OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast

Although a little repetitive, Outrun 2006 has a lot to offer to those content with bettering themselves and sucking up the beauty. [Apr 2006, p.74]

Not only will you be giving yourself the chance to sample some of the best driving title delights in recent memory, but you’ll be encouraging all those other publishers and developers to keep on tweaking those much-loved, but ridiculously over-looked classics and offer up more of the same.

Whether your time with it lasts a few hours, a whole week or a month, OutRun 2006 will not disappoint.

If you loved the classic OutRun and happened to miss OutRun 2, you definitely need to give Coast 2 Coast a try. It's a prime example of how to update a classic video game for a modern system.

An exceptional title; pure, simple, fun, brilliant - I simply can't lay enough superlatives around the game.

While some of the content is new, the game plays exactly the same--fast, thick with the flavor of classic arcades, and kind of simplistic. [Jun 2006, p.110]

Outrun 2006 is not a bad game, but in a world where arcade racers have evolved to the quality of the Burnout series, it just feels kind of antiquated. [Jun 2006, p.97]

The game is probably one of the best game on the on the console outrun 2006 is a master piece ****

Quite simply the finest arcade driving experience on a home console whether it's on Xbox or PS2. Sumo Digital have done an amazing job of squeezing this much fun and frolics into platforms that were (roughly) 5 to 7 years old by the time this was released. It's not just a pick-up-and-play-arcade-racer, this is a game that implores you to love it and spend time with it collecting "OutRun Miles" to spend in the Showroom on music, cars or reversing the stages. It may be "old" now but do your gaming soul a favour and buy both the PS2 and PSP versions, any missions you can't quite complete at home just copy across and do it on the go. The number of times a Man In A Suit has sat next to me on the commute home and obviously seethed with jealousy at not being able to swing the back-end of a Ferrari left and right through an S-bend. Talking about the mechanics of OutRun 2006 may be like striping a beautiful women down to her bones, it's not really necessary to see what it's made of but comment must be made on drifting. It's essential that any game which includes missions such as "Avoid the Meteors" or "Drive Through Blue" or "Cut The Lines" gets this right. It not only gets this right by providing you with the tools to do it but also by making it pure joy. The music isn't something that can just be defined as "Good" or "Bad", there's the original OutRun themes, remixed themes and new tracks from OutRun 2. Most music needs unlocking but just refer to the "OutRun Miles" comment. It's a love letter to video games and it's simply amazing and it's tragic to think we'll probably never see the likes of it again. Here's a simple test, if you select "Night Flight" as your track of choice and whilst drifting around a sun-soaked stretch of road and you don't feel your spirit soar then walk on by, this isn't the game for you. For the rest of us this is simply amazing.

This needs a remake or a new updated game

Latest incarnation of one of the original road racers, this version has plenty of routes to follow, a wide variety of challenges to complete and plenty to unlock, all wrapped up in pretty visuals and easily accessible arcade style handling. Not a serious challenge to Burnout 3's crown, but if you want a fun racer without a joyless obsession with "realism", this is one of the best.

This arcade style game is sort of like Ridge Racer meets the original 16-bit Outrun. If you don't like drifting, Ferrari, or the original Outrun game, you won't really understand this. The challenge of this game goes from boring to hard a little unevenly, but once it starts to get challenging you feel like its a game worth collecting. It has various game modes, cars to buy, and beautiful backgrounds. The music is really catchy and there are many tunes to unlock. The music is basically sonic the hedgehog or typical sega CD style. I'm not sure I'd recommend this game to a stranger, unless they already were familiar with Sega's past. It does have great music and its a good pick-me-up and play style game. Overall, Burnout and many other drivers will have more longevity for the player. Its not like there aren't enough PS2 racers. The current used cost on Ebay is a little high, but not outrageous. I'd recommend this more for Collectors and Sega fans. I will probably keep it for awhile. Its fun for awhile, and can get challenging if you stick with it.