 Welcome back to Classic Replay. So I love Outrun. It's one of those games where it really draws you in with the atmosphere, the blue blue skies, the fluffy clouds, the seaside graphics that you've got at the side of the road, eight lanes, eight open lanes, the radio selection screen where you can choose between three different soundtracks, all iconic. I remember seeing it the first time in an arcade hall. Big bulking thing it was. With a queue of children standing behind while somebody else played. As an 11 year old I was absolutely mesmerised. I don't think I'd seen anything quite like it before. Well certainly not that extravagant. I remember the Sundrench game over screen at the end where you got to enter in your name and I think it was called Last Wave. I'm still not sure if it was a racing game, a driving game or just an experience but it's one that's lived on in the memory for decades and I didn't know it back then but the sprite scaling the pseudo 3D that came towards you was not only breathtaking for the time but it was also groundbreaking. Today I look back on that moment. I'm happy I grew up in the 80s and I was part of the early arcade movement and each time I went into an arcade it was a new discovery and Yuzuzuki's Outroom for me personally was one of the best discoveries ever so long live Yuzuzuki and long live Sega. Now before we go any further before we kick off who is Yuzuzuki and why would someone make a video about him or his games? It suddenly dawned on me how little I knew about the brainchild the creative genius Yuzuzuki. I've played all of his games. I've completed all of his games. I've played all of the Shenmue games including the third one. I've even seen the new series the Shenmue series on Crunchyroll so one that's not acceptable and two so this video is not only a trip down memory lane but it's also a bit of a discovery for me as well. For me this is without doubt my favorite arcade driving game and that's saying a lot because I love Wet Lemons and Chase HQ and pole position that came before that along with Super Hang on. If like me you love Outrun you'll know that when the flag drops it's time to hit the gas pass each checkpoint within an allotted time as you make your way to the goal line but what came before Outrun? How did we get here? How did this come about? Well Yuzuzuki obviously is a games creator but back when he was a student he was studying 3d architectural simulations. I think I read that he understood that technology was in its infancy but felt somewhat hamstrung by it. He later joined Sega in 1983 and it was at this point that he quickly realized technology was starting to catch up and he could channel his creativity in a new different direction. Woohoo step forward video games. So a visionary if you like and we know now today he's one of the greats so it was evident now at this point in 1983 that CPU processing power turned a corner and 3d was now becoming a distant possibility. It was only now that he was able to produce simulations he once upon a time only could dream about. Whilst at Sega he worked really hard although the company he worked for you could get two days off a week and that was a big massive reason for why he chose the job at Sega but the games that he did make he filled them with his hobbies fast cars motorbikes aeroplanes and hollywood it was just stuff he liked that he made a reality in video games he's a fan of sci-fi fantasy and toilet humor. In Yu Suzuki's early days at Sega he mostly did arcade games so strange then that his first game was for the SG-1000 Sega's first dedicated console it was so popular that they decided to make an arcade game of it and promote Yu Suzuki from this a new studio Studio 128 was formed. Yu Suzuki now worked with a small development team of which went on to make some of the best arcade experiences of the 1980s. Next up was Hang on a phenomenal arcade racer. Talk about riding by the seat of your pants. Now I know this game looks inferior by today's standards. I read a while back in Retro Gamer that it featured a Motorola dual 68000 main CPU and that the hardware outputted a video resolution of 320 by 224 and had the capability to display up to 128 on-screen sprites. They went on to say that a sprite layer was also included capable of hardware zooming with the ability to draw translucent shadows and get this the very thing at the heart of the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum i.e the Z80 was used to power the music and that there sums up the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC in a nutshell. Retro Gamer went on to say still it was a superb machine that always gathered a crowd of admiring onlookers. Before long AM2 and Yusuzuki were at it again this time in the same year of Hang on but now they were pushing graphics to a new level. If you thought Hang on was fast then this must have felt like lightspeed. The graphics were awesome and there was a fantastic feel of exhilaration as you flew into the screen. In the words of Space Harrier welcome to the fantasy zone get ready. This time around we had Enduro Racer big air and the introduction of a wheelie. To the time Enduro Racer really captured the down and dirty of motocross. You raced against the clock as opposed to opponents whilst the screen rushed towards you at an insane pace and there was a fantastic arcade conversion to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. After 1982's pole position Outrun was the next important milestone in the racing game genre. Yusuzuki designer of Space Harrier Super Hang on and Virtua Fighter to name but a few may have delivered his finest hour. Outrun reimagined racing games transforming them into something they had never been before. Awesome. It was a racing game in which the player drives a red Ferrari Testarossa probably the most desirable car of the 1980s with Kelly McGinnis strapped in the passenger side through a variety of colourful european settings attempting to reach each end of a level checkpoint before the time limit runs out. Each leg of the game is densely packed with civilian traffic moving at high speed that must be avoided as players attempt to navigate the game's twisty steep roadways. Players are provided with a fork in the road at the end of each stage allowing them to choose which option they want to go next. This was not the first time this