Virtua Racing: Sega Ages PS2 Video

Check out this first footage from the Sega Ages 2500 Series of V.R. Virtua Racing running on PlayStation 2, along with impressions and screens.

You could almost smell the fanboy glory rising from the Sega Ages stand inside Sega's immensely popular TGS booth last weekend. Thanks, in no small part, to Virtua Racing.

First, the bad news. It still isn't arcade perfect, not even on the mighty PS2 hardware, which is about ten gajillion times more advanced than the game's original Model 1 coin-op architecture.

It is believed that the Sega Ages code is ported from the souped up Sega 32X code, released as Virtua Racing Deluxe back in 1994. You will still see pop-up. And you'll still be lacking the hardcore shading and overall feel of the arcade original.

In the arcades, the flat-shaded polygons on Model 1 made for awesome graphics. The reason it looked great was because of the high polygon count and shading, which has never been emulated properly on a home console. Our guess is that 32X is easier than Model 1 to emulate on PS2, so this is the version we're getting.

The good news is - it still looks good. And obviously better than the 32X version. It runs at sixty frames, which is more than the arcade original. All the courses are in there. And above all - it's still Virtua Racing!

What would have been better is a game mode where you could have full textures, a 'next-gen' Virtua Racing of sorts... perhaps even an online-enabled version of the awesome Virtua Formula VR link-up found in only the biggest arcades in the nineties.

But that would probably be asking too much, wouldn't it? Since the last version of VR available in the home was Time Warner Interactive's appalling Saturn conversion, this will at least bring back happy memories for fans of the original. If you buy it on import, that is - because no western release is scheduled.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com