A port of OutRun
3D OutRun is the critically acclaimed 1986 driving game designed by Yu Suzuki, re-mastered and enhanced for the Nintendo 3DS system. OutRun is a racing game originating in the arcades. The player can race across varied terrain in a readily available Ferrari, complete with a female passenger, over a series of short tracks. Gameplay is viewed form just above and behind the car. The roads are full of sharp bends and hazards, contact with which can cause the car to roll and lose the player's time. On each section of track there is a fork in the road, allowing the player to choose which direction he or she wishes to go in. The player has to to complete five track sections in total, out of the fifteen in the game. The re-mastered version includes all of Out Run’s original content alongside two new songs, and runs at 60 frames per second which is twice the speed of the original game. 3D Out Run also features a built in Stage Select option that allows players to save and resume progress mid-game, has adjustable difficulty settings, and includes unlockable car customization options that allow you to equip parts to improve your car. Additionally, players are able to choose from a number of real-life arcade cabinets wherein everything from the appearance to the environmental sounds of the specific cabinet.
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I’ve played bits of it a few times but, by never truly playing it extensively, I only thought of it as a “sit and relax” type of game, with the only objective being driving through different scenery for as long as you could.
Well, I forgot this was an AM2 game. The focus is still the raw fun, but there was, indeed, a true objective behind the gameplay.
After getting bored of playing Kirby Triple Deluxe, I took advantage of my 3DS being still turned on and decided to give 3D OutRun a try, completely unpretentiously. And I’m glad that I did it.
Whilst not a racing game, OutRun is a driving game. You hit the gas pedal and go through different roads, trying to hit checkpoints with remaining time until the finish line, all of this while trying to dodge nearby vehicles, making sharp turns and shifting the car’s gears to reach higher and slower speeds depending on the situation at hand.
The concept and controls are very simple, but what truly hooks you in is everything else that makes this a really compelling and fun arcade experience.
It looks great, sounds great, but, most of all: it plays amazingly.
The real fun of this game comes from trying to maintain your speed whilst shifting gears and not hitting on other cars and objects by the sides of the road, and the game presents enough variety to always keep you on the edge of your seat.
And, oddly enough, by still keeping a chill, relaxed vibe behind all of it.
Not only that, but every once in a while you’ll be granted the choice of going on different paths that lead you to a different roads with their own scenery and obstacles. Going through all of these will grant you six different “endings”, and it is super fun to play your best to see them all.
On top of all that, this 3DS remaster comes in as one of, if not the best version of the game. Whilst the original Arcade port (which runs at 30 FPS) can still be unlocked by getting all six endings, it runs by default at 60 FPS, making the game run extremely fluidly and enhancing the feeling of speed present in the original. You can also unlock improvements to your car that can make the gameplay easier, but combining different parts also changes the look of the car itself. With the addition of two new music tracks, there’s more than enough variety here to keep the game as engrossing as it was back in the late 80’s.
OutRun was a very, very pleasant surprise. Now I truly get why it is the classic that it is. Games like these are the exactly the ones that remind me why I love videogames so much!