feature has surfaced. Tatsumi's TX-1 racer introduced branched roads in 1983. What was even more innovative is in addition to being able to choose routes players may also listen to one of three different popular melodies whilst driving via the games in car radio. Magical sound shower, passing breeze and splash wave are the tracks. Outrun was every teenage boy's fantasy. Now it was the turn of the 8-bits. US Gold announced that they'd won the license. Cannonball Run inspired game Outrun was now hurtling its way to the ZX Spectrum. Gone was the radiant red of the Ferrari Testarossa. Despite this the car still remained detailed and this was my first home computer experience of Outrun from US Gold. When you think that the arcade original had a Motorola 68000 CPU and a Zilog Z80 co-processor all of a sudden for 1987 the ZX Spectrum version doesn't look too bad. Although for the life of me I don't suspect Yusuzuki's original fantasy of an open freeway Ferrari and a hot European girl at your side looked anything like this. As with the arcade original this game is viewed from above and behind the car. The roads are filled of hairpins twists and hazards which might force the car to roll and the player to lose time. This version features forks in the road allowing the player to pick which way he or she wants to go. The player must complete five track sections out of the 15 available and although the blue blue skies of the arcade original have seen better days this actually played like Outrun believe it or not. Yes it ran at 10 frames per second as opposed to 30 but in the absence of an arcade visit to play Outrun it felt passable. The 128k version came with all the bells and whistles but I think it was the review from Yorsin Clare in March 1988 that pretty much summed up my feelings as well towards this game. Yorsin Clare went on to say almost but not quite a brilliant conversion of the totally wonderful arcade machine and then a reality check from Crash where they went on to say come on chaps this is the best we could have hoped for expected. A poor translation of a great arcade game and after reading that most people would probably think the 8 bits had had their day when it came to the more complex arcade conversions and I'd probably have gone along with that and thought that was a true statement until Chase HQ came along. There's a fantastic story where a 17 year old young boy Martin Webb actually programmed Outrun for the Commodore 64 and worldwide distribution. His dad Dennis did the graphics but the relationship was tenuous at the best of times. Anyway US Gold paid 250,000 for the license and it was up to Martin to get this thing running and off the ground. It's an amazing insight, a fantastic story but it's also really saddening and now today when I play the Commodore 64 version and head out into the blue sky. One I can't help think about Martin and the highs and lows he would have gone through in programming this game but two he was only 17 for Christ's sake and just listen to this thing. Technical limitations aside and all things considered this is a flipping good conversion Martin thank you I played this a hell of a lot back in the 80s and according to the article despite Zap64 only awarding this game 68% on all formats US Gold reported over 250,000 sales and Martin's dad Dennis was still receiving royalties way into the 90s as the game continued to be included on bestseller compilations. Had Outrun on the Commodore 64 have featured forks in the road this would have been a masterpiece without question it captures the essence of the arcade original but more so the blistering pace the speed Outrun's coin op version has an amazingly basic formula take a stunning Ferrari Testerosa mix it with some interesting surroundings then top it off with a hydraulic cabinet it was an instant hit with home conversions emerging on every platform and computer the coin open through sun drenched highways canyons and deep forest at you the Amstrad cpc version includes the branching routes of the arcade original a red convertible Ferrari Testerosa and a wonderful loading screen where are the three main tracks splash wave passing breeze and magical sound shower to make matters worse all of the amusing ending sequences that play out once you reach the final stage when the game's completed have been completely removed even for an 8-bit title there's a wide open road of missed opportunity with this conversion the more you play it the bigger that sinking feeling becomes i think Outrun was my biggest 8-bit regret it wasn't the first time i felt short changed but trust me it was the last in fact because of this game i never ever just bought a game off the shelf from that day forward and always looked at the reviews in the magazines before even thinking about purchasing a game there's even a hidden developer message in the game code where they apologize for the graphics uh and say that the artist had a spot of nappy rash it wasn't all bad ocean software and several other companies were on average really reliable when it came to good games good quality games there are some people that swear by Outrun on the Amstrad CPC now i've tried to understand where they're coming from and yes the game is playable it's a challenge there are three difficulty levels and it can be completed i've personally played and completed all the different routes and if the car didn't come to a sudden stop when you hit another vehicle and the game included the music i think i'd have probably given it around 65 percent maybe 70 percent it's not as bad as the Amiga 500 conversion but it's lackluster it's stripped down it's slow ah no this looks better this is more like it the Sega Mega Drive version and although not perfect this was the closest you could get to the arcade at the time the blue skies fluffy clouds and sandy beaches are all here you can almost smell the sea air whilst you ride the edge of the wave in your red Ferrari Testerosa but what's that you say you're not convinced well let's compare the two here's the arcade version on the right we join the action near enough the same point now the arcade version definitely has more detail it's certainly faster and where there's palm trees in the arcade version they've replaced them with bushes on the uh Sega Mega Drive i think we can all agree even if you're not a Sega Mega Drive fanboy but this is