Designer Yu Suzuki famously classified Out Run as a driving game, not a racing game. He was wrong. The breezy music, the sparkling vistas, the lack of looping tracks and direct opponents — they all delight, but they can’t stop a beating coin-op heart. When I play classic Out Run, I don’t cruise. I’m tense, I’m under pressure, and I’m trying to win. I’m still racing, still on the edge, just against an ever-ticking clock. It’s not Suzuki’s or Sega’s fault, necessarily; in 1986, Out Run truly pushed back. But its hunger for quarters lingers, corrupting laid-back drives into white-knuckle pursuits of victory.
Sega Ages Out Run, a port for home consoles*, frees Out Run from its ’80s arcade sensibilities. A slider to raise the time limit lets you relax your shoulders, another to reduce traffic lets you admire the spectacle of an open road. Unlockable upgrades and an automatic transmission let you luxuriate in that sexy Testarossa, your girl by your side, your arm loose on the door, your hair tousled by the passing breeze. Less tunnel vision, more time to appreciate the holistic pleasures Out Run always got right: the road’s crests and dips, the boundless color-shifting sky, speed made visible through blurring traffic lines and landmarks, the gentle whoosh of passing a car, that genial voice saying “CHECKPOINT,” how you can follow a fork in the road and tour a different life. Here, the fantasy of excess is realized.
I don’t advocate for reduced difficulty often, and it’s not as if the original Out Run is impossible. It can still thrill as a high-speed racer, and those concerned with getting good can just as easily crank up the challenge with this port. But all these years later, that conventionality doesn’t sit right. Even in this Sega Ages version, all the high scores and leaderboards, the spirit of competition, feel incongruous. But with less pressure, Out Run can more closely achieve the lavish road trip, the radical driving game, its sunny shores and magical sound showers always intimated.
8/10
Note: This review was originally published on my blog, Jeff Reviews Games.
*This review is based on the 2019 Nintendo Switch port developed by the emulation masters at M2, but the traffic and timer sliders were first introduced in a 1996 port developed by Rutubo for the Sega Saturn.
