So for anime conventions in my area, me and others run gaming content for them. We try to push an arcade angle with most of the games being of the arcade breed. I’ve been working on doing a large 6 player Outrun2/2006 competition for a convention in March with maybe some smaller scale tests at smaller events earlier. I’ve been working with Outrun 2 and Outrun 2006 on Xbox to see which I’d prefer to run. You’d think that 2006 being a glorified expansion of Outrun 2 with Outrun 2SPs courses, ported by the same company would be almost identical. It’s not.
Graphics: Between the two Xbox versions the only notable graphical difference is that the bloom effect in 2006 is toned down compared to Outrun 2. However bloom is absent from the PS2, PSP and PC ports of 2006. The PS2 and PSP, that makes sense, but for the PC port to lack the bloom effect is rather strange. Though the PC port does make up for it with high resolution antialiased graphics if you can run the game like that.
Tracks: Outrun 2 features the first 15 Outrun 2 courses but also unlockable bonus tracks, Sega Scud Race’s four tracks and Sega Daytona USA 2’s three tracks. That’s pretty sweet though they’re only available for races and time trails, they can’t be used for arcade mode. It’s no Dinosaur Canyon but I imagine Model 3 tracks looked far better on Xbox hardware than Model 2 tracks. Outrun 2006 has the advantage of featuring both Outrun 2 and Outrun 2SP’s arcade tracks. 2006 however does not feature Scud Race or Daytona 2’s tracks. 2006 offers the opportunity to run all 15 courses in succession instead of picking any five to reach your desired goal; this is cool as it gives more variety.
Cars: Suffice it to say, while Outrun 2 has all the cars from the game, Outrun 2006 has more and has souped up awesome versions of the cars you can unlock which make the game easier to run if you unlock said car.
Attract Mode: This is in fact very important to me. At any gaming event someone is going to abandon their machine, even in the middle of a game and go do something else. Any arcade fan knows that the attract mode is key for the game to say ‘Hey you! Look, I’m awesome, play me! Sit down and press start!
’ Outrun 2006 fails in this. If you ‘abandon’ a game, the time runs out and it stops on a ‘Retry/Quit’ prompt. If you leave it in any menu it will just sit there and burn the image into your screen. Outrun 2 however is quite awesome in this regard. Any game, won or loss, will fall back to the games main menu and after a little bit it will cycle up the attract mode with demo video, demo play, and high score screen. Unless you have a dialog box for some sort of input open, the game will always fall back to attract mode. This makes Outrun 2 more ideal for an ‘arcade’ like situation, even on a console. The only thing that would make it sweeter would be if it could auto-detect other network connected instances of Outrun 2 and offer multiplayer without using a multiplayer setup screen.
High Scores: Outrun 2006 again fails. For both games, player data is stored using profiles/licenses. In Outrun 2006, whatever license you’re logged in with, it’s automatically marked with that score. Fine for the home console user but in my uses, few players will ever even notice that they can make their own licenses and will use whatever it’s logged in with. So the score will go to whatever name that is. Outrun 2 retains the arcade versions high score method. You won, enter your initials. In Outrun 2 the player profiles are only used for tracking unlockables and achievements. This is great because I love seeing people score and put in their initials in games. Sometimes we track them down later and give them prizes. Not only that but Outrun 2006 won’t display your final score at the end of the race, only your tally of ‘Outrun Miles’ which are used to unlock features.
Control: PC: I think I’ve encountered a bug on Outrun 2006 in PC where as it will sometimes ignore your attempt to turn right to drift and instead plowing into the wall. At first I thought I was just making mistakes, but I noticed it was only when going right, not left, and it’d seem to blatantly ignore my attempts to steer.
Control: Xbox: For Outrun 2 the game detects a racing wheel and even changes its profile list and the graphics to show a wheel instead of an Xbox Game pad. Works great. For Outrun 2006 there is also an issue with at least Mad Catz MC2 where it will not allow you to get any meaningful change by changing control profiles. That is, if you change to any of the 8 profiles it will still only use the button layout for profile A. As a result this means the shifter is reversed for the MC2. More importantly this is only for the Xbox Wheel; the control profiles change fine using a standard controller. I imagine this is a bug in how the Xbox can detect a wheel as being a special controller but if the game doesn’t support it, it acts as a standard controller. The game is getting confused.
Control: PS2: The PS2 port of Outrun 2006 doesn’t support USB wheels like the Logitech Driving Force or others which have become common for PS2 racers. This is pretty half assed for a game released in 2006. Some wheels like my Mad Catz MC2 emulate the DualShock rather than a special USB controller and can be used but I have to admit the MC2 is a ‘good’ racing wheel; it is far from the best. All those premium wheels that you spent $100-$200 on, you won’t be using for Outrun 2006 for PS2
Conclusion: Outrun 2 is defiantly the more solid port. What it lacks in features it makes up for in arcade authenticity. Outrun 2 is about as arcade pixel perfect as you can get without buying a Sega Chihiro cab. Outrun 2006’s advantages are the SP tracks and having more features in an attempt to extend game play and also that it is on four different platforms.
I haven’t tried the 7th generation port, Outrun Arcade Online but I expect it to be more in tune with the PC port of Outrun 2006 and stripped of additional features. If someone would mind telling me how they’ve improved or haven’t, I’d love to hear it.
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Topic: Outrun 2 vs Outrun 2006 (Read 11206 times)
