Hands On: Outrun 2006
The only way to legally drive a Ferrari recklessly
Tags: OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast Categories: Previews, Xbox Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Apr 19th, 2006
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To be honest, I didn’t get what I had expected when I popped the preview disc of Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast in the Xbox debug unit. I know this may come as a shock to many of you, but I don’t actually pay attention to games until they are close to being released. I keep cursory tabs on games to be aware of who is publishing what, but a game can undergo radical transformations in the development process. I’m not negligent about games, but I try to keep expectations low. With so many games, it’s hard to keep track of them all anyway. By taking a quick look at some of the available screenshots, I had thought that the next Outrun title would be headed into a bit more “realistic” territory. Instead what we have is another arcade racer.
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Not to say that what I played was bad – not by any means, but that the expectation set up by looking at the screenshots was a bit misleading. The screenshots released made the game appear to have more of a photorealistic look, rather than being another arcade styled racing game. The gameplay is the same, which was to be expected, thankfully. So nothing has really changed, and while PGR3 level of graphics weren’t expected, I was expecting more than what we got with Outrun 2.
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Griping aside, the fans of SEGA’s driving franchise will be completely satisfied. There are plenty of branching paths, drifts, and models of Ferraris. There are several modes, variations mostly on solo driving against the clock, and racing against 5 other cars. One of the more… interesting portions of the game has to do with trying to impress the lady in the passenger seat. Various tasks will be required of the driver and the performance graded. There are such things as perform drifts or pass cars, but some really wacky stuff such as dribbling a gigantic beach ball a certain distance.
One of the nicer points is that the courses of Outrun 2 and Outrun 2SP are included in the game. Makes you wonder why Outrun 2 was even released outside of the arcades (it was an Xbox exclusive). Think of Outrun 2006 Cost 2 Coast as something more like Outrun 2.5 with all the good bits and more.
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The music – well, I hope that a custom soundtrack is implemented in the Xbox version. While there is a selection of tunes, it’s not only thin, several of them can get very irritating after only a short while. The voice acting seemed alright (what little there was of it) but the volume was off in correlation to the music and sound effects. Some balancing is needed there.
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While driving along you’ll rack up Outrun Miles which can be used to cash in unlocking more rides, courses and more. This ties in directly to the arcade gameplay nature of the title, where there isn’t a lot of depth, but heavy replay value. Many people think that this is a bad thing, but that just isn’t the case. Yes, there is a certain amount of depth with the number of courses, but the real draw is the gameplay itself – being able to get through in quick bursts and feel a sense of accomplishment is something that many racers just don’t have these days.
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Tags: OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Apr 19th, 2006 and is filed under Previews, Xbox Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
