There are few moments in gaming quite so exhilarating as speeding around a clifftop hairpin in a gleaming red Ferrari, Sega blue skies stretching off for miles around, while a blonde girl in the passenger seat punches the air in glee. It's a schoolboy sort of fantasy, for sure, but OutRun has always been the best driving game at delivering it, be it in the arcades with a jealous crowd looking on or at home on a console over Xbox LIVE.
OutRun Online Arcade is, in a great many ways, more of the same. Based on Outrun 2, the polished follow-up to the seminal 1980s arcade racer, it delivers much of the same experience that Xbox owners drove back in 2003. However, for this title there are two key distinctions. Firstly, the game is based on the OutRun 2 SP arcade cabinet, the latest iteration of the arcade game with its new American-themed courses and tactics-encouraging slipstreaming technique. Secondly, and most importantly, it's available as a downloadable only, for the astonishingly reasonable price of 800 MSP (£6.80).
When a game released exclusively digitally disappears from distribution, it becomes impossible to play it legally. Actually, quite a few gems have disappeared in this manner, with the legendary P.T. being just the beginning of the story.
Nice message and physical should always be supported, but I am not supporting this article being set across like nine pages.
Guns, girls, cars and dreams in week two of the SEGA list.
House of the deads, Panzer dragoons, space harrier, virtua on/Cop and shoot even shenmue.
VR is the perfect platform for every rail shooter. From House of the Dead to Virtua Cop or even Time Crisis, Silent Scope..
They can also bring their racing franchises back, like Scud Race, Daytona, Sega Rally, Crazy Taxi, 18 Wheeler..
So many hidden treasures just waiting to be brought back.
Is there such a thing as the 'perfect game'. Rice digital pick out some titles that come very close!
I agree. I could play outrun and snes mario kart (would prefer N64 version for 4 player antics with friends!) and mario world right now, and I would still get sucked in.
EDIT: Screw it...I need a nintendo in my life. I admit it...I miss that nintendo magic!
I like Super Mario World, Outrun 2 and Super Monkey Ball being there.
However the first Super Monkey Ball game requires so much 'perfect' precision from its players in some levels that it also requires the perfect player. It's a curiousity of the Gamecube that, whilst Nintendo made some series easier than what was on the N64 (e.g. Zelda, Mario- and making Luigi's Mansion for the Gamecube), with the exclusive games created by third parties there were some very hardcore games (e.g. Super Monkey Ball, Viewtiful Joe, F Zero GX).
But when you start putting simple puzzle games like Tetris in there, then you reveal that, for every bit of complexity in a game, it tends to hinder the chance of being classed as perfect.
I suppose Thomas was alone will be classed as 'perfect' for this reason.
Yet it shows the limitation of calling a game of deliberately limited scope perfect. How do you compare a perfectly polished and playable but cheap to make and small marble with a huge and jagged hunk of gold?
A game that continues to stay in my mind for the richness of experiences (and some scares) is Beyond: Two Souls. Yet as a game it demands little of the player - extremely rarely is it possible to die compared to Heavy Rain. Beyond controls itself in some action sequences. So few magazines would call it 'perfect' and yet it affects me in so many ways far more than Tetris ever could.
Totally agree with Outrun 2, I got the PS3 version and its definitely one of those 'just one more go' type of games. Before you know it it's 2am and you've got the sound of tyres squealing constantly ringing in your ears
