OutRunners

n/a

System Multi 32 NTSC-U NTSC-J
OutRunners
System(s): Sega System Multi 32, Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Sega Sega (Japan) Data East (US)
Developer: Sega AM1 Sega AM4 (cabinet) Sega CS3
Sound driver: SMPS Z80
Genre: Racing
Number of players: 1-4 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1993-05 ¥? ? US 1993 $? ? UK 1993 £? ? DE 1993 DM ? ? AU 1993 $? ? PL 199x 6000PLN ? JP 1994-05-13 ¥7,8007,800 G-4119 US 1994-07 $69.9969.99 T-13096 KR 199x GM94007JG

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OutRunners (アウトランナーズ) is a System 32 driving game developed by Sega AM1 and manufactured by Sega. The sequel to the classic 1986 arcade game OutRun, it was first released to Japanese arcades in May 1993, and like its predecessor, features extensive sprite scaling to simulate three-dimension scenery.

The following year, OutRunners was ported to the Mega Drive courtesy of Sega CS3, and is most notable for its downgraded presentation and forced splitscreen.

Gameplay

OutRunners follows a similar format to OutRun, in which the player is tasked with driving across the world within a specified amount of time. There are, however, twice as many areas as OutRun in OutRunners, as the world is divided into east and west (selectable after the first stage). Whereas OutRun took place in Europe and Turbo OutRun North America, OutRunners spans the entire globe.

The superior System 32 hardware allow for vastly improved graphics, eight selectable cars (a scrapped plan for the original OutRun) and more music tracks (including those featured in the original OutRun game). It was always distributed as a two player deluxe cabinet (hence the "System Multi 32" name), and it is possible to link two cabinets together to create a four-player racing experience. It was the first OutRun game to allow more than one player to compete at once.

Cars

	Easy Handling
	Smooth Operator
	Bad Boy
	Road Monster
	Quick Reactor
	Wild Chaser
	Mad Power
	Speed Buster
	The Ferrari Testarossa from the original OutRun, albeit with any unlicensed Ferrari badges removed and some differences in bodywork.

Track Layout

Like the original OutRun, the journey in OutRunners contains many forks in the road, leading to one of ten possible endings. Players all begin at the same location, but are given a choice whether they want to take the eastern or the western routes. Some areas are repeated for both sides, though it is impossible to visit the same location twice in one outing.

Goal	Stage Number											Goal
	5	4	3	2	1	0	1	2	3	4	5
A	Northern Europe										Russia	F
		Germany								Germany
B	Switzerland		China						Switzerland		China	G
		France		Hawaii				Niagara Falls		France
C	Atlantic Ocean Underwater Tunnel		Japan		San Francisco	Start	Grand Canyon		Atlantic Ocean Underwater Tunnel		Japan	H
		Mediterranean Sea		Pacific Ocean Crossway Bridge				South America		Mediterranean Sea
D	Spain		Hong Kong						Spain		Hong Kong	I
		Egypt								Egypt
E	Kenya										Australia	J

History

Development

System Multi 32 version

In the wake of Virtua Racing proving popular, Sega wanted to capitalize on this and double-down on the racing genre, instead of the space genre which was oversaturated at that point. The idea came up to revive the OutRun franchise, but the series' previous developer Sega AM2 was not involved in this sequel, with development instead being handed over to Sega AM1, featuring developers responsible for previous System 32 games like Spider-Man: The Videogame, Stadium Cross and Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder.

Game design was handled by Makoto Sugawara, who had not played OutRun before and was very critical of the game, leading to many gameplay changes to reflect more modern tastes in 1992. It was decided early on to focus on making 8-person multiplayer a prominent feature, inspired by Namco's Final Lap 2 from 1990.

Masaki Kondoh, a veteran graphic designer who had worked on Fantasy Zone and Galaxy Force, created background art for the game. Because references were less readily available at the time than in years to come, Kondoh had to gather photos from other developers who had travelled internationally so that he could accurately represent the various countries which appear in the game.

The soundtrack was developed by 3 people from the AM Sound team. Initially it was assigned only to Takayuki Nakamura, who previously did Stadium Cross for AM1. OutRunners reuses the program Nakamura created for Stadium Cross, which used MIDI instead of the more conventional MML of the time. Nakamura felt it would not be possible to complete the entire soundtrack on his own, so enlisted his close co-workers Hiroshi Kawaguchi (the composer of OutRun and another person involved with Stadium Cross) and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (the composer of Virtua Racing who was concurrently working with AM1 on Puzzle & Action: Tant-R). Mitsuyoshi, who was also a member of Sega's live arrangement band the S.S.T.Band, created the new arrangements of the 3 songs that were options in the original OutRun: Magical Sound Shower, Passing Breeze and Splash Wave.

Legacy

OutRunners was first ported to the Sega Mega Drive by Sega CS3. The game was the third most highly-requested port for the Sega Saturn's Sega Ages line, but this never materialized. There would not be another OutRun game released until 2003, when OutRun 2 was brought to Sega Chihiro hardware.

OutRunners received a spiritual successor on the H1 Board, that being Cool Riders, which uses the same base gameplay and a mostly different visual style. It was created by some of the same developers like game designer Makoto Sugawara, programmers Kazunari Tsukamoto and Kazutomo Sanbongi, and artists Tetsu Nakajima and Keiichi Baba. Other members of the OutRunners development team transferred to the CS departments in 1993 to work on early Saturn games, those being Panzer Dragoon (by programmer Hidetoshi Takeshita) and Clockwork Knight (by artists Toshiyuki Mukaiyama and Katsuhisa Sato).

OutRunners is the first in a line of AM1 games to secretly include the song Jingle Bells, later appearing in Sega Ski Super-G and Harley-Davidson & L.A. Riders.

Versions

Though it was the most popular game for Sega's Multi 32 hardware, unlike its predecessors OutRunners only received one home console port, to the Sega Mega Drive in 1994. In this port, the screen is split horizontally into two in an attempt to mimic the two screens of the System Multi 32 platform. This, along with the reduced graphics quality and scaled back special effects, meant this version of the game is often the subject to harsh criticism. For some reason, Data East published the game in the US; it was not released in Europe.

Comparisons

Main article: OutRunners/Comparisons.

Production credits

Main article: OutRunners/Production credits.

Digital manuals

• 

  Mega Drive Mini 2 US manual

Magazine articles

Main article: OutRunners/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Main article: OutRunners/Promotional material.

Artwork

• 

Photo gallery

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  Cabinet

Physical scans

System 32 version

Arcade, US
Manual

Arcade, JP

Arcade, DE

Mega Drive version

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 58 Cool Gamer (RU) 60 Computer & Video Games (UK) NTSC 48 Digitiser (UK) NTSC 41 Electronic Games (1992-1995) (US) NTSC-U 50 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1 (RU) 60 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 50 Game Players (US) NTSC-U 41 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 78 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 40 Joypad (FR) NTSC-J 65 Mega (UK) NTSC-J 20 Mega Fun (DE) NTSC-U 28 MegaTech (UK) NTSC-J 52 Mean Machines Sega (UK) NTSC-J 50 Power Unlimited (NL) 43 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-J 76 Sega Zone (UK) NTSC-J 45 Sega Mega Drive Review (RU) 80 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 61 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 73 Video Games (DE) 45 VideoGames (US) NTSC-U 40

	52
Based on 23 reviews

OutRunners

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, KR
Cover

Mega Drive, AS† (NTSC)

Technical information

Main article: OutRunners/Technical information.