Outrunning in the 90′s

…well, in the 10′s, I suppose.

I’ve been playing a lot of Outrun Online Arcade on XBLA for the last couple of weeks. Haven’t really played an arcade racer since Burnout 2 (still the best Burnout as far as I’m concerned) so it’s a nice change of pace. OOA now also holds the honor of being my first ever driving game where I’ve tried and gotten used to using manual transmission.

When I started playing I thought I’d spend most of my time on Heart Attack mode, but it turns out I’m having a blast playing Time Attack and multiplayer. The two work together rather nicely as I can try out new things in Time Attack and then apply them in multiplayer and I also sometimes get new ideas from other players.

Sadly, it seems the multiplayer community isn’t that strong. Most of my races I’ve won with a large margin, to the point of often DNFing (after the first person crosses the finishline, the remaining players have 10 seconds to get to the goal before the game ends or they just get a “Did Not Finish”) the other players. Luckily I found players in #shmups who also play it and they have given me my most heated races, few of which I’ve uploaded to my Youtube account. I also managed to catch a race with someone who’s in at least Top 15 for all goals in Time Attack, that was pretty…enlightening.

Time Attack is a different beast in the sense that there are some very good times up there and with my current skills, lines and techniques there’s no way for me get even within a second or two on them. So a lot of stuff still to learn. A more immediate goal is to beat nZero’s times, we have a bit of back-and-forth on who’s got the best times going on there. He’s got more of them at the moment. Gotta get to work.