Out Run 'attract mode' screenshot

In the mid 80's myself and most of my friends had left school and where finding out about the big wide world. During the summer weekends we would spend some time at a new swimming/fitness complex named the Dolphin, which was in Romford, Essex (England). The good thing about the Dolphin was that it had an indoor swimming pool, which looked like a tropical lagoon (with a bit of imagination at any rate). It had fake plastic palm trees along with other fake tropical plants, the pool itself was neither square or round but a sort of lagoon shape (if you know what I mean).

It was even covered in sand coloured tiles to further the beach/lagoon like effect. When you came out of the changing rooms to enter the pool you could just walk in to it as if walking into the sea from a beach. There was a seating area next to the pool with tables, chairs and sun loungers, the tables even had parasols to further the outdoor tropical lagoon feel, but best of all the pool had a wave machine which would be switched on about every half hour for about ten minutes at a time.

Visiting the Dolphin was like taking a little holiday to the beach, there was even music playing in the background, hits like Duran Duran and Wham, which also added to the holiday atmosphere. If you were a teenager in the 80's then the Dolphin was the place to go and make new friend's, quite often my mate's and I would try and chat up the girls, sometimes we where successful, sometimes not, such is life. But once my friends and I had had enough of swimming about in the pool we would make a dash to play the latest computer games in the foyer, games such as Outrun, Operation Wolf and After Burner.

All the above games were great in their own right but my favourite was Outrun, which also had its own palm trees and virtual beach, as well as babes in bikini's. After spending some time on the beach and swimming in the pool area and then playing Outrun, I felt was at Miami Beach (well in my mind I was), even when I play Outrun now I still get the same feeling inside.

The Real Miami Beach

Outrun was one of the first games which gave you a near 'real' feeling of driving a fast car (in this case a Ferrari Testarossa) at high speed thanks to the on-screen graphics which updated a lot quicker then any other game of the time. Add in the 'Super-Scaler' graphics, the fact that there were 4 different cabinet types, one of them a car-shaped sit-down version which used a hydraulics system to move the cabinet about during play, and you have a state-of-the-art game for its time.

Out Run (hydraulic system) cabinet!

I could only ever complete the first easy level of Outrun but that never put me off trying to complete the other levels, although I never did manage to quite complete them. At the end of each stage was a checkpoint which had to be reached in an ever decreasing time limit. A handy course map helped with navigation when choosing which route to take.

Out Run's Course Map

The Driver could also listen to a choice of 3 different soundtracks while driving like a bat out of hell..."Magical Sound Shower", 'Passing Breeze", and 'Splash Wave", a final tune called "Last Wave" can be heard on the High Score Board. A clever ploy by Sega was to give the driver a co-companion in the shape of a gorgeous leggy blonde to sit proudly beside you in your Ferrari as you sped across exotic landscapes. A case of art mirroring every horny teenagers ultimate fantasy of fast cars and even faster women.

A crowd pleasing wheel-spin!

In 1986 the game was unique in that you could choose your stages to compete in. Before every checkpoint there was a fork in the road enabling the driver to choose which area to race in next. This gave the game play longevity as each time you played, a different route could be taken. If one way did not work you could always try another route by popping another credit in, a cunningly addictive ploy by Sega to get money out of your pockets.

First Level frolics!

Although there were many others cars to overtake they all seemed clapped out in comparison, lets face it would you rather be in your red Ferrari or a green 1972 VW Beetle! Come on really do you even have to think about it.

Clapped-out green 1972 Beetle

The game was ported over to many home formats such was its success. The Spectrum, Commodore, Atari ST, Amiga and Amstrad home computers all had versions made for them. Eventually when I got Sega's Outrun for my Gameboy advanced I was able to fulfill my decades old ambition of completing all of the levels. Additionally I have a Spectrum emulator and Commodore 64 emulator running on my PC at home where sometimes I indulge in a version of Outrun which can be great fun.

The not often seen Final Goal Screen

I have played Outrun 2 in the arcades and its just as good as the original, I'm thinking of getting an Xbox just so I can play Outrun 2 at home, but what I'm really hoping for is that Sega will see sense and release the original Outrun as one of those Plug-in 'N' Play joysticks with the Outrun game built into the joystick.

Trivia:
In the 2001 film Donnie Darko, Donnie is playing Out Run at an arcade with his girlfriend. The scene shows him crashing his car during their discussion.

Tips & Tricks:
If the Start button is pressed while approaching a checkpoint the following message will appear: "Program by Yu Suzuki 1986 Sep." Unfortunately this little trick does not work on all versions of the game thus adding extra kudos to your gameplay if you can actually get it to work.

Summary
Unfortunately the Dolphin swimming pool was knocked down some time ago and in its place is a block of soulless flats, never the less I still have Outrun on my Gameboy Advanced so all is not lost.

Overall Classic Game Rating - 7.5

Author - Paul Jeakins copyright @ 2005