a decent conversion when it first came out i didn't buy it at the time i saw it in all the different computer and video stores but i didn't buy it because of the negativity it was meme machines issue one where they said the mega drive captured the graphics and sound of the original quite well but something is severely lacking on the gameplay front first of all they cited the car doesn't control anywhere near as well as the coiner making for some very frustrating crashes secondly they pointed out that even though you do tend to crash too much the game is incredibly simple to complete then they go on to say experienced gamers are bound to finish it in one go and even novices will finish it within one session with a bit of control tweaking and a sterner challenge this could have been something special so anyway they summarized and said this conversion of the classic kind of simply doesn't do it justice the graphics and sound are okay but it's the gameplay where it falls flat it's so easy even a complete dumbo can complete it with a couple of goes i mean was the reviewer not aware that you could up the difficulty settings he seriously needs to get his head checked and i missed out on this game at the time because of that awful god awful review it's a clone of the arcade original it's never gonna be as good all things considered the hardware for example they did a bloody good job at some point i stopped listening to the critics the reviews have gone from being realistic to biased almost so these days i just go by word of mouth i'll talk to somebody what do you think of this what do you think of that and if they recommend it i'll go with it and there's also metacritic as well so i'll just ignore what the critics have said and go with what the games players are saying it's the same with movies as well i won't listen to what the critics say anymore so thoroughly enjoyed this one really good arcade conversion now this version doesn't do a lot wrong it really plays to the strength of its hardware which is only eight bit and although the 3d update isn't all that smooth the visuals are colorful and the gameplay is just as captivating as the arcade original there's also several ways to tackle the game as with the other versions and it'll take a long time to complete them all like me if you're into outrun you should seriously consider checking this version out i personally never owned a sega master system growing up but i did get one later on around about 2005 and it was the one with the built-in version of hang on and when i started playing this console it was a real fantastic discovery and i love the high resolution graphics this is one of sega's most iconic arcade machines and they've done a fantastic job transferring it down and it was one of the first master system games published and as far as i know it was an instant hit and there are some crazy people out there that have even hailed it indistinguishable from the arcade original so proper heads gone moment with that comment but in reality it exhibits just the slightest superficial resemblance to the coin-up original and yes it performs really well in terms of playability and all the features are there of the arcade original so i'd just like to go on record and say well done sega whoever the programmers are behind this what a fantastic effort in 1987 when this came out this would have definitely been the definitive version outside the arcade to have played ace magazine back in november 1987 gave this one 85 percent and they said overall this outruns no substitute for the coin-up but they went on to say that it's playable stuff the variety of roots and tremendous feeling of speed easily outweigh the graphic rough edges but ace gave it 85 percent and that's really good for ace so i personally think outrun on the sega master system deserves to be remembered wow i think this one gives the sega master system version and the sega mega drive version a run for its money just look at it and this is a 8-bit slash hybrid 16-bit console this is definitely the best racer on the turbo graphics or pc engine whatever it's called i personally never own this console but i remember a friend of mine had it and we'd all gather around go around his house just to see what the games were like i'd have been so happy if this would have been my outrun version it doesn't look 8-bit it looks absolute terrific so it looks like it's the next level up from 16-bit if that makes sense the music sounds good the spot effects i.e the engine noise isn't brilliant but the way everything just whizzes past is outrun now i've played this one on the easy difficulty because somebody mentioned that um you can just whizz through it now this is my first go in a long time and literally i'm just whizzing through it now that's probably down to the fact that i've played outrun a lot especially on the 3ds of late and the nintendo switch and because i've got really good at those games those versions uh this this is authentic this feels this feels good i feel like i'm playing the real thing and surely that's half the battle i sincerely don't know which version i prefer this or the sega mega drive i really don't know but what a great position to be in to be torn like this over two conversions now i also did play it on the hardest difficulty and it challenged me so any thoughts of this game's too easy from anybody i mean that's complete baloney so this version like the sega mega drive in my personal humble opinion successfully retains captures the magic of the arcade original and i'm more of a casual gamer these days i've played games nowhere near the time i spent years ago so i like instant short bursts of fun and this is where this game scores highly for me so short sharp and punchy mad for it so i want to compare the difference between this and the arcade just quickly you can see for the same level the mega drive is definitely more detailed but the colors look better on the pc engine version and um you can see how close it is to the arcade but let's stay on the mega drive version and just zoom that in a bit there's definitely not much in it colors aside you're looking at pretty much the same the same game i'd probably say and go out on a limb that the pc engine version is more authentic to the arcade original because it has the time display score lap and then the speed at the bottom including the stage