OutRun 2 Video

[London Geezer]

Its sense of speed is exceptionally fast and reaches a new standard for smoothness.

See it's these PR statements that make me cringe everytime you post something. How does Outrun speed (which is great BTW) "set a new standard for smoothness"? Really. Explain this one to me, because i thought a fast 60fps is a fast 60fps whatever the game. Burnout1 & 2, F-Zero, GT3, and many others are "fast 60fps". None of them "set a new standard for smoothness"... Really Lazy, if you dropped the PR talk and the love-SEGA-products-by-default-as-crap-as-they-can-be-sometimes you'd become more credible.

The fact remains, this is a goodlooking game that runs fast, but is still and OLD fast goodlooking game. Much like 99% of old 16-bit conversions. Much like almost everything Sega has done for the last 5 years.

 

[Nappe1]

well, as old Commodore 64 player, it still seems to have the good old magical touch that OutRun and Turbo Outrun had back in late eightees.

so yes, I love it I can't wait to test it. It's unrealistic and has nothing to do with real driving, but it is THE OUTRUN. it does not need to be ultra realistic simulator. and I still continue... for PC racing games player that graphics detail looks gorgeours besides open road racers have been a bit rare in these days...

anyways, just my 2 nanometers.

 

[function]

The fact remains, this is a goodlooking game that runs fast, but is still and OLD fast goodlooking game. Much like 99% of old 16-bit conversions. Much like almost everything Sega has done for the last 5 years.

Come off it, the majority of Sega's output for the last five years is nothing like this.

I would ask you to define what an "OLD" game is. Simple play mechancis? Unrealistic? The premise and objectives have been around for years? Gameplay in all racing games is pretty much the same as Pole Position or Super Monaco, all you're doing is trying to do is gain position or improve your time. Changing variables relating to handling and replays on crashes are icing on the cake.

The fact that Outrun 2 tries to induce the same feelings in the player that Outrun 1 did isn't a bad point, it's a good point. If that makes it "OLD" then so what? Hey, the game may be crap for all I know, but for anyone to say so because it's another shot at the same goal is mighty unfair.

Besides, the handling seems to owe more to the Daytona and Ridge Racer school of handling (definitely a "good thing") than Outrun, which wasn't 3D and didn't have any kind of physics (to speak of) going on.

 

[London Geezer]

The fact that Outrun 2 tries to induce the same feelings in the player that Outrun 1 did isn't a bad point, it's a good point. If that makes it "OLD" then so what? Hey, the game may be crap for all I know, but for anyone to say so because it's another shot at the same goal is mighty unfair.

Besides, the handling seems to owe more to the Daytona and Ridge Racer school of handling (definitely a "good thing") than Outrun, which wasn't 3D and didn't have any kind of physics (to speak of) going on.

Nothing wrong with it. I was just observing a clear pattern on most of Sega productions in the last years. Just slap a 3D engine to an old franchise and off you go. Really, apart from some very few mighty fine games (the VF franchise getting better and better, Shenmue and very few others) thats all they're doing. It's lazy and i hate lazyness.

The original argument is that Lazy's PR talk makes me cringe. That's it. He talks of every Sega game as if it was the second coming, when in fact many are average games.

In this case, Outrun is a goodlooking (not even VERY goodlooking, just very colourful and bright. lots of shiny shine...err...) and fast game. How many goodlooking and fast games are there? How many of them offer much more replay value than Outrun? How many of them are just better games? The fact remains, it is an 80s game with a 3D engine. NOTHING more.

 

[rabidrabbit]

The fact that Outrun 2 tries to induce the same feelings in the player that Outrun 1 did isn't a bad point, it's a good point. If that makes it "OLD" then so what? Hey, the game may be crap for all I know, but for anyone to say so because it's another shot at the same goal is mighty unfair.

