OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast

It's one of the best arcade racers ever to grace consoles, but can OutRun 2006 beat sex with the prom queen?

	Version Xbox, PS2, PSP, PC	Developer Sega-AM2 / Sumo Digital	Publisher SEGA	Genre Racing

By Adam Doree

Fan estimation of Sega Europe as a division of the Japanese publisher surely swelled upon the announcement of OutRun2 for Xbox back in 2004, but the real coup was the assignment of UK-based Sumo Digital, a previously unknown outfit tasked with converting the arcade game and developing unique console features - a job they pulled off remarkably well. Despite relatively poor sales of the Xbox-only title, Sega Europe defiantly pushes ahead with the release of multiformat update OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for Xbox, PS2, PSP and PC, with all the best bits of OutRun2 plus new stuff from the arcade update, OutRun2 SP: Special Tours.

In addition to OutRun2's fifteen courses, there are fifteen new ones from SP, all stunning courses based on famous American locations - everything from San Fran's Bay Area to Manhattan - and all an absolute joy to behold. There are now fifteen Ferraris to choose from, while gameplay tweaks are included such as a more forgiving speed penalty for collisions with walls, rivals or traffic, and also slipstreaming - the ability to gain extra speed by driving in the vacuum space directly behind other vehicles.

The return of near-flawless, sixty frames-per-second visuals is expected; solid and vibrant, the stunningly detailed graphics are perhaps most striking when tight scenery - such as overhanging trees and plants in a tropical jungle setting - fly into the screen with astonishing fluidity. If you never had a chance to look at OutRun2, then graphically, this is guaranteed to blow you away.

The celebrated control system, where outrageous, unrealistic powersliding can be 'steered' to enable navigation through traffic during even the evilest of hairpin bends, is a returning staple, while good old fashioned racing lines, precise control and manual transmission is still the recipe for experts. The joy of playing OutRun is as obvious as ever, with the semicircle 'arc' of the analog stick aiding accurate steering on both Xbox and PS2, although for decent PSP analog nub control it's advisable to configure the sensitivity a few notches, or alternatively just use the d-pad (all play settings can be fiddled in-game through the Pause menu as well as in Options).

In terms of play modes, all versions are pretty much exactly the same game, including a carbon copy of the OutRun2 SP arcade, Heart Attack and Time Trial modes, Multiplayer (for online races plus six-player system link / wireless matches) and most importantly, a stunning Singleplayer 'career' mode. Singleplayer's Coast 2 Coast mode is this game's continuation of OutRun2's Mission mode, firstly comprising race challenges hosted by the friendly 'Flagman', including straight races with twelve CPU rivals, Slimstream challenges and Knockout events. The second half of Singleplayer revolves around the three OutRun girls - the 'girlfriends' - whose hearts are on the line if you don't drive how they tell you to - uh-oh!

Girlfriends is a complex mega-set of missions set on mix-ups of all thirty courses, which has been intricately designed for some of the most engaging play ever found in an arcade-to-console racer. The idea is you have to impress your girlfriend by completing her driving requests, and only when you have an A rank or higher on her entire map of challenges do you get to unlock the next girlfriend. But there is more to each girl's map than meets the eye; rather than a straightforward challenge structure, this map is similar to the arcade snooker-formation of fifteen courses, and each course can be individually attempted (over and over, if desired) once it has been unlocked. The tricky part is that each course has up to four 'groups' of missions embedded inside it, requiring many multiple plays to unlock each new set via the magic of your girl's 'Special Requests', in which A grade or higher is vital to open up the map's toughest tasks. If it sounds complicated, that's because it certainly is. Once you get the hang of the process however, it becomes charming and intuitive.

The individual girlfriend requests themselves can be anything from the usual drifting or passing traffic, to breaking through 'lines' that join two approaching vehicles, hitting funny 'ghosts' whose eyes pop out on impact, dribbling a large beach ball along the road, deliberately hitting traffic, and even avoiding a shower of meteors or a cluster of UFOs ready to 'abduct' you for a few seconds. Particularly with the traffic-hitting or meteor-avoiding tasks, which spoil as soon as you collide with anything or veer off the road, an immense level of concentration is required, making for some excellent 'twitch gaming', and a successful performance is very satisfying. While on the one hand it can help to slow down a little to navigate the task, fortunately beach balls, meteors and so forth will always appear or fall in the same place on a particular task, so with some perseverance you'll hopefully perfect it. Incidentally, the sight of falling meteors in Times Square is simply awesome.

Aiming to pass all of the Special Requests (the vital tasks that enable you to unlock the entire map for your particular girlfriend and then - ahem - move on to the next girl) and aiming to get AAA ratings is really excellent practice for the main arcade game or multiplayer - so whether you have linked systems, online, or even a nearby arcade with competitive log of high scores, this is one mission mode that will really pay dividends when it comes to revenge on your OutRun-playing pals. The AAA rating is occasionally a superhuman achievement in fact, with no obvious way to attain it (there is, of course, always a way).

Another cool element of Singleplayer girlfriend tasks is that, if you choose to attempt a course individually once it has been opened up, at the end of the course you have the option to immediately 'Retry' to the left path, or select the right path if you're happy with the performance and want to exit and bank the results - in much the same fashion you'd choose a particular fork to select an 'easy' or 'hard' course in arcade mode. This lets you go straight at the task again, without breaking your rhythm or concentration, and in some cases this even offers a looped 'rolling start' type advantage that makes harder missions a little more within reach. In fact, without some kind of car purchase from the Showroom, this technique seems pretty essential to attain AAA in some tasks - a nice example of the great depth of the game's Singleplayer design.

