I've never been a huge fan of the original OutRun. It's a legendarily renowned game, but it's always just been too primitive for me to enjoy for more than a few minutes. It's a delight to spend a little time on when I see a machine out in an arcade, but I've always been puzzled at the diehard fans of it.

Sega's 90s racing oeuvre is something I'm very familiar with. I've spent quite a bit of time and quarters on Daytona USA, Sega Rally, and SCUD Race in the arcades and on whatever home ports I could find them at. I picked this up as an impulse buy and am glad that I did.

OutRun 2 is the ultimate refinement of the Sega arcade racing formula. The sense of speed is really fantastic and emulates well on the home console outside of the sit down arcade apparatus. The driving feels extremely good - learning to drive the Enzo is especially satisfying.

If the game had just been the OutRun arcade mode, this would still be a five star game, but there's an excellent challenge mode. The difficulty curve on the challenges feels perfect, and they do a great job of teaching you to play the game and the various courses. The music is phenomenal. You'll have all the Eurobeat you can handle.

I've only played the vanilla version, but the Coast to Coast version has even more of this kind of content so if you're emulating that would be the definitive version. For those of us who don't have $400 burning a hole in our pockets, I felt like the content in the vanilla version is still really great.

Playing this game is like listening to the album from a band that you love that just elevates everything you've ever loved about them to the highest point.

picturesque beaches, plains, and deserts lay the groundwork for our adventure. castles, tunnels, even pyramids swelter from the sun in the open air. the breeze caused by our bewilderingly precise driving is positively intoxicating. nothing else gets the blood pumping like so. the open road is a living obstacle course: dominated by family road trips, oil tankers, and party busses that only seem to get in the way of our high-octane blast-processed driving. heart-wrenching drifts and turns serve as dopamine infused climaxes when nailed with perfect accuracy. the retro-futuristic ost acts as a motivational serenade to keep us coming back. outrun 2 emphasizes the astounding journeys within driving (to an almost cliche degree), alongside continuing the original game’s legacy in an evolutionary way.

One of the best arcade racers ever made. Released in 2006, this sticks to a more traditional mechanical ethos, but still manages to sit on top of its contemporaries. Drifting down tight curves at almost 200 MPH, avoiding traffic, while driving some of the best feeling cars in video games. Just the right amount of weight in every vehicle, where they aren't a chore to drive, yet they feel like they inhabit a physical space.

Aesthetically, OutRun 2 is choice. The music selection? Catchy as hell. The visuals? A bit dated by today's standards, but stylized just enough that they stand the test of time. Sound design? Incredibly convincing, only complimented by the solid force feedback. The artists on staff did an incredible job giving this game a vibe wholly unique to itself.

There are fifteen different locales you can visit on your road trip, each with a distinct aesthetic based on a real life location, and they all feel fully realized, and brimming with life. You're only seeing five out of the fifteen on any given run, so there's a good amount of potential variety on each playthrough. Not to mention, traffic patterns are never the same, and will always add a bit of spice to your drive.

The first OutRun has a timeless legacy that was well earned, and its so great to say OutRun 2 improves on its predecessor in every way imaginable. I do believe the former is still superior due to less complexity, and in turn, a broader accessibility, but once you've mastered the first game, and look for something more, 2 will be waiting for you. I see this one talked about a bit less, and I imagine its availability has a lot to do with it. Regardless, this game is absolutely incredible, and if you can find a way to take it for a ride, don't miss out.

I won't go overexplaining my experience with a game like I usually do, I just want to say this: There is nothing quite like powersliding your way past various locales and other cars at 280 km/h, all the while listening to some bumpin' tunes with your girlfriend in the passenger seat beside you in your expensive Ferrari. The ultimate appeal to the male fantasy, obviously.

But in all seriousness, in my opinion, OutRun 2 is one of the best arcade racers ever concieved. It's simple to pick up and enjoy, but difficult and satisfying to master. Picking your own routes based on difficulty and going for high scores helps make for a unique experience every time you go for a drive. When standard driving becomes too typical for you, move up to Heart Attack mode (my personal favorite mode), and every single route has its own set of missions to tackle as you drive down them. Do well, and more unusual "special requests" will show up. (Listen, when your gf says "Hit the cars!", you say "yes, my queen" and commit as much vehicular manslaughter as you can.)

The real appeal I sought from OutRun 2 was the mission mode. 101 missions with plenty of variations on the standard gameplay that you won't find anywhere else (not even in Coast 2 Coast). I only played through about 1/3 of this mode before I decided I'd had enough. That did give me a chance to try all the mission types (Snap Happy is an especially cool one), and I like the mode as a whole. Clearing entire series of missions actually rewards you with new tracks, cars, and music to choose from, and I'm a big fan of earning unlockables by proving your skills. (Coast 2 Coast lets you unlock whatever you choose, as long as you've racked up enough currency.)

So yeah. Play OutRun 2. Great game, but not quite perfected. That's Coast 2 Coast's claim to fame. I just wanted to play the original, and this isn't goodbye forever. I'll be back to drive another day.