Besides, the handling seems to owe more to the Daytona and Ridge Racer school of handling (definitely a "good thing") than Outrun, which wasn't 3D and didn't have any kind of physics (to speak of) going on.

Nothing wrong with it. I was just observing a clear pattern on most of Sega productions in the last years. Just slap a 3D engine to an old franchise and off you go. Really, apart from some very few mighty fine games (the VF franchise getting better and better, Shenmue and very few others) thats all they're doing. It's lazy and i hate lazyness.

The original argument is that Lazy's PR talk makes me cringe. That's it. He talks of every Sega game as if it was the second coming, when in fact many are average games.

In this case, Outrun is a goodlooking (not even VERY goodlooking, just very colourful and bright. lots of shiny shine...err...) and fast game. How many goodlooking and fast games are there? How many of them offer much more replay value than Outrun? How many of them are just better games? The fact remains, it is an 80s game with a 3D engine. NOTHING more.

It's not just Sega that are doing this, most of current games are old formulas and game ideas with new graphics and better controls and smoother gameplay.
You could say the same about Square and Final Fantasy games, most driving games from any company, platformers...
I haven't played Outrun since the C64 version, didn't like it so much then, but OR2 sounds like good simple arcade racing fun, with enough replayability in form of the junctioned roads.

 

[function]

Nothing wrong with it. I was just observing a clear pattern on most of Sega productions in the last years. Just slap a 3D engine to an old franchise and off you go. Really, apart from some very few mighty fine games (the VF franchise getting better and better, Shenmue and very few others) thats all they're doing. It's lazy and i hate lazyness.

Firstly, while Sega are looking to build on old, popular franchises (as every developer with any common sense is doing) it's blatantly not all they're doing. And it doesn't even account for "most" of their output. Try taking a look at what the company is actually producing and has produced over the last 5 years.

I think it would be misleading to describe making any game as simply slapping a 3D engine to an old franchise. No part of the original Outrun could be reused save for some remixes of the music. What "lazy" comes down to in this case is whether you think trying to improve on an existing attempt at something after nearly 20 years is without merit compared to creating an entirely new experience (something which hardly ever happens these days).

The original argument is that Lazy's PR talk makes me cringe. That's it. He talks of every Sega game as if it was the second coming, when in fact many are average games.

Yes, no-one likes PR speak from none PR people. I don't even much like it from PR people.

In this case, Outrun is a goodlooking (not even VERY goodlooking, just very colourful and bright. lots of shiny shine...err...) and fast game. How many goodlooking and fast games are there? How many of them offer much more replay value than Outrun? How many of them are just better games? The fact remains, it is an 80s game with a 3D engine. NOTHING more.

Why have we got to the point where people think the essence of a game can be summed up by how fast and goodlooking (and we aren't considering art style in this) a game is, or even by how much replay a game has (especially by the standards of see it once, discard it players)? There's so much more to each and every game - even bad ones - that I can't help but find this depressing. Then again, I consider games to have artistic merit as well as technical, and that colours the way I judge games.

But I really have to ask: what is inherently 80's about Outrun? And what is there about the gameplay that means it's invalid in the 00's? Just because there are other 60fps games around, for example, isn't any kind of answer I'd accept.

 

[cthellis42]

Hrm... That's 5th screenshot makes me wonder--are we going to be getting a lot of game advertising, soon? Other than the occasional cute and random mention (like seeing a R&C and Jak cross-advertise, or Xenosaga email you an advert for their other games as spam) I'm not sure I'd like this practice to become "successful" in a big way. I suppose The Sims can insert McDonalds in ok, since it's a "real life simulation," but running by AMD billboards and such in racing games would get tiring REAL fast. -_- (Is AMD in the innards of the arcade game somewhere, at least?)

 

[London Geezer]

Why have we got to the point where people think the essence of a game can be summed up by how fast and goodlooking (and we aren't considering art style in this) a game is, or even by how much replay a game has (especially by the standards of see it once, discard it players)? There's so much more to each and every game - even bad ones - that I can't help but find this depressing. Then again, I consider games to have artistic merit as well as technical, and that colours the way I judge games.

