OutRunners is the 1993 sequel to the classic driving game, Out Run. It is specifically designed for two player head-to-head gameplay, which is why the game renders two screens – side by side – by default. For the purposes of this article, though, I’m showing just a single screen, because it looks better.

With enough machines, OutRunners could accommodate up to eight players racing against each other at the same time. An online version of the game was also released, allowing players to race each other over the internet, which was revolutionary for the time.

OutRunners is a blazingly-fast 2D racer, with branching courses, like in the original game. You’re racing against both the clock, and other players, and at each checkpoint only the race leader can select the next stage, by choosing to go left or right at the split.

Staying on the road is quite a challenge at times, and the course often dips and narrows, or has sheer cliffs at the side, that you can easily fall into, or roadside obstacles that you can crash into, slowing you down. Crashes are spectacular, and hilarious, and are different, depending on the vehicle you’re driving. Usually, the occupants are tossed out of the car; they run along the road for a short time, then jump straight back into the car and carry on driving! This is a real surprise the first time you see it, and it must have caused a lot of laughter in arcades when OutRunners was first released. It’s a crazy idea, but it works because nobody really wants to see the realistic approach to crashing at high speed, do they? And, are my ears deceiving me, or does the game use canned laughter when a crash happens?

There are eight different cars to choose from, before a race starts, and all the vehicles are fantasy convertibles, but based on real counterparts.

The game also features a music select button, allowing each player to choose their preferred song to race to. OutRunners features all four songs from the original Out Run, by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, as well as various new tracks composed by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and Takayuki Nakamura. With multiple arcade machines lined-up, all playing different songs, the arcade would’ve sounded like a cacophony!

OutRunners was a big hit in arcades and was among the highest-grossing arcade games in Japan in both 1994 and 1995, and among the highest-grossing arcade games in North America in 1993. The game was one of the last 2D racing games released by Sega – in arcades at least – and is still huge fun to play now; especially if you can get the two-player mode working properly in MAME.

OutRunners was also released for the Sega Megadrive in 1994, and features a split-screen multiplayer mode.

More: OutRunners on Wikipedia