Ridge Racer. I decided that I didn’t really have enough to say about either to make a contribution to the show, but after hearing this one there were a few things I wanted to chip in with.

I first played this game via the Xbox 360 version way back in the day. At the time I think I was aware what OutRun was, but I wasn’t especially familiar and I don’t think I knew that was a port of the arcade version until after playing it. I liked it but never played it that much and just kind of forgot about it over the years. Although I have made sure it’s installed on my console ever since the looming closure of the 360 XBL marketplace started to become a concern.

But a lot more recently I played Coast 2 Coast via PCSX2, and although I also didn’t play it for especially long, I did enjoy it quite a bit. The vibes are strong, and the handling feels great, although a bit weird to get used to with its very arcadey and somewhat unintuitive drifting. But of course that exaggerated behaviour is part of the appeal too. I tried to play as much as I could of the Sumo created career mode under the idea that’s what I should go for if I wanted a way clear something and call the game “complete” that was a bit more substantial than simply getting to the finish line of the normal arcade mode. I liked it at first, but then it started dropping huge difficulty spikes with several events, so eventually I just got tired of constant restarts and dropped off. Maybe I should have stuck with it a bit more, but I still came away with a generally positive impression of the game.

Also from my experiences I can report that the game runs very well on emulator these days. I have heard it has had a lot of problems in the past, but with the current version of PCSX2 it runs without any noticeable issues, and the frame rate is a smooth locked 60fps. It’s a really good way to play the game these days.

Another thing that I wanted to bring up is the excellent video on this game recently put out by Transparency, where they go over the history of the series and compare it to the themes of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off of all things. In that they also bring up OutRunners which came out in 1993 and actually has a pretty diverse cast of characters to pick from. So is seems that Sega wasn’t entirely beholden to the idea of sticking to old sexist tropes when making OutRun sequels by the time OR2 came out. A shame they didn’t continue that trend from OutRunners.

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