OutRun

Presentation: perfect 10. Influential? Oh yes. Gameplay? I'll pass, thank you. What a shameless coin-eater, what a clash of expectation versus reality. Games are the most powerful medium for learning, and this teaches a hard lesson.

I struggle to think of a more unified game in terms of presentation and gameplay. "OutRun" is so much more than a game, it's a perfect pearl.

You ride a Ferrari Testarossa with your girlfiend and the objective is to simply reach checkpoints before the time runs out, a structure that hasn't changed since Sega's "Hang-On" from the previous year, and even though gameplay-wise it hasn't changed much either(except having maybe slightly tighter controls), "OutRun" has fantastic presentation. It's the little things that count, like being able to change the song you want to play on the station(most will agree that "Passing Breeze" is still the best), riding on a seaside with idle clouds, where you can smell the salt and envision the seagulls in the air, and having the choice to drive in various European locales on the map of your choosing, which all have beautiful scenery for a 1986 arcade game. You can visit the Swiss grasslands, the wheat fields and vineyards in France, admire the German autobahn, the canyons of Spain, the dilapidated towns from pre-WW1 times, and the dunes of the Dakar rally. Yu Suzuki has stated that he considered this a driving game than a racing game, and getting submerged inside it is marvelously zen and a moment you wish you can keep forever. That, to me, is a hallmark of a really ingenious game.

The arcade version and its timer are completely brutal, but that's not what matters, does it? It's the unforgettable experience of riding next to sea waves along with other people's cars, trucks, reading whatever billboards you're passing by, shifting gears in time before you crash. And even if you lose, the sighs you let out at the warm sunset of the game over screen, are not of frustration: but out of relief and contentedness, because you just witnessed an unforgettable experience. You deck out your initials and then quit just as the sun sets over the cozy, glamorous world of "OutRun". The palmtree backrdop indeed makes all the difference between resentfulness and peacefulness - I never get angry when I lose at "OutRun".

That's not to say this game wouldn't benefit from a free ride mode, which the dip switches certainly do have on offer. Even better is the open source port called "Cannonball", which has been made for so many platforms including Windows and the Wii(with motion controls!), which adds so many perks such as picking single tracks, a 60fps mode, perspective changes, and even has a track editor. This is a package you don't wanna miss.

"Was this road really that long?"

It hasn't lost much of its power in the decades since, reducing every non-essential element of a video game and still being the most memorable road trip in gaming history.

This is truly a game at it's purest form