OutRun - History and Development

History and Development

The arcade game features raster graphics on a color CRT monitor and amplified stereophonic sound. There are a total of four cabinet designs (two upright and two sit-down), all of which are equipped with a steering wheel with force feedback, a stick shift plus acceleration and brake pedals. The upright cabinet came in two versions: Normal and Mini. The sit-down cabinets resembled the in-game car and used a drive motor to move the main cabinet — turning and shaking according to the onscreen action. There were two versions of the sit down: the Deluxe version featured a 26-inch color monitor and a custom molded seat, while the Standard featured a more simplified design and a 20-inch color monitor.

Out Run achieved its 3D effects using a sprite-scaling technique called 'Super-Scaler' technology (first used one year earlier in Hang-On and Space Harrier). This allowed a large number of scaled sprites to be displayed on the screen at the same time. Most previous racing games had commonly used a bird's eye view. Out Run had great amounts of roadside detail and a "camera" that appeared to travel along the road with the car, passing through the action rather than merely observing it. According to the game's designer, Yu Suzuki, the stages of Out Run are mostly based on European scenery; he had toured Europe in order to gain insight on how to design the game's levels and capture as much realism as possible. The game's backgrounds and roadside objects include old stone buildings, the Alps, windmills, and Stonehenge-like formations.