Price: £34.99 Players: 1 plus online Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: No DTS: No 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... About 18 months ago when Outrun 2 came out on 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. It was a fantastic experience. Something appears to be lacking here, though, which makes for a comparative disappointment and it's difficult to pin-point what that is and it's not just that there's no music on the main menu, replaced with the same sounds of a wave crashing against the shore again and again and again...

One thing new to this release is the licence mode, in which start by creating a new licence by giving your nationality and star sign(!) Yes, it's just another way of saying 'Career Mode', trying to give you a different reason for getting behind the wheel other than the fact there's 15 mew tracks to accompany the 15 brought over from Outrun 2 itself. 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, 'Coast 2 Coast', you can take the Flagman challenge, starting off by trying to beat the novice races, in which you drive across two or more stage lengths of track in order to get into pole position out of six or twelve cars, and like every other racing game you start, inexplicably, in last place! Pass this mission and there are three more sets of challenges to come for you to complete. It's going to take a fair amount of time to get through this because if the clock's not against you because you're making good time then you can be doing well in 2nd or 3rd place, have a mishap and hit a bend, crash to buggery and as you're starting up again everyone overtakes you.

The second part is where you try to impress Clarissa, who looks like Britney when she first came to our attention with Hit Me Baby One More Time, by fulfilling traffic requests such as hitting cars in front, dribble a beach ball, pass a convoy of trucks and 'cut the line' - i.e. drive between two cars which have a band between them. So, basically, it's the same as Outrun 2's Outrun Challenge mode and whereas in that game completing missions and stages will gain you bonus cards and special items, this time you earn 'Outrun miles' which allow you to buy all of those in the shop. Outrun mode is basically the arcade game without any of the complications of having to achieve a ranking. Make it to the end on time. Then comes a "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 Outrun mode but with a ghost car to show a previous race. There's also supposed to be PSP connectivity with this release, but does that mean I need the game on the PSP as well? I tried connecting my PSP up to the PS2 via a USB cable but the latter didn't recognise the handheld. I could never get online play to work on a PS2 with my Pipex connection so that's that idea sunk too.

The graphics are colourful and move fast, but the gameplay looks rather staid and very dated compared to something like the unsurpassable Burnout Revenge, and your car doesn't appear to turn much, if at all, when moving in either direction. Ok, so maybe it's meant to be trying to stay faithful to the original Outrun rather than break the mould, but it does feel like its been overtaken somewhat since Outrun 2 came out on the Xbox in October 2004. You can play with all of the official Ferrari licenced cars in this game, although some of them are locked at first. However, it doesn't feel anywhere near as easy to powerdrift on the PS2 as it was on the Xbox and, in fact, we would've preferred to play the Xbox version of this title as the console excels in most games over the PS2 but it wasn't available. The music's the usual, reliable Outrun fare with original tracks spiced up such as Magical Sound Shower and Summer Breeze, but the sound FX of the cars leave a lot to be desired, sounding more like an angry bee trapped in a jar. Overall, if you feel you can't do without another fix of the Outrun series, given the games that have come along in the meantime, then by all means give it a rental and the Xbox version is bound to be the best bet. However, if you own that version of Outrun 2 then apart from the new tracks there's nothing new in the gameplay to draw you back since it's more like Outrun 2 Expansion Pack than anything else, which is reflected in my scoring below. If you missed out on that then it's worth taking a look here because all 15 tracks from that title are featured here and it's the most complete collection you'll get.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2006.