Retrospective Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast

Microsoft made a number of smart decisions when it decided to launch its first games console in 2001.

Arguably the most important one was buying Bungie and releasing Halo: Combat Evolved at launch, a game that not only looked graphically ahead of its time (those grass textures!) but also reinvented the first-person shooter (on consoles at least). Another was Microsoft’s decision to team up with SEGA, a powerhouse of a games publisher that had just exited the business of making games consoles, the same year as Microsoft was entering it.

Microsoft had already worked with the Japanese giant in the past as it had supplied its operating system, Windows CE, for use on SEGA’s last home console, the Dreamcast. This sharing of technical expertise would spill over to the Xbox era as SEGA’s cutting-edge Chihiro arcade board was based on the architecture of Microsoft’s debut console. Out of the 11 non-terminal-based games SEGA released on Chihiro, four made it to Microsoft’s console: Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller, The House Of The Dead III, OutRun 2 and OutRun 2 SP. Before we focus on those last two games, however, let’s quickly scoot back to 1986 so we can get a better idea of why gamers like me were so excited about them.

The original OutRun felt like a revelation upon its release. Many racers of the time typically placed you in a conventional racing car and required you to compete against other racers. OutRun did no such thing, here your only opponent was the clock. Inspired by creator Yu Suzuki’s love of Burt Reynolds movie The Cannonball Run and his equal passion for Ferraris, the legendary game developer took his inspiration literally.