OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast review

Picture the scene: you're cruising along in your vibrant red Ferrari convertible, blue skies overhead, your girlfriend by your side, and a corner fast approaching. Slamming the brake and turning the wheel, you twist into an impressive power-slide, smoke pouring from your tyres. The flashing counter at the top of the screen shows five seconds remaining - four seconds - three seconds - and the checkpoint is just around the bend. You cross it, literally angled sideways, just as it hits zero, and the beeping sound of success signifies you've just earned another minute of play time from your pound coin. This is OutRun.Arcade games by their nature cannot be complex: that would alienate punters. OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (a compilation of the OutRun 2 and OutRun 2 SP arcade games) is immediately accessible. It only really does one thing, but it does it perfectly - power-sliding. Sit anyone down with this game and make them do a power-slide at full speed around a corner and they're guaranteed to be impressed. A quick tap of the brake (or down a gear, if you're so inclined) and reapplication of the accelerator is all you need to pull it off, leaving fine adjustments during the slide to be honed to perfection. Of course, on the PSP, you're restricted to digital buttons and a not-entirely-useful analogue nub (resulting in an old-school 'tap-tap-tap' method of control), not to mention a reduced frame-rate compared to its console bigger brothers; but it's testament to the greatness of the game that these things matter for no longer than about five minutes. Every second after that is one of pure joy.The track structure of OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (hereafter referred to as just Coast 2 Coast, due to its needlessly longwinded name) dates back to the original 1986 game, in which the A-to-B route would change depending on whether you chose the left road (easy) or the right road (hard) at each junction. This assured people kept coming back time after time to try all the possible routes, and also meant you could choose the difficulty of the game to match how well you were playing. This is also the case here, but Sumo Digital have explored and expanded every part of every route and made them into separate tracks for various missions and rival races.Coast 2 Coast's scenery is as far from realistic as its over-the-top vehicle handling. Themed locations, such as foggy mountains, night-time cities, giant forests and sunny beaches are glued together in impossibly close proximity. Each lavish environment is so beautiful, you sometimes have to stop yourself from staring at the scenery. Waterfalls, giant redwoods, industrial chimneys, winding mountainside roads that stretch on for miles into the distance - it's like someone gathered up a selection of the most iconic and breathtaking locales they could find and then paved a road through them.Unless attempting a time trial, you'll be sharing those roads with general traffic; but it doesn't just serve as an obstacle - Coast 2 Coast incorporates slip-streaming from the arcade game, a familiar process that allows your car to boost its speed when travelling close behind another vehicle, racer or otherwise. This keeps races fairly balanced and encourages risky traffic weaving. But OutRun is no Burnout (despite the remarkably similar names) - crashing is not advised, and simply hugging the track walls will get you nowhere. It's a far purer game and is better off for it.The meat of the game is its 'Coast 2 Coast' mode, a selection of missions set across different parts of the track, grouped by difficulty, in which an A-rank allows you to progress to the next one. Whether challenging rivals in flat-out races or completing specific tasks in the 'Heart Attack' mode, they begin easy but gradually increase in difficulty. You can buy new Ferraris, including some really souped-up OutRun Class vehicles, and use them to tackle the tougher missions. To please the purists, there is a full version of the vanilla OutRun 2 SP arcade game included, separated from everything else - no unlocking to be done there.It's the OutRun Miles that form your currency, and they're earned every time you race. Even if you quit before crossing the finish line, you're still awarded a small amount of Miles, which is a thoughtful touch. It's somewhat annoying that certain parts of the game have to be 'bought' this way (especially trivial things like new car colours and background music), but at the same time it makes for an addictive incentive to continue. Not that you'd need one - simply playing it is fun enough. And what music it has! Catchy surf rock, mellower jazzy numbers, there's barely a bad track here, and it even includes the original 1986 versions. Nothing quite beats cruising around Palm Beach to the sound of 'Splash Wave'.The sheer amount of options in Coast 2 Coast is bewildering for such a simple game. Single player, multiplayer, arcade mode, Heart Attack mode, Coast 2 Coast mode, Quick Race, Slow Race, Coffee Break Race - okay, those last two were made up! Signing into the online mode is simple enough, though actually setting up a game can be hit or miss. Not only are the servers usually empty, but even when you find someone online, frequent time-outs can disconnect you. Assuming you can overcome these hurdles, online racing is fun, much like normal rival races, only more hectic. Up to six players can compete simultaneously, the leader of the pack deciding the route everyone will take on the free courses.You can link up the PSP version of Coast 2 Coast with the (amazingly identical) PS2 version, via USB cable. This allows you to transfer your license and all progress from one to the other, to carry on from TV to handheld. Some races are easier on the big screen, so it's worth doing if you happen to have more money than sense.You could make many complaints about OutRun: the collisions look stupid, you can't change the music during a race, the online mode is patchy, unlocking stuff is needlessly restrictive and it could do with having more tracks and so on; but that would be ignoring its strengths. It's a thrilling ride, accessible, vibrant and fun. There's plenty to master here, including finding the perfect racing lines and beating the time trials. The whole thing being in the palm of your hands is just the icing on a very impressive cake. Coast 2 Coast comes highly recommended.