Outrun turns 30 this month!

[MrThunderwing]

Ok, so ostensibly this is just a thread I've started to plug my new 30 years of Outrun tribute video, but I thought it would also be good to open up a bit of a discussion on one of the Great-Granddaddys of arcade racing as it approaches it's third decade. To this day, Outrun remains one of my favourite ever games. I can remember being absolutely gobsmacked as a kid by just how amazing looking and fast the game was, how much the brilliant soundtrack added to the experience. Best of all was if you could find one of the proper hydraulic sit-down ones for the full interactive experience. I had the ZX Spectrum and Sega Master System versions when I was a kid, but it wasn't until I got the Saturn version as part of the Sega Ages collection many years later that I felt like I'd truly got the arcade experience at home. Even though 3D polygon racers were the big thing by that point, there was something amazing about finally getting to play what felt like a near perfect version of the game at home. Anyway, what do you guys think? Got any happy Outrun (or it's sequels) memories you fancy sharing?

Oh, did I mention I have a video to plug?

[shaolindrunkard]

[Howard_Casto]

Nice vid.  Mentions me.  Feeds my narcissism. 

I can't remember a time without Outrun somewhere in the back of my head to be honest.  The cabinet mesmerized me as a kid.  When I got a NES Rad Racer was one of my first games.  At the time I guess I was too young to realize it was a ripoff of outrun, but I liked it anyway.  The pseudo-sequels were kind of a disappointment to me so when Outrun 2 came to the xbox I didn't realize it until the end of it's run.  Man I ruined my poor xbox playing that thing and subsequently 2k6.   

[MrThunderwing]

Glad you enjoyed it Howard. I ended up trading in my PS2 and buying an Xbox just purely for Outrun 2 (Well, that and Panzer Dragoon Orta) around 2005/6-ish. It was such a good conversion, at the time it felt like the closest I'd ever got to having a 'real' arcade racer at home, even just using a pad. I moved onto Coast 2 Coast when that came out not long after, and as a consequence I hadn't really tackled any of the Challenge Missions in Outrun 2, so it wasn't until quite a long time after (I think it was about a year) that I found out that Outrun 2 had bonus un-lockable stages from Scud Race and Daytona USA 2. As someone who'd desperately wanted ports of those 2 game on the Dreamcast (or any system after that), this absolutely blew my mind - to think I could've been playing versions of the tracks from those games on my Xbox on a game that I'd owned for over year! I was on a night shift at my work at the time I found out (via some late night web-surfing) and literally could not wait to get home and try them out when I finished, at a time when normally all I'd have been thinking about was a bacon sandwich and a mug of hot cocoa before going to bed...

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah.  I still haven't given up on adding bonus stages to 2k6, but I have to do things in stages.  First I need to get force feedback and the playability issues fixed.  Then I can move back to the fun stuff.  I might see if I can recruit some of the Mortal Kombat hackers.  We tore that poor game wide upon just by brute force in regards to the amount of people working on it.  I have some pretty good inside info, but I still lack the location of the exit ramp tables that tell the game what position to load the stage in.  That is crucial to stage edits or replacements. 

[buttersoft]

Loved the vid. So many bad home computer ports of great games. I'm also a huge fan of 2k6, though I'm playing it at 480i on my rigs

Adding stages would be awesome. Not the sort of thing I can help with, but you have my support.

[MrThunderwing]

Thanks  . Yeah, the computer ports were pretty awful on the whole - the Amiga and Atari ST versions looked particularly bad considering these were the 16 bit machines. I still have a bit of a soft spot for the Speccy version though, even though it went at a snails pace.

[isamu]

Happy (early)Birthday Outrun!!!! 

I came here to post this and to also plug Mr. Thunderwing's video but I see you already beat me to it m8. 

If anyone hasn't watched Thunderwing's vid yet you need to do so ASAP! He does an *EXCEPTIONAL* job capturing the history behind this classic series and goes through literally every version of the game, followed by discussing the "sequels" and spinoffs , then proceeds to cap it off by marvelously summarizing OutRun 2/2K6 and what it meant for fans. It's one of those videos I've watched three times already and one of the few YT vids that's permanently staying on my HDD forever. Superb Job mate!

As for my personal thoughts on the game what else can be said? It's a classic and a masterpiece. Like Howard, I too was mesmerized by the game and it blew my 13yr old mind when I first laid eyes on it at the local arcade in 1986.

My mom bought me a Sega Master System for Christmas that year and Outrun was the very first home console racing game I ever played *BESIDES* Night Driver for the 2600 which is borderline trash in comparison. Anyway I played the SMS version for hours upon hours every day. Played it so much I got bored of the music and started listening to my own(playing "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths over and over again while playing Outrun brings back so many memories! ).

