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You've played it in the arcades, now thrill to the world's favourite game in the comfort of your own Spectrum. We sent veteran Outrun driver, Phil South, to check it out.
Nothing fills the heart of a games reviewer with more dread than the thought of one of his favourite arcade games being converted to work on the humble and rubbery Speccy. The thought of all those huge, lumbering megabytes of graphic memory and sound synthesis crunched into our favourite computerised beermat makes me wince. But I needn't have worried. The task of converting Outrun to the Spectrum, and certain other computers has been put in the more than capable hands of Probe Software. Now there's a team of programmers who know a thing or two about arcade conversions. Last Mission, Solomon's Key and Rygar were all done by these cheerfully talented blokes, and so I didn't feel too bad about seeing the colossal Outrun on the small screen. To put you out of your misery, it looks great. Okay, so there are a few less colours on the screen, but all the action of the megalithic arcade monster is still there in glorious duochrome: hills and bumps, trees, buildings, trucks, the odd Porsche, CHECK signs and arrows pointing in the direction that the road is turning. The sensation of motion along the road is fantastic, and you'll really believe that you're flying along it in your Ferrari, the wind tugging your hair, the surfers bobbing along on the sea and the crowd cheering you on. The road goes up and down, splits in two and goes under the stone tunnel, just like the real thing. The graphics are beautifully rendered down to the last detail, like the way that the Ferrari horse logo on the back of the car faces in different directions as you turn. (Check out your local arcade version if you don't believe me.) The graphics of the other cars and trucks get bigger as you approach them and your car spins up in the air as you hit something too, over and over. Everything is drawn to perfection. Of course some things didn't make it into the game, there had to be some, so the map is slightly different from the original, and a couple of bits of traditional Outrun scenery didn't turn up either. But what you don't notice, you won't miss, and I reckon you'll be too busy playing the game to notice anything's missing! To be blunt, this game is going to outsell anything going this Christmas, whatever I say about it, but for what it's worth there's a flippin' good game in there. Test drive one today! (VvvvvrrrooOOoommmmm!)
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