 Outrun is one of the most popular and one of the most important arcade games ever made in the racing genre. And this is evidenced by the fact that there were something like 20 ports made on everything from the Sega Master System, the Amstrad CPC, the PC Engine, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and of course, the Sega Genesis. Now I haven't played many of these, but I do know that if you want a perfect arcade port, then the Sega Saturn port on the Sega Ages Collection is what you want. Yeah, I'm just looking at the Sega Genesis game here. Outrun is simple, bare bones arcade style racing that paved the way for stuff like top gear and cruising USA. There's no laps, no pit stops, no upgrading your car or anything like that. You just drive, hit the checkpoints before you run out of time, and don't crash. It's not as easy as it sounds, though. You do have to dodge other cars, which can get complicated quickly. And there's no automatic transmission here. You have to shift gears when required, although there's really only two gears to shift between. But you don't want to get caught in the wrong one at the wrong time. If you're in a higher gear at a turn, you're risking a crash. And man, the crash is here a frickin' violent as hell. You flip and roll your car as you and your compadre go flying out. That is nasty. But also, if you're in a lower gear on a straightaway, you're costing yourself some crucial time, and you risk missing the next checkpoint. And the game doesn't exactly go out of its way to let you know you're running out of time. Wait, what? What the hell just happened? Before each checkpoint, you come to a fork in the road left or right, with each direction leading you to a different area. So that's kind of cool. You can take a different route for each playthrough, and that's important because this game isn't exactly meant to be an intense struggle or anything. The whole point is just to sit back, take a road trip through the world this game has laid out for you, and just enjoy the sights and sounds. In particular, the sound here is by far the game's biggest strength. Outrun is all about the music. It says a lot that the developers decided on muting the sound of your car's engine, and instead put the focus on the music and the relaxing sound of passing other vehicles left and right. It all comes together brilliantly. The music and the sound design here and the direction behind it all fit together as well as you could ask for. It's funny, if you look at any playthrough of this game, nearly every single comment is lavish praise of the music. You just don't see that kind of universal approval anymore. Outrun has a few sequels and spin-offs like Turbo Outrun, Outrunners, Outrun 2019, and Outrun 2, released over 10 years later for Xbox and PS2. But I'm not sure anything will top the appeal of the original Outrun. It's a different kind of racing game and really a different kind of game altogether. It's rare that anyone would want to sit down and play a game to relax instead of blow stuff up or dismember your opponent or make your palms sweat from the stress of gameplay. But Outrun is like comfort food. It's really satisfying to just sit back in your favorite chair and go for a drive.