It does take one or two hours to really get into the addictive 'sweet spot' of Singleplayer Coast 2 Coast, and some gamers may find the difficulty initially rather intimidating, but since your score points - Outrun Miles - are racking up the whole time, things remain fresh and well-tuned whenever you set off for a quick visit to the Showroom to purchase new cars, or goodies such as new music. And while the Singleplayer experience does occasionally feel repetitive, there's enough variety with the purchases and the mix of thirty stunning, unique courses to keep you engrossed. No matter how you play it, OutRun 2006 feels satisfying and fair. You never feel like the game is punishing (or rewarding) you too severely, and the Singleplayer design is consistent and rewarding.

There's other cool stuff to purchase, such as alternative 'nighttime' versions of both games' beach stages, and also continuous, fifteen-course renditions of both games that are sure to keep you busy. In terms of the BGM available, there's a whole lot included here - pretty much all the OutRun related audio you could possibly hope to be included - although the new tracks from SP are nothing to write home about. We still dig the Euro Remixes the most. Even different car colours have to be 'purchased' for use in the Singleplayer mode, although fortunately, over in the straight OutRun2 SP arcade mode, you can select from a full range of arcade choices regardless of how you've spent your Miles in C2C.

In most races, or normal SP mode, countless small touches make this arcade styled experience a fantastic one. The sound effects of all the ranking system icons and scores are just 'classic' arcade, and you're rewarded between courses with various things flying overhead - an indicator of your performance on the previous track - ranging from exotic birds, to dual airplanes taking off, or more excitingly, the After Burner fighter jet or a huge dragon (supposedly from Panzer Dragoon, but we wouldn't put money on it).

We were pleased to note that the final, retail boxed Xbox game that we received last week did in fact brush up on a few minor graphical shortcomings (such as frame drops) that were evident in our previous review build, which was used by all of the European magazines that have reviewed the game. Such reviews unsurprisingly mentioned these glitches, but it's nicely tidied up in the final box. Unfortunately though, there are still a couple of small irritations in the final version.

Firstly, the FMV intro sequence is frankly an abomination, with badly encoded, blocky, stuttery Mpeg compression. What on earth were they thinking? A Sega arcade game's most essential finishing touch and seal of quality is a solid rolling intro - the company has produced some of the best in history, typically running off the in-game engine - but this sequence, despite apparently being pretty decent to begin with in terms of the edit itself, is butchered by what can surely only be explained as some sort of tragic work-experience / internship blunder. Disgraceful.

Secondly the menu screens suffer from slight glitching; you can't navigate things as smoothly as you could in the first OutRun2 on Xbox; there's also some very slight audio glitching from time to time but really this stuff is only going to be noticed by purists who expect everything to be completely perfect (and why shouldn't they?). The menus and sheer number of play options can be a little disorienting at first; the map system in Singleplayer missions is pretty convoluted and never really explained properly; we can imagine that a few players won't even realise how to progress on the map if they don't know that the greyed-out boxes are unlocked exclusively through the Special Request areas during the missions.

A much debated feature of races, particularly in Multiplayer, is the self-explanatory 'slow-player catch-up', and there doesn't appear to be an option to toggle this on or off which is also a little disappointing. Finally, loading times on the console version can be a slight pain, even when waiting for a menu screen with no 3D objects. This can be grating, considering the repetitive nature of some of the stuff you're trying to achieve. All things to fix for the final North American version, perhaps?

Some have said that the PS2 version is visually indistinguishable from Xbox's, but that's stretching the truth a fair bit, to be honest. Although PS2 does offer both 60hz and also 480p (progressive scan) display modes, and like Xbox, also supports widescreen, the graphics, while in general still fantastic, do not match Xbox and for the sake of comparison we'll quickly mention what they are: the textures are quite a lot blurrier, with a slightly less crisp appearance overall, and visual effects such as rain, wet surfaces, or the lovely water effect on sea and lakes, all look noticeably rougher on PS2. In the most detailed and busy areas such as Vegas or Times Square, the frame rate is temporarily hammered right down to around 30fps, from its impressive standard of a relatively consistent 60fps during most of the game. Nonetheless, these are the only low points of the PS2 version (and they're a lot more noticeable if you've been playing both on the same large HDTV as we have). Overall the PS2 version is still mighty impressive to look at, and a fine achievement on the part of Sumo Digital.

The PSP version meanwhile, despite its 30fps frame rate, is a pleasant surprise. Presumably based on the PS2 code, it looks remarkable on the small widescreen and isn't spoilt much by the lack of 60fps we'd hoped for. With the inclusion of six-player wireless multiplayer, online matches via 'infrastructure connection' (which we admittedly have not tested but hear it works just fine) and also a 'Just Race' option for short bursts of play, the PSP version is guaranteed to make you miss your planned stop on any public transport. Finally, the option to USB-connect PSP to PS2 and transfer game save data is a nice bonus for dedicated fans with both versions - shame you can't continue your Xbox game on the move though.

It's a pity Sega didn't choose to make an Xbox 360 version (after all, there presumably wouldn't have been much development difference to PC) and also that the Xbox version is not backwards compatible on 360; it would be nice to have that extra layer of visual definition that the new machine could add. We've not yet seen the PC version, but with any luck it will mean an even more impressive, high-res, progressive-scan experience. We'll let you know in an addendum to this review.

Under no circumstances is OutRun 2006 to be overlooked by owners of any host platform. It's an awesome achievement, and a resounding high-point (and culmination) of this entire generation for Sega.

OutRun 2006 is out now in Europe for PS2, Xbox and PSP, with the PC version coming on April 28. The North American console and PSP versions release on April 25.