where on the sega mega drive version it's all crammed up at the top but i think that's just nitpicking i really do the reality is this i've played both of them extensively and they both give a really good arcade alternative experience they're both really fast for me they are both decent arcade conversions and on that basis i'd probably score both games an eight or a nine out of ten whilst we stay with the comparisons side by side i just want to read the review from computer and video games back from march 1991 where they gave it 70 percent so they went on to say the classic sega coinup blazes onto the pc engine after what seems an eternity of waiting and although the graphics and sound are okay and the game itself is fast it doesn't take long to finish the game also watch out for the shaky graphics if you have a ropey vision pal engine for fans of the genre only now i have no idea what they're going on about this is a tremendous arcade conversion it really is i also read in the pc engine gamer magazine their review of outrun and they scored it a whopping 827 and i pretty much agree with everything they've said and this is a great little article as well i think it's four or six pages and i like the bit about the multiplicity where they talk about all the different other versions of outrun so a really good little article that i was going to cover the sega satin version which runs at 60 frames per second it's basically the arcade version it's the arcade code so it's not a conversion and for me personally i just wanted to stick to the arcade conversions and i could be wrong here but the next video will feature what i believe to be the last known arcade conversion of outrun now the bottom right hand corner is the sega satin version we know all about that it's probably the best then to the left we've got the msx2 version which is really good i enjoyed that above that is the atari st and then to the right the game gear and then up above to the left at the top is the sega arcade gallery that came out for the gameboy advance and that's where we're heading next i couldn't believe it when i first saw this in a magazine that it was coming and for the gameboy advance as well i mean at the time this was my favorite go-to console four of sega's most iconic games probably of all time on a nintendo handheld nowadays if outrun after burner are released or space harrier it's just exact copy of the arcade code because the capability of the hardware now outstretches that of the then hardware of the arcade so for me unless somebody can tell me otherwise and please correct me if i'm wrong but this probably is the last arcade conversion to a computer console of outrun from sega just think about that for a second and if that's confused you slightly in a nutshell what i'm trying to say is with the previous arcade conversions they didn't have access to the arcade source code the games today do now there might be some that argued that the sega age is 2,500 version of outrun for the ps2 uh is the last but that is just an enhanced remake of the of sega's original classic outrun exclusive to the ps2 yes but using the arcade code so i'm not so sure that can be considered this is also a glimpse into what outrun could have looked like on the komodo amiga and atari st and maybe the eight bits to some extent because the guys behind this version back in the day worked for ocean software hey hey ackerton stanley exactly new versions of outrun on the 3ds and nintendo switch there's a special and an arcade mode now so there's two game versions which can both be selected at the start menu the special is the default game mode which features tune up parts that affect vehicle performance there's additional music tracks and it runs at a smooth 60 frames per second the same as on the sega dreamcast release there's also an arcade mode that's unlocked when you clear all five endings so this mode allows you to run the game in the original 30 frames per second and so that represents a much more faithful reproduction of the arcade original version but again this is a port of the code these later additions allow you to configure the built-in motion sensor on the 3ds it's built into the device on the switch it's built into the controller and for me that's like a bit of a game changer what's also special about these new versions is the online ranking so you see the most recent ranking for each category and you can even download the latest rankings and for the difficulty level you can set these from one being easy and five being hard and you can do the same with the time limit as well for the screen setup you can set to widescreen arcade vintage or fork you can even save one of your replays or you can watch others on the leaderboard and how they've tackled the game or if you want you can just watch your races every race that is to your heart's content but i think the biggest thing the biggest improvement is the tune-up option so you can tune up parts in the following varieties so for instance the steering wheel when you upgrade that that will allow you to glide around corners with ease and then there's the bumpers where you can upgrade those and recover more quickly from a collision the engine obviously increase your top speed and then tires maintain your speed if you leave the road so effectively what sega have done here is create the ultimate nostalgia trip for fans of outrun i noticed that arcade one up have released an outrun coin-up machine where you can stand up or sit down but it's only available in the u.s and i'd absolutely love to import one does anyone remember the tome outrun driving machine so circuit beard a youtuber showed off his haptic version in 2017 of sega's outrun my goodness i'd love to get my hands on that what shocked me about the ferrari tester ossa in outrun is sega didn't have a license they hadn't gone to ferrari and asked for permission i grew up thinking that ferrari were making millions out of this so i hope you've enjoyed this video please don't forget this is how i experienced outrun in chronological order this video took me a bit of time to do so i'd really appreciate a like a comment or even better subscribe and there you go we've completed outrun on the gba it really is a fantastic little conversion for your handheld and if you don't already own it i suggest you rush out and get it today until next time bye