Price: £39.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: No Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: Yes Back in the mid-80s, after yuppies and Miami Vice became the mode, an incredible car racing game appeared on the arcade scene in the form of Outrun. Fast red Ferraris with gull-wing doors was what this particular teenager wanted from life, and the closest thing I could get to one was riding in a sit-down cabinet that twisted and turned with every move of the steering wheel in front of me. It all felt so real... As I put this new disc in the Xbox, the first thing I heard, on the main title screen, was a new version of the theme I haven't heard in a long time as it was used on the original arcade machine, Magical Sound Shower. Fantastic! One or two others were also memorable so this shows that the level of detail required for this release has been met.

There are different game modes, but the basics are that you need to drive your chosen vehicle from A to B in the allotted time or you'll never get to the next checkpoint and it's "game over". For the first mode, Outrun Arcade, this is the standard original Outrun 2 game, not massively different from the basic premise of the original, during which you can run a straight race, play "Heart Attack Mode" - where passing cars and powerdrifting your car along the track will make your lady companion's heart race faster, or "Time Attack Mode" - similar to the original mode but with a ghost car to show a previous race. Next up, comes the Outrun Challenge, a series of 101 mini-tests which, in total, will take you along every stretch of the Outrun 2 track, in case you don't make it during the usual arcade game. You'll take each stage a few missions at a time to complete that one and move onto the next. Early ones include knocking over certain sets of cones while leaving others standing, keeping within set markers shown up as coloured sections of the road, beating other opponents to the finish and making your lady companion's heart race in a number of different ways :) Completing missions and stages will gain you bonus cards and special items. There are also additions to options above: to compete against friends in 'Party Missions' or race along any unlocked course.

One place in which this title has the place to excel, because it takes the arcade aspect of it, and extends its lifetime considerably, is in the Xbox Live capability. There are bonus tracks made for online play, plus the whole Outrun arcade game until the first one crosses the final finish line, as well as playing these in reverse. However, on the communication side, why is it that although I can play against everyone and hear them, I can't talk back? The game just doesn't recognise my speech at all so no-one can hear me! I even went back to the Xbox dashboard and tested it and that worked fine, so why can't I talk to anyone? Aside from all that, there's a bit of slowdown when the screen gets busy but nothing to be too mithered about. And it's rather annoying you don't get to see to the end of an Outrun race when you're trailing behind, but I guess they can't wait for you forever and that's where the incentive comes in all the more to get higher up the ladder.

Graphically, Outrun 2 is unsurpassable in what it tries to achieve. It's fast, colourful, and mostly runs like shit off a shovel. Sure, there are games which have even more intricate backgrounds and something like Driv3r has the ability to do replays and edit the footage, but compared to the original arcade game and the way in which a new background pops up in a springy way really brings back all the old feelings I had back then, apart from the desire to blast out The Rah Band's Clouds Across the Moon from 1985 at full volume with pride :). Sonically, while I was taken back to the era with the music, the sound FX of the cars aren't a massive amount to shout about, but then I could say that - and have done - about most car games before now. When it comes to the playability, it takes a little while to get used to the handling of your car (and there's several to choose from, all with the official Ferrari licence this time, although some of them are locked at first), but once that's done you'll be zooming along and powerdrifting round the corners with conviction. At first it was strange to remind myself that I was just playing an out-and-out racing game, where the car largely sticks to the road - except for the occasional crash - and nothing with stunts to be attempted, but then there's no shame in going comparatively back to basics because it's been done, and updated, so bloody well!

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2004.