OutRun (ZX Spectrum)

OutRun was a racing arcade game developed by Sega in 1986. U.S. Gold managed to get the license for the game and produced several ports to the home computers. This article will focus on the ZX Spectrum conversion developed by Probe Software.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Infamously below the standards of the ZX Spectrum, especially considering Ocean's fantastic Chase H.Q. port for the Speccy annihilates this attempt.
 * 2) Choppy to the point of being nearly unplayable. It's so choppy, it makes the NES version of Ghosts N' Goblins look good.
 * 3) Because of said choppiness, it controls terribly, because you'll push the joystick in a direction, but since the game runs so terribly, the game won't register it until it moves up a frame, leading to unfair crashes.
 * 4) The skid sound is annoying as hell
 * 5) The level with the rock formations is practically unbeatable, mainly due to the poor framerate.
 * 6) You don't really get the same sense of speed you would normally get from the arcade original.
 * 7) The original release was unplayable due to a game-breaking glitch that crashed the game upon opening it. Because of this, the game had to be pulled from stores and re-released, while the users that already bought the game had to wait to receive a functional copy of the game.
 * 8) False advertising: the images sent to magazines at the time showed better graphics, larger sprites, and vehicles that weren't in the game, such as trucks.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Minus the abysmal framerate, the graphics are acceptable. The sprites all look good, and the attention to detail is surprising.
 * 2) The music has some pretty good renditions of the arcade's tunes.
 * 3) Using a little bit of coding knowledge, you can bring back the color.
 * 4) Playing the game on models like the ZX Spectrum Next or an emulator and increasing the processor speed can make the game more playable.

Videos
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