But I really have to ask: what is inherently 80's about Outrun? And what is there about the gameplay that means it's invalid in the 00's? Just because there are other 60fps games around, for example, isn't any kind of answer I'd accept.

Errrmmm I must have been unclear in previous posts. What i said was:

See it's these PR statements that make me cringe everytime you post something. How does Outrun speed (which is great BTW) "set a new standard for smoothness"? Really. Explain this one to me, because i thought a fast 60fps is a fast 60fps whatever the game. Burnout1 & 2, F-Zero, GT3, and many others are "fast 60fps". None of them "set a new standard for smoothness"...

After that Lazy's statement that Outrun suddenly "sets new standrads for smoothness".

That was it.

Then i just gave my opinion on the game, after seeing it and playing it in the arcades.

That's all. Nothing less, nothing more. If you or Lazy think this game somehow "sets new standard for the gaming world", then that is your opinion and i respect that. I just do not agree in the least with it.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Hrm... That's 5th screenshot makes me wonder--are we going to be getting a lot of game advertising, soon? Other than the occasional cute and random mention (like seeing a R&C and Jak cross-advertise, or Xenosaga email you an advert for their other games as spam) I'm not sure I'd like this practice to become "successful" in a big way. I suppose The Sims can insert McDonalds in ok, since it's a "real life simulation," but running by AMD billboards and such in racing games would get tiring REAL fast. -_- (Is AMD in the innards of the arcade game somewhere, at least?)

Did the original Outrun also have real life advertisements on tracksides?
I have a very vague memory that it did.

 

[London Geezer]

An AMD advert on a game that uses and Intel-based board (Chihiro being a modified Xbox)... Now that's curious....

 

[Lazy8s]

london-boy:

How does Outrun speed (which is great BTW) "set a new standard for smoothness"?

By having better continuity of movement. You first have to understand what the quality of smoothness is.

'Fast' is a speed-related property which only accounts for how quickly an object moves passed other scenery. If the appearance of the object being updated to the screen doesn't match how quickly its covering ground within the world, the movement will appear jerky (regardless of how fast it may be going.)

Smoothness is a different property of the movement, conveying how continuous motion looks as an object changes position within the world. If the change looks too abrupt, if you're too aware of the discrete instances (frames) that make up the movement... it won't look smooth.

How does OutRun 2's "sense of speed" (an imprecise term actually, since motion is what's really being discussed and includes both speed and smoothness) fair so well? A major reason: the field of view is expansive, putting your car into the context of loads of detail all around and far ahead of you. Your motion is referenced against more objects and perspective than other racers. With the car animating over the road naturally and all that landscape and detail scaling nicely in from very far away, the smoothness of your movement through the world feels so buttery slick and continuous. It reaches an elite standard with only the likes of F-Zero AX/GX, a clear step above the feel of most others.

Yeah, there are other fast-moving 60 fps racers, but consider the following example in the fighting genre to understand the difference more easily: Even before Soul Calibur, there were other fighting games at 60 fps and with fast motion. Yet, Soul Calibur clearly reached a new level in smoothness for animation, where all movement flowed and transitioned much more fluidly to the eye.

london-boy:
...The fact remains, this is a goodlooking game that runs fast, but is still and OLD fast goodlooking game. Much like 99% of old 16-bit conversions...

...How many of them offer much more replay value than Outrun? How many of them are just better games? The fact remains, it is an 80s game with a 3D engine. NOTHING more...

V3:
Cross country driving a Ferrari is like the 80s idea of fun, nowdays people seems to prefer something like NFSU or Initial D.

Not to be argumentative with V3, but OutRun appears to be today's idea of fun too if its popularity with arcades is anything to go by. The game's challenge is focused on the action... that's where its execution - its depth - rests. And that action is intense and addictive, which is why many people are playing it and have favorable impressions of it.

