ROLLING

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Quadrupedal horses gallop down the derby, each performing their own dressage. A blue sky the Greeks would deny carpets every horizon. You wrench the stick every which way, hoping to drift into pole position. First came the crooked oval—then those canyons of pleasure—now into a motor metropolis. That which pollutes the planet now powers you through turns, collisions, spinouts, and victories. It's all too human, all too sublime.

The world no longer needs NASCAR. It's a vestigial organ of the North American auto-infrastructural complex, the enemy of a sustainable society. Hundreds of thousands squeeze into bleachers just to see drivers bailing and crashing in-between stretches of predictable slipstreaming. Why bother when, all the way back in 1993, SEGA extracted all the essential fun you could have with stock car racing? And they made it better, too!

Daytona USA was to NASCAR games what Hot Shots Golf did for, well, golf. Toshihiro Nagoshi's team at AM2 did their research on the sport, but instead chose to recreate the excitement one hopes in this kind of racing. Two racecars and three courses sounds like not nearly enough to keep you hooked, but the depth of this game's controls, stage design, and time-attack challenge never fail me. Here was an arcade revelation, transcending coin-feeding without losing the "one more try!" addictiveness of its predecessors.

Not to say Ridge Racer was that much less compelling, however. Both SEGA and Namco competed to make the best possible tech-pushing arcade racers, followed by rivals Taito and Konami. And this resulted in so many eminently replayable classics, from Battle Gear to GTI Club. Yet SEGA's 1993 debut for their Model 2 hardware outdid nearly all its challengers for years to come. I can't stress enough how simple yet skill-demanding the downshift drifting in this game and sequel is. That harsh turn towards the end of the Beginner track has upset so many eight-player races over the years. The Advanced run covers the whole gamut of driving lines and dubious PIT maneuvers. Sliding around the Expert course evokes the bliss of commanding a lead at Watkins Glen and other Actually Interesting NASCAR Races. Mastering these mechanics brings tangible rewards, and the ceiling for superior times and skill seems endless.

On top of how well it plays, Daytona USA's sights and sounds are somehow timeless in a sea of dated 3D contemporaries. (Again, something Ridge Racer excels at too.) How many times have I read "blue skies in games" with regards to Daytona and other SEGA classics? Who hasn't once sung along with Takenobu Mitsuyoshi's delightfully sampled songs while playing or in the shower? The vibrant colors, chunky but endearing texturing, and elegant shapes on-screen mesh so well with all the cheesy, life-affirming music and rumbling in your ears. Compared to the diminishing returns of today's triple-A games, this was and remains a paradigm shift in what I'd consider top-end, the confluence of price and immersion.

SEGA's had a hard time keeping this monumental game in circulation over the years, sadly. That license ain't cheap, and neither is porting the game to newer systems. I'm glad the PS3/X360 remaster could happen, even if it's unavailable to buy today. (Beats me why they haven't put the non-licensed Sega Racing Classic version up on storefronts; at least the 360 version is BC ready.) AM2's port team did as excellent a job as they could under what I'd speculate was a limited time & budget. Image quality's crisp, controls map naturally to dual-analog gamepads, and they managed to slot some useful bonus modes in for content-needy home players like myself.

Karaoke mode explains itself: you simply play through a race like normal, but trading out Mitsuyoshi vocals for on-screen lyrics. I know what mode I'm using when the gang and I load this up in VC. Then there's Challenge mode, which introduces new players to concepts like racing lines and shift drifting. I loved going through these even as an experience player; their brief nature lends well to retries. Sure, I'd have loved to race on entirely new tracks made in the original's style, but I also know how previous versions sporting those made compromises in playability or performance. That seems to be a curse for the more content-rich SEGA racers, something Namco avoided for much longer. Still, there's much to enjoy here beyond the arcade mode.

Playing Daytona today should be a lot easier than it is. I hope SEGA sees the adoration this game's had over the past decade. Any chance of them relicensing the HD release for recent platforms, or just porting Sega Racing Classic to avoid the fees, would be awesome. Until then, sailing the blue seas under blue skies is always an option. Any local (b)arcade with a twin or eight-player cab is great, too, assuming they've been maintaining it. This game's too important in arcade history to let slip into unavailability!

So what are you waiting for? We should all be rolling under blue blue skies, playing fun soundbites on the name entry table, and nailing those U-turns around tough corners. Just don't go and lose your sponsors!