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REVIEW: VIRTUA RACER (Switch)

2/7/2019

20 Comments

 
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So many of my favourite arcade games were made by Sega. Way before the brand was so much as a blip on my radar I was enjoying its games.

As far back as the 70s, Killer Shark left a big bite mark in my belly. And then Monaco GP, Zaxxon, Hang On, Space Harrier... even after it became a bona-fide home console player, Sega continued to produce groundbreaking arcade games, many of which remain lodged in my ribs as all-time favourites.

And then of course it all went a bit Pete Tong. I often gave Sega a hard time back in the 90s, but only because it was like seeing a good friend self-destruct before my very eyes. Sega had so much going for it, so much to offer, yet those gifts were squandered, and the company succumbed to one wrong-faced decision after another. 

My patience and loyalty only extended so far, and in many respects Sega deserved its fate. That doesn't lessen what we all lost as a result. Imagine if Sega had carried on. Imagine a version of the modern games industry with the sort of big, bold, colourful games Sega did best.

But no. It wasn't to be.
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PACEMAKER
Sega failed to keep the pace as the industry sped forwards without it. By the time Sega found itself again, it was too late. It was out of money, out of time, and out of step with fashion.

​The Sega that crawled from the carnage of those difficult years was one lacking an identity, its arcade business now hollowed-out and desperate, little more than a distributor of branded ticket-dispensing machines sporting Sonic The Hedgehog livery.


And yet... in recent years Sega has re-established something of a connection with its past. Sonic Mania felt like a turning point, and we're soon getting new additions to some of its greatest series, including Panzer Dragoon and Streets of Rage.

​And this: Virtua Racing for the Switch, unquestionably the definitive version of a Sega classic.


POLY GOOD SHOW
It's hard to overstate just how good Virtua Racing looked to our early-90s eyes. Though not the first arcade racing game to use polygons, it was so much better-looking than Namco's Winning Run or Atari's Hard Drivin' that it might as well have been.

Truth is, though, that few early polygon games have aged well. Whereas pixels often hold up, many of the first gaming experiments with polygons now look woefully dated. Observe pretty much any Super FX game, or Tomb Raider. 

I'll be honest; I expected to be similarly underwhelmed with this new version of Virtua Racing, and yet... such is the respectful and painstaking restoration work that this looks exactly like the original... while also looking better than the original. The team responsible resisted the urge to significantly update the graphics - there are no texture maps, no extra details. They've kept the original, flat-shaded, look, and increased the resolution and frame rate. 

Consequently, it looks beautiful; stylised, but somehow simultaneously vintage and modern. It's the gaming equivalent of when a classic album gets remastered using modern technology; the way you can hear new details in the music that you never realised were there. 

Indeed, there are no remixes here, no bells and whistles, no bonus cars or tracks - just the arcade original's pared-back classicism. There's a bonkers eight-player split-screen mode, and you can play against others online, but for £5.99 you couldn't really expect much more. And, frankly, you don't need much more. 
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ANY PORT IN A STORM
I went back recently and played the Mega Drive and 32X ports of Virtua Racing. At the time they felt surprisingly faithful to the arcade hardware - but that might've been a case of trying to convince myself, given the Mega Drive version's £70 price tag. 

In reality, that version was pretty ropey, with chunky, flickery, polygons, and a framerate that was so low it felt like a flip-book. The 32X fared better, but - even with the addition of brand new tracks - it was, inevitably, a far cry from the arcade original. Following those there was an awful interpretation for the Saturn, and a decent-ish version on the PS2, but unlike this new edition the latter lacked a degree of faithfulness, having been created from scratch.

There are no such complaints here. The Switch version uses the original code as its starting point, and, to extend the restoration analogy, they've done the work necessary to show it as it was always meant to be. 

It's Virtua Racing as it always was... only better.

Now do Crazy Taxi.

​SCORE: 80mph out of 95mph
20 Comments
bcdcdude
2/7/2019 09:00:36 am

This looks glorious and makes me want a Switch so bad. If Sega could do a Model 1-3 collection (Scud Race please...!!), then I would be overjoyed.

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Kara Van Park
2/7/2019 09:42:47 am

Was I alone in thinking games like this and Starwing looked utterly garbage at the time? After playing Sonic Mania (the first Sonic game I've enjoyed) it made me wonder what games we would have had if we'd given 2D a chance on 32bit systems rather than stampeding towards 3D before it was ready.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
2/7/2019 12:01:12 pm

No, you’re right, Starfox looked like crap to anyone who’d seen one of its PC contemporaries: Strike Commander or X-Wing or Frontier: L33t 2. Even Silpheed on the Sega CD had a smoother and more impressive polygonal look.

