OutRun for the Sega Genesis | Nate’s RetroPlays

Out Run is Sega’s classic third person racing game that was originally released in the arcade in 1986.  In this game, you drive a Ferrari Testarossa and race against the clock driving through numerous locations around the world.  

The game was developed by Sega AM2 with Yu Suzuki handling the design.  Yu Suzuki was already gaining quite a bit of fame with his previous games, which include Space Harrier and Hang-On.  Those games utilized a similar graphical engine to achieve fast pseudo-3D style graphics at a time when 2D was the norm.  Out Run was no exception as it pushed the his proprietary sprite scaling technique, which was called Super-Scaler, to the max.

And as much as the visuals were important to this game, the soundtrack created by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, is possibly just as iconic. The tracks were inspired by a mixture of styles ranging from Jazz-fusion to Caribbean music, and solidify the game’s place in 1980’s arcade nostalgia. Even more interesting was the fact that the driver is allowed to choose which song will be listened to on the drive on the in game stereo.

At home Out Run was eventually ported to nearly a dozen different consoles, including (but not limited to) the Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, Sega Genesis, Master System and Game Gear.  The game also inspired numerous follow-up titles, including Out-Run 3D, Turbo Out Run, Outrunners and Out Run 2. Out run is also considered to be one of the most influential racing games of all time, and it’s style of gameplay was often imitated in the 8 and 16-bit era of home console gaming.