This is the first ever game review I have ever written but as I was scrolling down the page thinking of a game to give me some inspiration I spotted OUTRUN!! This was the first racing game I had played on my PC in the early 90's, and brought back soooo many memories of my youth and my love for fast cars!!
The graphics on this game as most games in that era weren’t that special, however combined with the gameplay it worked well.
The multi-ending plots were quality, adding to the overall quality of the game. What I mean by this is that after completing every round you have the option to select a particular route and once you’ve completed the game using your chosen route you will be given a specific ending for that route, therefore having multiple endings. This, at that time, I had never seen before, and I thought it was the greatest idea ever!! Some of the endings were quality and very funny! The cumulative lap times added a bit of competition between myself and my siblings as we always wanted to be highest on the leader board!
The game itself played very well, the controls were easy to use and relatively straightforward
although due to the competitor in me, I always ended up with sore fingers from the keyboard! Another cool feature I have just remembered was the soundtracks which you can change on the radio (very cool!) which I think was another first for me thinking; this game was amazing!
The routes were cool as well with nice bits of scenery; the beach was particularly cool and that leads me onto the in game graphics a bit more. From memory, I think you couldn’t change the view on how you could drive but I remember that wasn’t much of a handicap for the game as you had plenty of other things to focus on, like other competing cars (all coms) and normal drivers. There isn’t a multi-player mode; I believe the game came out before that mode was readily available in most racing games.
To summarise: for the period in which this game was released it was very much the trend setter for every subsequent racing game I bought. Although there are several things this game misses out in comparison to similar games that were released during this period, I do believe in terms of gameplay it is definitely one of those I have the fondest memories of!!
