Outrunners - Virtua Formula Car (Megadrive) East Route

Channel:

MrThunderwing

Subscribers:

22,700

Published on September 28, 2019 8:00:06 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nas0irclNE4

Game:

Virtua Racing (1992)

Duration: 6:40

1,595 views

31

A playthrough on the Sega Megadrive version of Outrunners, using the secret Virtua Formula car from Virtua Racing, taking the Eastern route. This bonus unlockable car wasn't in the arcade version of Outrunners. It even comes with a little excerpt of the Virtua Racing music when you first start the opening stage and a Virtua driver (who looks a lot like one of the titular characters from Bonanza Bros, an old and obscure-ish Sega game).

For some weird reason the ability to use the Virtua Formula car was something you could only do in the Japanese version of the game and not the US version. Why Sega, in their infinite wisdom, would decide to remove it is beyond me... I'm fairly certain we never even got a version of Outrunners for the Megadrive in the UK/Europe (and the SegaRetro website's down at the moment, which is my usual go to Sega Bible for finding out this sort of information) so I never owned or played this back in the day. I did actually own a couple of Genesis and Japanese Megadrive carts back then though, so it wouldn't have been totally outside the realms of possibility that I could've picked it up somehow. I think it was more that I didn't even know this port existed back then. This was released in 1994 BTW.

I think this port, perhaps somewhat unfairly, gets a bit of a bad rep. It was ported by Data East rather than Sega themselves and it seems the biggest gripe with it is that they decided to make the game play in permanent split screen, even if you're playing a 1 player game. I guess one of the big draws of the arcade machine was that you could play it in 8 player link-up, so there was a heavy emphasis on mulitplayer. But making the one player version splitscreen with an AI racer underneath you just seems like a totally retarded decision to me, as you could just as easily have had an AI rival in full screen mode. Also, it's not like you're actually looking at that bottom screen when you're playing. Other Megadrive racers that were around at the time had managed to fit both full and split screen gameplay modes in (Virtua Racing did and I thiiiiink Street Racer did too...?) so the permanent split-screen mode here was a really bad call on Data East's part.

As it is though, despite the forced splitscreen, the MD does a reasonable-ish job at recreating the arcade game's stages, and the game moves pretty smoothly and at a decent speed. TBH though, the MD didn't have a hope in hell of properly replicating the Sega Sytem 32 powerhouse the arcade version ran on https://youtu.be/-eaZfSeufow. The cars themselves look decent and handle well and the gameplay is pretty forgiving (well, on the easy mode at any rate).
There's some sampled speech in there as well, but it's pretty grainy, and some highly cut down versions of the original arcade machines songs (some of the renditions of the original OR tunes sound almost a bit too chiptune like for my liking though, considering the MD'S awesome FM sound capabilities).

So yeah, not a brilliant port, but not a terrible one either. If you want to try out the secret Virtua Formula car yourself, remembering this only works with the Japanese game, do this: On the title screen enter this code LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, C, A. You'll hear a noise if it worked. Press START and choose the Arcade Mode with button C. To the left of the first car is the Virtua Formula.

Also if you like the idea of seeing vehicles from certain Sega games having secret guest appearances in other you might like these:

Super Monaco GP 2 - Super Hang On bike (Megadrive) Great Britain Course
https://youtu.be/0VC9QKmbumE

Super Monaco GP 2 - Super Hang On bike (Megadrive) Monaco Course
https://youtu.be/VEcMlmiRhFg

#Outrun #Outrunner #VirtuaRacing

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