GamesRelay

Name: OutRun Online Arcade

OutRun, a name any veteran gamer should remember; few can forget the arcade machine version of the game when it was released to a hungry crowd back in 1986, a sit down cabinet which moved you around in accordance to your steering, a gear shift for "Lo" and "Hi" gears that put you in control of a Ferrari Testarossa with a hot blonde to sit at your side. Well, the original was never officially endorsed by Ferrari but it had all the marks of what driving a Ferrari should be like, the advertising poster even featured the dancing horse on the back of the car as the blonde looked over her shoulder and winked; it wasn't until OutRun 2, a full 17 years later, that SEGA would be able to slap an official Ferrari badge onto its OutRun machines. Now we can finally play OutRun in the home again, OutRun Online Arcade is available to download from the PlayStation Network or from the Xbox Live Arcade thanks to those kind folk at Sumo Digital and SEGA.

The idea of the game was and still is simple; get your car from one point to another as quickly as possible, you're against a clock with decreasing time allotted to each section so you must try and save as much time as you can by power sliding round corners and hitting as few obstacles as you can. Along the way you'll come across different check points where you can choose which direction to go, the left one is the easiest while the right one offers more of a challenge; there are four of these decisions to make throughout the race meaning that if you take the left hand side all the time you're making it easier on yourself, you can also choose to go completely down the right hand side to make it as hard as possible, alternatively you can mix up your choices depending on how your race is going.

OutRun Online Arcade is based on OutRun 2006, which itself was a remake of the first game (with a splash and dash of OutRun 2) and generally ignoring the games that came before it, the graphics and sounds are all based on the first title and yes the classic background tunes of Magical Sound Shower, Passing Breeze and Splash Wave have all made it through to this version, the graphics are looking swish and smart in their HD incarnations, although they're not going to win any prizes for visuals. However, they more than do their job and everything looks as it should in OutRun. The are a total of 15 different courses to run, although you only do these five at a time on the way to one of the five ending points and as mentioned earlier they vary in degrees of difficulty depending on which way you turn at one of the check points.

Of course, OutRun simply wouldn't be OutRun without a ludicrously fast Ferrari to drive through the countryside with and Online Arcade certainly doesn't disappoint by bringing a total of 10 different and fully endorsed cars to choose from in a variety of different colours. Staying true to other staples of the series you can't expect anything other than an arcade experience, the cornering is on rails when power sliding, the cars don't handle anything like they would in a real world environment, and the speeds you can get up to are bordering on ridiculous, considering if you tried it on the real road you would be banned for life before getting past the first check point. Just the way OutRun should be done then.

Should you tire of racing in the Arcade mode then you can distract yourself with one of the other modes on offer; there is a Heart Attack mode where you impress your lady by driving fast and reckless. She'll instruct you to pass through gates while power sliding, or overtake a car; the more you comply the higher the hearts you gain from her. Further to that there is a Time Attack mode which is similar to the Arcade mode except you score points for the time you save, the faster you reach the end the higher your score. For the sadists or the aficionados of the series then you can attack all 15 stages in one go in the Continuous OutRun Mode, surprisingly, this option is available from the start with no need to unlock it.

You can also race against other racers from around the world in the online Multiplayer, six players can race at any one time and of course there are places on the leader board for you to compete for, the online racing can get a bit laggy at times even if there are only two people competing, like wise, the voice chat can get a bit choppy while racing as well which can get a bit distracting, especially when trying to contend with both at the same time. It's a bit of a disappointment considering the "Online" part of the title but you do occasionally get a good race, perhaps this mode could have been looked at a bit more considering it's sure to be one of the main reasons to purchase OutRun Online Arcade for a lot of people.

When all said and done, OutRun is a classic, if you're looking for a pure arcade racing experience then you can do no worse than add this little gem to your collection, however, buyer beware, if you're looking for something with a little depth, OutRun was never about depth, it's all about giving the player fun racing experience and that's something it is still managing to do today. Hopefully SEGA will see fit to bring some of their other classic Arcade hits such as Afterburner and Space Harrier to the PSN and XBL Arcade, we can only hope.