Outrun Online Arcade Zooms Into January

By Spencer . December 23, 2008 . 7:35am

Sega wasn’t kidding around when they said Outrun Online Arcade would be ready in “early 2009″. By “early 2009″ Sega meant January 2009. A promotional poster from last week’s Asia Game Show leaked the release window.

Outrun Online Arcade was on display there and I got a brief look at the PlayStation 3 version. Visually Outrun Online Arcade looks up to par. Races felt fast, but I only got to check out the single player mode. Obviously with a game named Outrun Online Arcade you want to play it online to see how the game handles lag. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until January to find out how it does.

Update: Here’s a close up of my blurry photo. You can see the “1″ in stereoscopic vision!

Images courtesy of Sega. Photo Spencer/Siliconera.

TAGS: Outrun, Outrun Online Arcade, Playstation 3, Sega, Xbox 360

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daizyujin

So does it look more like Outrun 2 SP or Outrun 2 SP DX/SDX Spencer?

Spencer

@daizyujin - I have to be honest and say I haven't played Outrun 2 SP DX/SDX so I won't be able to make any comparisons. My feeling when I played the game was is this high res Outrun 2006?

daizyujin

I only ask because Lindburg games would be easy for the 360 and PS3 to pull off and I really see no reason to give us a port of SP when the superior SP DX/SDX could be done just as easily. Plus I would imagine SP DX/SDX is in widescreen like this game is. I have actually never played SP DX/SDX either so I need to do a little research. I don't know if there is any real difference in game play like between Outrun 2 and Outrun 2 SP or if it is purely cosmetic.

daizyujin

Ok sorry to keep posting but it looks like the main differences are the following.

- SP DX/SDX both ran on the Lindbergh board instead of the Chihiro which ran OR 2 and OR 2 SP.

- Instead of running at 640 X 480 like the other versions, DX/SDX both ran at the odd framerate of 800 X 480. It is an odd resolution but it does mean that the game ran in widescreen.

- DX actually had 2 seats and screens, SDX had 4. The odd thing is that both seats sat two people with two steering wheels. One player took over when the other screwed up. Not quite sure how it worked exactly but that looks like the major difference. As far as I can figure the courses themselves are the same as OR 2 SP.

- The game also had cameras that faced the players and a huge billboard that kept track of player stats in real time.

Overall not sure what to think. It sounds like graphically this will probably be pretty close to DX/SDX but gameplay wise more like SP, a shame really, that co-op sounds like if given as an option like a lot of fun.

Ryu Kazama

London's Trocadero has DX...and I still haven't ever played it (costs £2 instead of £1, I think).

daizyujin

@Ryu Kazama

Supposedly some of the Gameworks have DX cabinets but I have yet to see one at either of the two locations near me. (Indianapolis and Cincinatti).

Matt

The twin steering wheel setup was a bit daft really. Basically playing in this mode, you drive along until you clipped the sides or another car, the girl would then nag you and yell "DRIVER CHANGE!" and your friend would take over. I guess it was put in to get more money through the cabinet which was very expensive.

It's a shame we will only be getting the Outrun 2006 courses and not the original Outrun 2 ones due to Microsoft's crappy download size limit. Here's hoping for a track-pack later on. Oh and I hope that the scoreboards work properly this time too as in the Original Outrun 2 on the Xbox they were all messed up.

I'd like to see separate leader boards for Outrun class cars and normal class cars too, but I guess we will just have to wait and see.

jarrodand

C2C courses are fine with me. Hopefully it does well, I'd love to see Sumo convert something more ambitious (like say Afterburner Climax) next...