OutRun

Deluxe moving cabinet of North America.

OutRun is a street racing game developed and published by Sega, originally released for the arcade in Japan on 1986-09-25, but then ported to many other platforms. The game uses a pseudo 3-D display which simulates speed by rapidly scaling-up sprites as you drive past them. The arcade cabinet was released in four forms, a mini upright cabinet, a larger upright cabinet, a more expensive sit-down cabinet which moved and shook with the game, and a deluxe moving cabinet with stereo speakers in the head rest and a race car shape.

Personal

I first saw this game in an arcade somewhere in the late 1980s, but I'm not positive where or which cabinet type. I do remember being very impressed with it, despite the fact that most people who played it rarely got very far. Looking at it more objectively now, I'm still very impressed by its technical capabilities, but find the game to be rather dull in general.

Despite its flaws, I still love watching OutRun being played by a skilled driver, the rapidly moving background graphics and jazzy music leaves me with a zen feeling.

Status

I do not own this game, and I have not beaten it.

Review

5	4	7	8	6

Best Version: Arcade

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The in-game graphics are wonderful. They're drawn competently, and each area has it's own theme and palette. The red Ferrari was an excellent vehicle choice.
• The game has really great music by Hiroshi Kawaguchi.
• Technically, the game is amazing for 1986. Not only can it handle large sprites and rapidly-scale them, but it can handle dozens on the screen at once.

The arcade cabinet was very impressive. A proper steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, a shifter, and, if you're playing the sit-down cabinet, haptic feedback!

• The alternate routes, each with their own ending was a nice touch, and the sheer number of side-line sprites and attractive look is very impressive.

Bad

• If you take away all the flash and polish, the actual mechanics of the game are the same as racing games that preceded it by several years like Turbo or Pole Position. A bit more effort could have been put into making it more fun.
• Because the car uses sprite mirroring, the Ferrari logo reverses when you steer to the left. This should have been corrected by drawing the logo as a separate sprite.

Ugly

• The game is painfully hard. Even after practice, it is unlikely you'll get very far in the game.

Box Art

• 

  This is the deluxe moving arcade cabinet. Has a wheel, gas and brake pedal, and throttle. Great design.

• OutRun - ARC - USA - Marquee.jpg

  The North American arcade marquee used on the stand-up cabinets.

• 

  The Master System box is rather plain, but it replicates the car used in the arcade title. Too bad it's kind of dumb to begin with.

• 

  This is the Mindscape box art used on the American Commodore 64, Atari ST, and DOS releases. It's an adequate painting of the start of the race. Decent, but not great. It uses the arcade OutRun logo.

• 

  This is the U.S. Gold box art used in the European Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum releases. While it's more cartoonish than the American art, I prefer it. I also prefer the more curvy logo.

• 

  This wide U.S. Gold box was used for the European Amiga and Atari ST releases.

• 

  The Japanese Mega Drive art uses a more detailed version of the arcade car logo. Again, not that great, but I do really like the over all graphic style, and the new logo is pretty sweet.

• 

  The USA and EU Genesis box art is nearly identical, just with a different cropping. This uses the Japanese art, only with the Ferarri in-tact rather than being obscured with the arcade version. The logo text has the same shape as the Japanese box, but is a boring flat white. This is my favorite box.

• 

  The Saturn box has the car and logo from the Japanese Mega Drive box. Nothing too impressive, but I like the layout.

Documentation

• 

  Deluxe arcade manual.

• 

  Standard arcade manual.

• 

  Upright arcade manual.

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  Mini upright arcade manual.

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  Amiga manual.

• 

  Master System manual.

• 

  Arcade advertisement.

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  Arcade advertisement.

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  Mindscape advertisement.

• 

  U.S. Gold advertisement.

• 

  Japanese advertisement.

Maps

• 

  Arcade map.

• 

  ZX Spectrum map.

Fan Art

• 

  Fan art by Bones.

• 

  Fan art by Signalnoise.

Videos

Port comparisons.

Longplay - Arcade.

Longplay - Genesis.

Longplay - TurboGrafx-16.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	OutRun
Japanese	アウトラン	AutoRan	OutRun

Links