PittsburghAfterDark
CAGiversary!
Outrun 2, oh my how I wish people would go out and buy you. EB is selling this game for $14.99 new this month people, there's no excuses anymore.
Now everyone bitched during the Dreamcast days that Sega didn't bring out their franchises for the system. We didn't have a NiGHtS, Alex Kidd, Vectorman, Altered Beast, eSWAT, no true Phantasy Star, no Outrun, Thunder Blade, Hang On etc.
Okay, so here's as an old school as old school game can get for the Xbox in Outrun 2. To get more old school Sega we're talking Zaxxon and Congo Bongo old school, and those my friends, just ain't gonna happen again. So what's the dillio with Outrun 2?
It's a lot more of Outrun. The maps are similar but with incredibly updated graphics, wow since 1986 who knew that would be so hard to accomplish huh? There is the Outrun, yes the 1986 version you can unlock, and the game can follow the exact same format as the old one. Want to race left/right at the end of the stages, yeah, it's there.
The game though is much like Soul Calibur 2. Wait, a driving game like a fighting game? Outrun 2 breaks every stage down into 6 mini-games where you collect cards. These cards unlock more music, more Ferrari's to drive, more modes (Reverse tracks and 2 bonus tracks which I'll touch on later.), a ton of merchandise, the original Outrun and additional female passengers for your car. In all I believe it's 143 things to unlock.
Now, the bonus stages, I've only played them on Xbox Live but there are 2 of them that are NOT in the Outrun racing tree. I may be wrong here but the first bonus track looks like it is pulled straight out of Sega GT which, to my knowledge, never showed up on a home game. The second map seems like bits and pieces from F-Zero that AM2 did for Nintendo but didn't make the grade for GX/AX, it's very much a "fantasy" stage.
Online the game is great though suffers from some lag, none of which really affects gameplay but it's annoying to see jumpy cars. I was hosting on a 3.0/768 DSL line and still had lag with 6 people (8 is the maximum.) to me it felt so much like the multi-machine Daytona USA games that the itty bitty thing of lag didn't bother me.
Gameplay: Much like the old school arcade racers; Daytona USA, Virtua Racing, Outrun, Ridge Racer this one has no reality based in its driving style. It's possible to powerslide for half a mile without losing any speed. So don't expect any realism whatsoever. If you're going to play AT/MT be sure to make a custom button arrangement as the default sucks for MT driving. The triggers are brake/gas, like duh.... you didn't see that one coming.
Graphics: There's a reason I like Sega games so much like this and Billy Hatcher that the general public overlooks. The painfully bright primary colors and lack of any willingness to try and look photorealistic like other games on the market. As a result the artwork is what matters, not the photographed cities that are incredibly well represented. So how's the artwok? Eye bleedingly good, you'll want to cry at some points and wish more developers remembered games are games, not Photoshop activities. Of course, when games like that/this come out, they're $15 two months after their release.
Music/Sound: Sega buttrock with a couple of exceptions. The car engines sound great, Yu Suzuki being a Ferrari buff hard to believe, the powerslides sound just like enhances of the original. No custom soundtracks hurt this game a lot as the one in it is too painful to listen to ad nauseum if you haven't unlocked many of the 18 tracks (7 available at start.).
Fun: Yeah, it's lots of fun. The driving tests are half BS walkthrough and half Gran Turismo hair pulling. The best unlockables are achieved when you race rivals through a random sampling of all 19 areas in a 20+ minute marathon Outrun race which, to me, made the game worth while on its own.
Xbox Live play, which I touched on before is a blast, the biggest problem is finding games and gamers. You won't be long in finding a race but you'll be racing with 2-4 people the majority of the time instead of the full 8.
So why does this make Xbox the successor to Dreamcast? Because it delivers what every hardcore/oldschool gamer said they ever wanted in a remake of a classic franchise and it ended up a commercial failure. Nothing to me speaks to the legacy of the Dreamcast than that my friends.