Also, london-boy, an earlier reply in this thread in fact covered new elements of gameplay that this sequel has, in case you missed it.

london-boy:

...Much like almost everything Sega has done for the last 5 years...

...I was just observing a clear pattern on most of Sega productions in the last years. Just slap a 3D engine to an old franchise and off you go. Really, apart from some very few mighty fine games (the VF franchise getting better and better, Shenmue and very few others) thats all they're doing. It's lazy and i hate lazyness...

Your perspective on SEGA seems irrational. Games they've released these last several years are nothing like the 'lazy addition of 3D to outdated gaming' you've described: Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, GUNVALKYRIE, Chu Chu Rocket, Samba de Amigo, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, Rez, Space Channel 5s, The Typing of the Dead, Bass Fishing, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and even their sports line-up.

cthellis42:

Hrm... That's 5th screenshot makes me wonder--are we going to be getting a lot of game advertising, soon?

Actually, sponsor advertising in racing games is already very common. A lot of times it has to do with the sponsor's connection to the sport or brands being licensed.

 

[Fox5]

Hrm... That's 5th screenshot makes me wonder--are we going to be getting a lot of game advertising, soon? Other than the occasional cute and random mention (like seeing a R&C and Jak cross-advertise, or Xenosaga email you an advert for their other games as spam) I'm not sure I'd like this practice to become "successful" in a big way. I suppose The Sims can insert McDonalds in ok, since it's a "real life simulation," but running by AMD billboards and such in racing games would get tiring REAL fast. -_- (Is AMD in the innards of the arcade game somewhere, at least?)

It's based on xbox right? Then it uses AMD's HyperTransport.

 

[Sonic]

Here's my two cents. I have probably played the game more than anyone else on the forum and haven't paid a single dime for it. This game does everything it tries to do perfectly. A game like Burnout 2 is much deeper on the surface by all the different options and scenarios to choose from. Outrun2 lacks some of the serious playability that Burnout2 offers. (I won't comment on NFS: Underground because I believe it is the worst game in the NFS franchise. I despise exorbitant amounts of rice and dislike the fact that the game has little cars that I enjoy.) Burnout2 just doesn't make me feel the way Outrun2 does. Basically what I'm saying is that Burnout2 is not an arcade game and what it tries to do arcady Outrun2 blows it away. With at least 50 hours logged into the machine I have come to enjoy it a lot. It's classic arcade action. Mindless gameplay that you can sit down for 10 minutes to get your quicky in and relieve some stress. This is the type of game that requires you to learn the basic mechanics and then you're set. Your skills will improve over time but it is not a strenuous task at all. The game is ace in every way an arcade game should be. It's graphics are hot! The art direction is beautiful. Simply saying, this is arcade action that you play just to play. Nothing mind boggling about it, just simple gameplay mechanics that are addicted and leave me coming back for more. It's no wonder I can play it for an hour and forget all about eating lunch on my break. I can't get enough of it! Now all I have to do is wait until Daytona 3 is started and becomes playable.

 

[Tagrineth]

How does OutRun 2's "sense of speed" (an imprecise term actually, since motion is what's really being discussed and includes both speed and smoothness) fair so well? A major reason: the field of view is expansive, putting your car into the context of loads of detail all around and far ahead of you. Your motion is referenced against more objects and perspective than other racers. With the car animating over the road naturally and all that landscape and detail scaling nicely in from very far away, the smoothness of your movement through the world feels so buttery slick and continuous. It reaches an elite standard with only the likes of F-Zero AX/GX, a clear step above the feel of most others.

Wipeout Fusion is quite smooth, too, you know.

 

[marconelly!]