I went on to buy the game for several more systems including the Genesis, the Amiga 500, the Game Gear, and the Japanese 60fps Saturn version. Also like Howard and many others, I wasn't impressed with 2019 or Turbo OutRun, but I did love OutRunners. The graphical style was quite charming for its time and it's an underrated game IMHO.

Outrun 2 is where things really got bananas for me though. I couldn't believe after so many years we got a true sequel, with beautiful 3D graphics, great remixed tunes and a helluva fun drifting system. Suffice it to say I bought damn near every version of the game even the Japanese PS2 one. Pumped hundreds of hours into the OG Xbox version and have fond memories of playing online with a bunch of cool people(shout out to Virtua Racing aka Red Scorpion, SPENCE, Eagle 13, AM2 Model3 and bunch of others).

My only real disappointment in the whole OutRun 2 situation is when the game was brought to the PC without any kind of force feedback. To say I was gutted, depressed, highly pissed off and emotionally distraught would be an understatement. I mean this was THE game I was looking forward to playing on PC the MOST! My wheel was all prepped and ready to go, and to find out I couldn't play it with FFB, man, the tears......

So you can just imagine the sheer joy I experienced when I finally tried out Howard's FXT Hack a couple months ago. I was and still am extremely grateful to you Howard, for your work on putting this hack together, and I'm absolutely elated to finally get to play the best version of the game *with* force feedback effects! It's damn near perfect but once you tweak and improve the FFB and hopefully get the center spring working in the XInput side some day,  it's going to be FLAWLESS!!! 

On a side note, I got Cannonball to finally work MT! The program doesn't seem to properly support more than two controllers at a time(at least not for me) so I need to unplug all my devices except for my wheel and pedals, and them plug everything back in, in order for it for provide the FFB to my wheel. Not a big deal, although I hope the admin considers working on this issue so that Cannonball will allow us to map simultaneous multiple devices to the game some day. However....I just want to say, Howard: your FFB effects feel FANTASTIC in Cannonball!!! Great Job bro!   Using my Bodnar wheel at  about 35% strength it is a serious workout and this is the first time I truly feel like I am literally playing the arcade cabinet in my house!!!! 

Well guys, tomorrow's the actual 30th anniversary of OutRun 1986. I will be playing the living ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- out of it on Cannonball!!!! Hope you guys will commemorate the anniversary by doing the same 

[Howard_Casto]

Did I have something to do with the FFB in cannonball?  I think I shot Alex a message or two about how I implement it, but other than that, it's all him.  The guy is way more talented than me. 

[isamu]

Did I have something to do with the FFB in cannonball?  I think I shot Alex a message or two about how I implement it, but other than that, it's all him.  The guy is way more talented than me.

Oh...well mad props to him too then lol 

[MrThunderwing]

Isamu, thank you for the VERY kind words and the glowing recommendation  I appreciate it buddy! I'm glad you enjoyed the video so much 

[isamu]

Isamu, thank you for the VERY kind words and the glowing recommendation  I appreciate it buddy! I'm glad you enjoyed the video so much 

No problem man you did a great job! I also plugged your vid in a new Neogaf thread:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=217508372

[MrThunderwing]

Thanks again dude. Wow, lot of Outrun fans over at Neogaf.

[Loafmeister]

Ah Outrun, been too long since I ran it, to celebrate this anniversary, I'll have to play it when I get home tonight.  I can't view the vid at work so that's another thing to do when I get home!

I'm pretty big on nostalgia, especially when it comes to recalling the many visits to the arcades and for Sega, Outrun (and certainly Space Harrier) really brought so much innovation with their motion control cabinets that it's impossible not to think them first when someone says the word "arcade" (well, also pinball but that's another story ).  I know there were other force feedback cabinets at the time bit I dunno, this one was pretty special.  To Outrun's credit, the game is just as fun on a standard cabinet, it's a great game, period, but that deluxe cab was something else!

[Malenko]

Good video! I was worried when Michael J Fox was your camera man at the start of the video. I'll be honest I skipped a head a lot, the "lets compare" section could have been truncated a bit. Judging by the audio you voiced over using a script and I wasnt subjected to hearing "ummms" and unplanned tangents and that was a relief.

[MrThunderwing]

[MrThunderwing]

Judging by the audio you voiced over using a script and I wasnt subjected to hearing "ummms" and unplanned tangents and that was a relief.

Actually I did a fair bit of it off the cuff. I pretty much knew in advance what I wanted to say about everything though.

[VirtuaIceMan]

Something I'm not sure many people noticed was that Outrun 2019 was made by SIMS, who also did the 3D remake AGES 2500 PlayStation 2 version of Outrun. Just before the final level on the diamond-shaped extended map on the PS2 game is a level entirely raised in the air (on a bridge) which, for me, evokes memories of the Outrun 2019 raised highways sections. I wonder if this was intentional by SIMS?