Today is OutRun's 30th Birthday!!!!!! I am celebrating by playing the shit out of it via CannonBall:
http://reassembler.blogspot.com/p/cannonball-open-source-outrun-engine.html
I came here to commemorate this game's classic and iconic legacy, and to also plug Mr. Thunderwing's video!
To celebrate the anniversary, Mr. Thunderwing has done a video discussing 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!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ0462V9cao
As for my personal thoughts on the game, what else can be said? It's a classic and a masterpiece. Like Howard said in the BYOAC forums, 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.
I was 13, in junior highschool, and I remember pump what little amount of quarters I had into the arcade cab at the local laundry mat. Then 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 lol.) 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).
On a side note, after what seemed like hours of tinkering around, I finally got Cannonball to work with my steering wheel and pedals! If you guys aren't familiar with Cannonball, it is essentially a program that allows you to run the original Outrun game, but with all kinds of cool enhancements and additions, including force feedback, higher resolution, widescreen support, a track editor, scanline support, custom soundtrack support, bumper cam view, and more! This is the *ONLY* version of the game that actually incorporates and 100% mimics the force feedback effects as the arcade. Suffice it to say the FFB effects feel FANTASTIC in Cannonball!!! Alex has done a SUPERB job with it!!!
Well, hope you OutRun fans will commemorate the anniversary by playing the game some time day. I'll be enjoying the game while reminiscing about the good 'ole days
I raise my glass and give a toast to Yu Suzuki!!! Thanks for creating this iconic and amazing racing game. It's thanks to him I've become the racing game fan that I am! Bring on Outrun 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
