OutRun Series

OutRun 2019

Junkers High

Excerpt from Genesis Game Guide by The Scribe

NAME:             OutRun series (4 titles)
AUTHOR/VENDOR:    Sega
RELEASED:         various
TYPE:             Racing (auto)
LANGUAGE:         English

PREMISE:          Back in the Stone Age of full-color arcade games (that
                  would be post-Reagan), Sega decided to reinvent the
                  first-person racing game.  The end result was Super
                  Hang-On, and it proved so popular that they decided to
                  retool it as an auto racing game, tweaking the game
                  engine in the process for better performance.  Thus was
                  the road racing legend known as OutRun born.  In this
                  series, you (and oftimes your girlfriend riding shotgun)
                  get to take part in a long cross-country road race that
                  measures not only your endurance but your ability to stay
                  on the road while avoiding various obstacles, such as
                  other vehicles coming at and from behind you.  Spawned
                  several successors and many, many imitators; however, its
                  the original that everybody from that time remembers.

IMPRESSIONS:      The one and only - Sega's road racing classic!  All of
                  the entries are quite faithful to their arcade originals,
                  which means that they have the same bonuses and flaws.
                  Get the original because it's a classic; get the others
                  because they're cool, too.

VARIATIONS:       OutRun (1991, ported straight from the arcade, complete
                    with your girlfriend riding shotgun, the multi-leg
                    California road race, and your choice of the original
                    BGM tunes - kinda slow compared to the original, and I
                    I tend to prefer the faster Amiga version, but still
                    enjoyable)
                  Turbo OutRun (1992, same idea as before but this time
                    you're in a race across the United States - not all
                    that different gameplaywise, but one can note slight
                    improvements in the game engine that would be more
                    fully realized in the next entry)
                  OutRun 2019 (1993 by Sims Co. LTD, released in Japan and
                    certain other markets under the title Junkers High -
                    this time the road race is set in the future, but you
                    get to drive a turbo-assisted rocket-powered car on a
                    rather difficult track that has some new hazards not
                    seen in the earlier entries)
                  OutRunners (1994, ported straght from the arcade - it's
                    the classic OutRun revisited but adds a split-screen
                    two-player head-to-head mode and gives you a small
                    selection of cars frim which to choose - this is in
                    most fans' opinion the best game of the Genesis series)

                  There are two other titles in the series available for
                  the Sega Master System - Battle OutRun and OutRun Europa

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