If you’re looking for the archetype of gaming race cars then look no further than OutRun’s Ferrari Testarossa. It’s a big red convertible sportscar, enough said!

OK, maybe I should go into a bit more detail. Sega’s OutRun first appeared in the arcades in 1986, and was an instant hit due to the revolutionary way in which it displayed the race track. Prior to OutRun racing games were limited in what they could do, with a few other vehicles which were normally your car in a different colour and with generally just bends in the track and the odd roadside sign being possible. OutRun had a huge amount of graphical variety both in terms of other road users and trackside objects, with the classic example being palm trees. The tracks not only had bends but also hills and forks in the road, which allowed you to choose your route through the game world.

The forks in the road were very important as it gave you an incentive to play again and again, in order to try and see what kind of scenery you would be driving through next. The fact that the driver of the car was also accompanied by a female passenger gave the impression that you were going out for a spin in your new car rather than taking part in a race, a feeling which was further reinforced by the ability to choose the soundtrack you wanted whilst playing by selecting the tune from a station on the cars radio!

Whilst there were various updates to OutRun over the years (e.g. OutRun Europa), it took until 2004 for a true sequel to appear in the form of OutRun 2. Here you could drive not just the Testarossa but from a whole range of Ferrari cars, and you could choose the character who you wished to drive the car. Otherwise, the game was basically the same raw experience, with the graphics being presented using polygons instead of scaling bitmaps.

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