Driving home to the sounds of Outrun Online Arcade

Posted Wednesday, 14th September 2011 under Video game music
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The other day I hopped in the car to head home from work and had a conundrum – I’d finished catching up on the last round of Retronauts podcasts and wasn’t sure what to listen to on the way home. So before turning the key I took a quick look through my playlist, saw Outrun Online Arcade, and thought, “Why not?”.

Turns out it was a great choice. There’s more than a hint of spring in the air, so I wound down my windows to let some fresh air in and listened to the golden, joyous remixes and original tracks from Outrun Online Arcade (which is basically Outrun 2/2006 but in HD with online play [that nobody plays anymore :(]).

So, inspired by this, I went through my Saturn games over the weekend just passed to add some redbook audio from a few games to the playlist – Daytona USA, Sega Touring Car and Sonic R (with that Richard Jacques magic) made the cut, then to mix it up I added in a few others, including Asuka 120% Limited – Burning Fest. Limited, Virtua Fighter Kids and (don’t laugh!) Keio Yugekitai – Katsugeki Hen.

The latter definitely put a smile on my face on the way in to the office. It reminds me I should fire it up some time soon for another round, it’s such an amazing little gem of a title.

Actually, this whole rant suggests I should do a dedicated post (or perhaps a couple of dedicated posts) on the joys of redbook audio in the 16-bit and 32-bit eras. Stay tuned, I’m sure I’ll get around to it at some stage!

Gaming sessions – 4 January 2009

Posted Tuesday, 8th September 2009 under Gaming sessions
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Obviously I was enjoying my last weekend before heading back to work around that time 🙂

Anywho, played through a couple of retro games – first up are a few screen caps of Asterix on the SMS. This was the first game I bought for my SMS after I got it for my birthday back in 1992, and I bought it primarily based on the cover and the fact I liked the Asterix cartoons I saw on TV and the comics I read 🙂 Turned out to be an awesome purchase, it still holds up as a great platformer today.

The cool thing about it is that I actually finished the game in one sitting – I’d never finished it when I was a kid, so that was pretty awesome. The last screen is of the ending.

Next up is Rocket Knight Adventures, an absolute cracking piece of original IP from Konami on the Mega Drive. While the sequel was pretty lackluster on the SMD (must have been a different studio working on it), this one exudes charm, precision, beauty and a bit of typically Japanese quirkiness. I originally got this one for my birthday in… 1994 I think, I still remember playing it for a few minutes before school that day too!

I was actually sending the pics in this set to my brother who is teaching up in the country while I was playing – he paid me out for pausing the game to take screen shots, so there are a few in there I slipped in whilst trying not to die 😛

Finally there’s Jeffrey from Virtua Fighter Kids on the Saturn. Because he’s awesome.

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