And so is Burnout 2. I really don't see how is Outrun 2 any 'smoother' moving, and I think BO2 is much better game to compare it to than F-Zero GX, but I guess teary eyes Sega magic does weird things to a person after prolonged exposure

The screens aren't "PR supersampled" (rendered originally at some untrue resolution); the down sampling is just from natural resizing.

However, there is no way to find out what was the original resolution they were downsampled from, (they might as well have been rendered in the 10000x10000 and scaled down) and all we can see is this artificially antialiased result, which is still cheating if you want go 'by the book'.

 

[V3]

Not to be argumentative with V3, but OutRun appears to be today's idea of fun too if its popularity with arcades is anything to go by.

And arcade is no where as popular as when the day of Daytona. Look at NFSU sales, and wonder why Sega doesn't have million seller for their racing games. Something they were King, back then, now they've fallen. They've never really capitalise on it and the sad thing is, they could have easily.

The game's challenge is focused on the action... that's where its execution - its depth - rests. And that action is intense and addictive, which is why many people are playing it and have favorable impressions of it.

The game is the same. I can said the same thing with the original Outrun its a great game, along time ago. I had fun then. Now I want something new, Virtua Racing, Daytona, F355, Sega Rally, etc they were great and different something refreshing in Arcade. Arcade is dead because of rehash like this.

 

[V3]

I have probably played the game more than anyone else on the forum and haven't paid a single dime for it.

If Outrun2 was free for me too, I would probably have like it too. It cost me money, and I demand my money worth.

(I won't comment on NFS: Underground because I believe it is the worst game in the NFS franchise. I despise exorbitant amounts of rice and dislike the fact that the game has little cars that I enjoy.)

Yeah NFSU is basically pos and I pretty much agree with that. The annoying thing is that it sells heaps.

 

[London Geezer]

Wipeout Fusion is quite smooth, too, you know.

Of all examples you could find... WP has some serious slowdowns at times.

Still, there are MANY, MANY 60fps games that run smoothly. Outrun2 is not any "smoother" than them. The Burnout series is just as fast and smooth, Lazy, and a 6000 word big-worded-essay on why YOU personally think Outrun somehow manages to be "smoother" will not make it true all of a sudden. I think enough has been said on this game. If you personally think this is the second coming of gaming, then fine, i'll be playing other real games instead.
The same thing happened with PDO. You flashed out your 10000 big words on how this game was God's gift to humanity, when the fact still remains: It is a VERY VERY pretty interactive cut-scene.
Same here, Outrun is a decently pretty no-brainer-racing game. Enough for 30 minutes of gaming at best, then most of us (the ones who don't pray to Sega's God to descend from the sky) will go back to playing games that make our brain work, even if it is Burnout2.

 

[notAFanB]

Lazy8s, with all due respect...horseshit. Outrun 2 has a lovely framerate and even better draw distance, giving it a great senstation of speed without letting your eyes glaze over the trackside detail.

BUT that is all, if you want to pay atention to all the small details, why not mention the reflections which acrtually DO stand out next ot all the 'smothness' you are pushing here.

The same thing happened with PDO. You flashed out your 10000 big words on how this game was God's gift to humanity, when the fact still remains: It is a VERY VERY pretty interactive cut-scene.

and a very intense old skool shooter if I might add.

 

[Fafalada]

Basically what I'm saying is that Burnout2 is not an arcade game and what it tries to do arcady...

Strange thing to say, what I got out of Burnout2 is that the core of the gameplay (car driving model, and rewards for dangerous & flashy driving) is pretty much a straight rip from CrazyTaxi games, which IIRC originated in arcades. 8)
So we could also argue it pays homage to a Sega arcade game no less, so you and Lazy of all guys should appreciate it
Ok I'm teasing, but still, I found BO2 to be more of an arcade game then the old 'king' of PS2 arcade racers - RR5. As you describe it, mindless gameplay that you can sit down for 10 mins to get your quicky. (I disagree about stress relief part though - it's probably just me personally but I always get more frustration then stress relief from playing arcade games ).