Pong and Beyond

371st played so far

Genre: Racing
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Sumo Digital
Publisher: SEGA

We really need to play more racing games. We enjoy the more ‘manic’ ones like Mario Kart, but have less of an affinity for more realistic games. Sort of enjoyable when we get into them, but not something we enjoy playing too much. It’s no real wonder then that we fall behind with them this often.

Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is an update of an earlier coin-op, the sequel to the original Outrun. That’s about all I know about it, with the book mentioning it’s more about fun than physics. And loads of Ferraris it seems.

Our Thoughts

Yeah, the developer clearly wanted to have some Ferraris in there. It makes sense though, as a run from coast to coast, cruising past beaches and other settings that you can just see, well, someone who can afford to drive a Ferrari race past.

Sure, in parts it’s pretty predictable. Race against other people, rack up points to buy upgraded cars and such. The game is mission based (presumably this race from coast to coast, although there’s not a lot of story in the game), with a few different goals. Often it seems to be to come out on top – be in the top three (we think) in a race around a set track, while there are also time trials. More interesting is the ‘Heart Attack’ option, where (and I quote the manual) you have to “[S]how off your driving skills to win your girlfriends (sic) heart. The better you are, the more hearts you will be given”.

It offers some more variety in a game that is otherwise similar to many others. This is, I am sure, in part down to our games ‘vocabulary’ not featuring a lot of ways to describe racing games.

The game, in that sense, fits tightly together though. The controls feel good and responsive and gave us less trouble than our earlier semi-misadventure Race Pro, it never really getting in our way when playing. It’s tough to complete our games, but that’s down to our racing skills, not the underlying systems.

There’s one place where this didn’t feel like it was the case though. When racing against others, it feels like your opponents rubber band more than should be needed. A few times, it happened that we managed to overtake (almost) all of them – second place or so if I’m not mistaken – and about five seconds before the end, suddenly three or four opponents showed up, overtook us and we ended up in last place after all. It felt horribly unfair and realistic, blatantly so.

For the better part of it, however, the game felt strong, a good racer through some pleasant environments. Certainly worth it if I wanted to play more racing games of its kind.

Final Thoughts

It is nice to have a racing game that, whilst being a bit true to the whole driving thing, is able extend itself towards the sillier side. This silly side really comes pout when you are on the verge of failing a challenge and your girlfriend (who is sitting in the passenger seat) starts to beat you up. It reminds me a bit of the Crazy Taxi series in that way.

As mentioned earlier, this is an area of gaming that we lack the lingo and proper knowledge of the history to comment to much on it. It’s developing slowly but it’s getting there.