OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is an unexpectedly faithful sequel

destructoid.com:

If someone told me they were creating a new OutRun with 3D graphics, I’d be extremely skeptical. OutRun was not merely a raster racer through and through, it’s the God-empress of raster racers. I would think that adding some depth to that would hurt the appeal. Not so, because OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is about as faithful as I could imagine.

To be clear, OutRun 2006 is sort of the sequel to the sequel. OutRun 2 was released in arcades in 2003, and followed up with a port to Xbox in 2004. Afterwards, OutRun SP was released in 2004 as an upgrade to OutRun 2. OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is a console (and PSP) combination of the two titles. It is the ultimate version, and I have no idea why it hasn’t been ported since. Probably the Ferrari license. It’s always licensing.

I feel like OutRun 2006 is unexpected since the racing genre had long moved on from the seminal 1986 arcade title. What I thought would have happened is some soulless simulation racing game with the OutRun name slapped on. Instead, OutRun 2006 is OutRun. The only thing that really changed is that now the graphics are in 3D. New mechanics and progression are piled on top of it.

The setup is the same; you take the wheel of a Ferrari, with your girlfriend sitting next to you. Then, you take off on a journey across a branching course. While there are rivals on the road this time around, you’re not required to pass them. You merely have to get to the end of the course before your time expires.

That’s easier said than done, but the addition of drift is a welcome feature. The drift is that special kind of unrealistic that we’ve seen in the Mario Kart series. You can throw your car into a drift by pumping the break in a turn, and then it’s stuck there until you