2019/8/17: Xbox: Outrun 2, Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast

[VideoGameCritic]

Check out these new retrospective reviews of Outrun 2 and Outrun 2006 for the original Xbox. Comments encouraged as always.

[Sonicx9]

Check out these new retrospective reviews of Outrun 2 and Outrun 2006 for the original Xbox. Comments encouraged as always.

Great reviews, and so sad this will never come back to the Nintendo Switch due to the Ferrari license expired for use for the said games, as physical media is still a way to get them, but digital it SOL. And it funny to think that the original Xbox and PS3 GPUs (Nvidia based tech) DNA lives on in Switch even though all 3 have different CPU brains like X86 32 bit for original Xbox, PowerPC funky Cell for PS3, and ARM in Switch. But they all have the same GPU muscles inside of them.

[ASalvaro]

Check out these new retrospective reviews of Outrun 2 and Outrun 2006 for the original Xbox. Comments encouraged as always.

i remember making a special trip to my local video game store in the mall to get Outrun 2006..spot on review..but man i can't believe it's been 13 years

after reading this review i went to ebay to buy Coast to Coast to play on my 360 and they want $150 to $200 for it! geez..i should have kept my old copy

[Breaker]

Is the Xbox version considerably better than the PS2 version? After seeing ASalvaro's comment on the price I had to look on Ebay as well... and I see the PS2 version can be had for $35ish.

[Atariboy]

While I much prefer the Xbox controller for this game, the PS2 version happily is very competitive visually. It's a close enough race where you pretty much need both games running simultaneously while flipping back and forth to notice the slight downgrade.

Sumo Digital performed miracles with that PS2 conversion and other than very occasional and momentary frame rate drops in extremely busy corners compared to the rock solid 60 fps on the Xbox, it's every bit as good as the Xbox version now that Xbox Live support is dead. It even retains the anamorphic widescreen and progressive scan modes of the Xbox version, if you want to play it on your HDTV instead of a nice CRT.

One potential annoyance is link mode. You have to link up to the PSP version to access some of the extras if you want to unlock all the bonus content.

[Atariboy]

Someone has a nice comparison video up on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDgzZ2rEQTM

Other than the ocean in the opening stage of Outrun 2 SP which visually looks much better on the Xbox version, it's tough to tell the two apart.

[thunderjohn]

The XBOX og version ported by Sumo is based on the AM2 game running on the arcade board Chihiro. Pretty good port with a few modes added and some stages (all four stages from Scud Race are there, although some effects are missing. Who would have thought that even XBOX couldn't replicate the mighty Model 3 100%?).
As for the coast2coast they had to cut some corners to make it possible for the PS2.
Great games both of them.Classic Sega goodness. Nobody can do blue skies better than you.

[VideoGameCritic]

One thing I forgot to mention in Outrun 2006 is how the CGI intro is actually far lower quality than the actual game. It always used to be the other way around.

[mbd36]

I used to have the PS2 port of Coast to Coast before I sold my PS2 collection. It was one of my favorites on the system. Never played the XBOX port.

[Matchstick]

Classic Sega goodness. Nobody can do blue skies better than you.

Greaaaaaaat, now I have that song from Daytona USA stuck in my head. Again. "I wanna flyyyyy skyyy-hiiiiigh! Let's buuuuth go tooo-gethhh-uhhh! Bluuuu, bluuu skies! Bluuuu, bluuu skies - I seee!"

...aww, who am I kidding, I love that song ^_^

Always been a huge fan of OutRun, the original game, and currently own some version of it for at least four different consoles in my house (Genesis, Dreamcast, GBA, and Switch). The game never gets old, and the music is just so timeless that even my wife, who generally has no interest in driving games, plays the game occasionally and knows every note of the soundtrack. Hell, I mentioned in an older previous post that even my cat likes the game for the stereo sound panning. If he happens to be paying attention while I'm playing, he'll usually jump up in my lap and whip his head from side to side to stare at the passing cars as they go whizzing by offscreen. Truly a well-made all-time classic game.

For fun, I made a cassette tape of the soundtrack so me and the wife can listen to it when we drive the Oregon Coast Highway (US 101) on a sunny day in my old Volvo station wagon. It's red, and a turbo, and with the sunroof open and all the windows down, I can almost kinda-sorta imagine that I'm driving a Ferrari Tessarosa with the top down, doing my best to make it to the next checkpoint before time runs out. Almost.

Bonus fun fact: US 101 becomes California Highway 1 as it heads south, which is the same stretch of road that the "Pacific Coast" level in the original Road Rash was based upon. Side two of that OutRun cassette tape? Yup, it's the Road Rash soundtrack. I prefer to listen to that one when the weather is a bit more gloomy, as most of the RR levels had some amount of cloud cover in their skies. That being said, I could never imagine my Volvo as a turbo bike from RR II, even if it does make me think a bit of the El Diablo from that game. "Very fast. Very expensive. And very, very RED!!"

Back on topic, I missed out on both of these newer OutRun games back when they were first released, yet have had them recommended to me over and over again as the years have gone by. A shame I missed out on OutRun 2006 back when it was a decent price. I may consider taking the dive on the PS2 version, but there's no way I'm shelling out five times more than that to get it on the Xbox. Pretty blue skies or no, I'm sure the PS2 version is juuuuust fine by comparison.

It is a shame how out of control prices can become over time, but that's part of the challenge of being a collector these days. I recently took the plunge on a copy of Bulk Slash for the Sega Saturn, which has been on my want list for quite a while now. Got a complete copy for a supposedly "good price" of $80. Still waiting for it to come in the mail, but based on The Critic's own review as well as many, many recommendations from others, I'm hoping the game will be worth the money. Here's hoping that OutRun 2006 will pan out the same way whenever I decide to pick up a copy.