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Living the dream
By PaulEMoz
How many times have you seen some wanker drive past in a Ferrari and said to yourself, "I wish that were me"? Since the glorious heyday of the arcades, you've known that OutRun is as close as you're ever going to get, so it's just as well that SEGA have seen fit to resurrect the series in recent years, in order that those of us approaching midlife crises can still live the dream.
Like us, OutRun has changed a bit since the eighties. It's older and wiser, and looks a bit different, but underneath all this, the heart is still the same. Essentially (and thankfully), the core of the game is still to get from start to finish, choosing whichever route you happen to fancy at the time. But they've thrown in a bunch of new stuff to make it a bit more interesting than that.
"Let's see... you take a left at the ruins, then right at the windmills..."
From the first sharp corner, you're going to notice that it doesn't play quite the same as the OutRun of old. You can't just expect to turn early and make it through. You have to learn the new 'drift' mechanic if you want to be successful. And you'll have a blast doing so, even if it's not quite as enjoyable as whacking your foot on the brake pedal, as you do in the arcade.
Then there are the challenges. Winning hearts for your girlfriend might be a bit sappy, but the things you'll have to do in the name of lurve will challenge your driving skills to the limit. And the challenges range from the ordinary to the sublime to the ridiculous. You won't mind completing the mundane tasks so much when you round a corner and are ordered to “Avoid alien abduction!”
They're coming. And they want your Ferraris. I'm alright, I've got a Volvo.
Ferraris might not be renowned for their storage space, but Coast to Coast packs in a huge amount. You get two arcade games, enough gameplay modes to keep you busy for yonks, and all kinds of OutRun-related stuff to unlock, so that if you really love this game (and it's daddy), you've got all kinds of incentives to keep playing, as if the game itself wasn't enough.
"I can see for miles aaaand miles..."
Xbox owners that have already bought OutRun 2 might be a bit miffed, seeing as they already own a fair chunk of this, but you know what? Trade it in. Sell it on eBay. You'll be able to knock a couple of quid off the price of this new version, and you'll have at least the same amount of gaming time here as you did with your old version, even if you don't play the OutRun 2 part.
Coast to Coast is a glorious, sun-drenched bit of gaming fluff. It's an arcade game, gloriously and unashamedly so, but with hours and hours of gameplay. If you fancy a summer drive and the British weather lets you down, you know where to turn.
June 2006
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