Now get up off your asses and go drop $15 on this great game.
Now everyone bitched during the Dreamcast days that Sega didn't bring out their franchises for the system. We didn't have a NiGHtS, Alex Kidd, Vectorman, Altered Beast, eSWAT, no true Phantasy Star, no Outrun, Thunder Blade, Hang On etc.
Okay, so here's as an old school as old school game can get for the Xbox in Outrun 2. To get more old school Sega we're talking Zaxxon and Congo Bongo old school, and those my friends, just ain't gonna happen again. So what's the dillio with Outrun 2?
It's a lot more of Outrun. The maps are similar but with incredibly updated graphics, wow since 1986 who knew that would be so hard to accomplish huh? There is the Outrun, yes the 1986 version you can unlock, and the game can follow the exact same format as the old one. Want to race left/right at the end of the stages, yeah, it's there.
The game though is much like Soul Calibur 2. Wait, a driving game like a fighting game? Outrun 2 breaks every stage down into 6 mini-games where you collect cards. These cards unlock more music, more Ferrari's to drive, more modes (Reverse tracks and 2 bonus tracks which I'll touch on later.), a ton of merchandise, the original Outrun and additional female passengers for your car. In all I believe it's 143 things to unlock.
Now, the bonus stages, I've only played them on Xbox Live but there are 2 of them that are NOT in the Outrun racing tree. I may be wrong here but the first bonus track looks like it is pulled straight out of Sega GT which, to my knowledge, never showed up on a home game. The second map seems like bits and pieces from F-Zero that AM2 did for Nintendo but didn't make the grade for GX/AX, it's very much a "fantasy" stage.
Online the game is great though suffers from some lag, none of which really affects gameplay but it's annoying to see jumpy cars. I was hosting on a 3.0/768 DSL line and still had lag with 6 people (8 is the maximum.) to me it felt so much like the multi-machine Daytona USA games that the itty bitty thing of lag didn't bother me.
Gameplay: Much like the old school arcade racers; Daytona USA, Virtua Racing, Outrun, Ridge Racer this one has no reality based in its driving style. It's possible to powerslide for half a mile without losing any speed. So don't expect any realism whatsoever. If you're going to play AT/MT be sure to make a custom button arrangement as the default sucks for MT driving. The triggers are brake/gas, like duh.... you didn't see that one coming.
Graphics: There's a reason I like Sega games so much like this and Billy Hatcher that the general public overlooks. The painfully bright primary colors and lack of any willingness to try and look photorealistic like other games on the market. As a result the artwork is what matters, not the photographed cities that are incredibly well represented. So how's the artwok? Eye bleedingly good, you'll want to cry at some points and wish more developers remembered games are games, not Photoshop activities. Of course, when games like that/this come out, they're $15 two months after their release.
Music/Sound: Sega buttrock with a couple of exceptions. The car engines sound great, Yu Suzuki being a Ferrari buff hard to believe, the powerslides sound just like enhances of the original. No custom soundtracks hurt this game a lot as the one in it is too painful to listen to ad nauseum if you haven't unlocked many of the 18 tracks (7 available at start.).
Fun: Yeah, it's lots of fun. The driving tests are half BS walkthrough and half Gran Turismo hair pulling. The best unlockables are achieved when you race rivals through a random sampling of all 19 areas in a 20+ minute marathon Outrun race which, to me, made the game worth while on its own.
Xbox Live play, which I touched on before is a blast, the biggest problem is finding games and gamers. You won't be long in finding a race but you'll be racing with 2-4 people the majority of the time instead of the full 8.
So why does this make Xbox the successor to Dreamcast? Because it delivers what every hardcore/oldschool gamer said they ever wanted in a remake of a classic franchise and it ended up a commercial failure. Nothing to me speaks to the legacy of the Dreamcast than that my friends.
Now get up off your asses and go drop $15 on this great game.
.
