EvilRedEye wrote:

Interesting to see we mostly have the same opinions about OutRun 2019. I finished it without save states - once you get used to driving on bridges/elevated sections cautiously and using the brakes etc. it’s actually OK.

I'm gutted there's no gif of a tunnel section out there.

Lots of racers had tunnels but they rarely looked as solid and snazzy as they did in 2019 in 1993 or 2023.  Even the red hue to some of those sections was neat.  Might need a third opinion but they felt legit in an EMRAGHERD, POLYGONS way to me.  

Edit: Plus UNDULATION.

Lotus Turbo Challenge 2/3 and Jaguar XJ220 were my go to games for the camera following type retro racers.
Absolutely loved all three on the Amiga.

I'd probably suggest Lotus 3 of those now.

Lotus 2 had the best intro...

Can confirm the tunnels aren't great though. Just black with some ceiling lights.

You could drive under lorries crossing the track in one of these though. The lorry driver would shout "yeehaw" when you pulled it off.

F1-Race for the GameBoy is a good one if you can withstand the sound effects.

The tunnels are definitely more sophisticated than the Master System ones.
* With the Master System tunnels, you can’t see the road inside the tunnel until you’ve entered and likewise you can’t see the road outside the tunnel until you’ve left it, so it leaves you driving blind a little bit.
* The Master System tunnels are black and featureless, with these you can see the outlines of the walls and there are metal pylons and ceiling lights with their own dimensionality.
* The lighting changes the colour of the car and dashboard, which, IIRC, doesn’t happen in the Master System version.

I've quickly reviewed Megadrive racing games from 1993 and can confirm that Outrun 2019 is the least graphically awful.

LivDiv wrote:

Lotus 2 had the best intro...

Yeah but its tunnels are a joke (3:37).

Time_on_my_hands wrote:

Not sure about the first one but the tracks are set out for you in the championship mode (or whatever it's called) in the sequel.  You can select your character on that, much to the chagrin of Andy Crane.  They're brilliant, timeless games in mp but they're never been too well suited to solo play imo, other than time trials.

Yeah - I found single player a bit odd. There was one match where I'd be racing against one CPU racer but it'd be locked to us both needing to be on screen and suddenly the game would pause and something would bounce onto the track. I was playing late at night, so wasn't in the best frame of mind...

Yeah thats how the MP works all the time. I think in SP its a Head to Head match (?).
You force the opposition off the screen by being ahead of them, being forced off loses a life in a tug of war type system which iirc are represented dots on the side of the screen.
Its quite a cool mode, obviously the main objective is to race better but when your opponent is on the edge of the screen you can exploit it a bit to push the win. For example not slowing down for a corner because youll get the point before you have to worry about turning.

The true MP fun of course is knocking people off the track at key moments, fierce battles raging on the washing up sponge ferry. Friendships lost as you race towards a ruler bridge. Or ganging up on the leader at restart of course.

That Lotus II tunnel doesn’t even have road markings! [Vomit.]

lol

I've played the arcade version of Turbo Outrun and it's fine, more thoughts later. Outrunners might be the one though. Only had time for a couple of credits but I'm impressed.

Right, I've finished Outrunners (arcade) six times, plotting different routes through it each attempt. Classy game, easily the best pre-Outrun 2 sequel for me.

What was the late super scaler Sega arcade racer that had a key chain of Sonic on the rear view mirror?

Top Gear on SNES was great, never played the sequels though. I'd recommend those to those that haven't played them.

One I always fancied on 16-Bit that passed me by was Power Drive, I've heard the Jaguar got the definitive version of that.

Super Skidmarks on MD also looked decent in the Super Off-Road/RC Pro AM mould.

afgavinstan wrote:

It is pretty seamless though. Massive tiles in those days.

Amazing work.