Virtua Racing’s thing was the fluidity of the driving and viewpoint changes.

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Alastair
2/7/2019 02:24:34 pm

Nope, Starwing was reasonably good fun, but Stunt Race FX was pretty poor and the game would seriously start to chug along at times.

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James Burton
2/7/2019 10:03:34 am

I agree with Kara on this one. The first fully-3D generation (N64/PSX) as well as the tentative efforts that preceded it (e.g. SNES SuperFX titles) come across in hindsight as a transitional phase.

You could see this was going to be the future of gaming but the technology wasn't yet up to snuff - although when I finally got a PlayStation for Christmas in 1999, at the time I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Albeit a very blocky heaven where God only appears when you stand two feet away from him.

It's almost become a "lost" generation from a retro gaming perspective. The 2D games that preceded it are still fun to play, as are many from the PS2/Xbox/GameCube era, but titles like Tomb Raider, Wipeout or even (heresy!) Goldeneye 007 feel like a bit of a drag.

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Mr Biffo
2/7/2019 10:23:31 am

I agree too! I even mentioned Tomb Raider in the review. Virtua Racing is different though. I think arcade 3D - and particularly the Virtua games - fared a lot better. They were so stylised that they've not fallen into the same trap of striving for realism as the first generation or two of console 3D games.

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James Burton
2/7/2019 08:34:43 pm

I'd be interested to play the arcade version of some Virtua titles. I remember playing Racing on the MegaDrive and was similarly disappointed when I replayed it on an emulator a while back - but I can imagine it'd be very different with a playable frame rate!

Lee
2/7/2019 09:29:56 pm

Sega's '90s arcade output had so much personality. I usually have very little interest in Track & Field style games, but DecAthlete/Athlete Kings won me over with its ridiculous characters, bold colours and overall "video-game-iness".

It's the same reason I could spend hours playing Sega Rally or Daytona USA, but Gran Turismo left me cold.

Mike Taylor
4/7/2019 09:14:12 am

Wipeout 2097 & Wipeout 3 (sorry...Wip3out) still play pretty well.

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Starbuck
5/7/2019 08:30:22 pm

Whip three out!

The Porridge King
2/7/2019 02:19:03 pm

Great review, I am sold instantly. I would buy it right now, but can't find my bloody Switch PSU charger thing anywhere. Really don't want to go and buy another as I will no doubt find my first one within minutes.

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gaijintendo
10/7/2019 06:31:20 am

Get a cheap USB-C cable and just take longer to charge it?

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Robobob
2/7/2019 03:11:44 pm

I'm sure this is great. It does look nice in the pics above, a more cel-shaded version of the original.

But Insincere Dave writes:

"it's great to see the wheels look as round as ever!!!!1!!!!"

Reply
Guru Larry link
2/7/2019 04:21:54 pm

You should check out gameplay of the original arcade game, the switch port is how you imagine the game from rose tinted glasses, but it's vastly superior to the arcade original, it's 60fps and has no popin for starters.

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PaulEMoz link
2/7/2019 05:51:38 pm

I don't own a Switch, but will be buying one for bloody Animal Crossing for the whole family. Releases like this will help me justify the purchase to myself. I love Virtua Racing and played the hell out of the 32X version. I'm definitely going to be having this. Well played, Sega!

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Taucher
2/7/2019 07:49:52 pm

Oh this looks good. I think the virtua games aged better than other early 3D polygon attempts because they used 2D, 16 bit aesthetics within a 3D world. With the exceptions of the mascot 3D platform games (Mario 64 etc) most early attempts, like the mentioned Tomb Raider, were awash with browns and blacks and look horrible now. But this looks great with the bright blue sky and neon green grass and the contrast between them.

Weirdly this has made me want a switch more than any other game released on it so far.

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A pedant
3/7/2019 10:02:32 am

Extra points for getting the game title wrong. VIRTUA RACING, idiot.

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James Walker
3/7/2019 11:49:31 pm

I bet you look on the back of Birthday Cards to see if the price is left on don’t you?

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ChalkOutline
3/7/2019 09:33:25 pm

It’s killing me that I can’t remember whether it was Virtua Racing or Namco’s “Driver’s Eyes” that had a cabinet with a force feedback seat that would push your backside forward when you braked. Someone please tell me I haven’t invented this memory!?!

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Mike Taylor
4/7/2019 09:16:57 am

It was Virtua Racing.

Reply



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