It’s easy to make a modern game “retro.” Just add pixelization. But what if you want to make a retro game even more retro?
In 1986, Sega released the OutRun arcade cabinet. Not only was it one of the most graphically impressive games of that era, it also featured a huge screen, stereophonic sound and, best of all, an actual vehicle for you to sit in. At the time it was mind-blowing, but all of that Reagan-era tech proved a bit too fancy for an industrious geek named Gustavo.
As you can see in the embedded clip, Gustavo took the general concept of the game and with the aid of spare R/C car parts, magnetic sensors and LEDs crafted a hyper-retro version of OutRun that is more akin to Sega’s own Grand Prix, an arcade title from the antediluvian year of 1969.
The really neat bit is that even with all of its barely-modern accoutrements stripped out, Gustavo’s OutRun seems to pretty accurately recreate the game’s tense racing action. Granted, it doesn’t have the brilliant Hiroshi Kawaguchi soundtrack, but that’s a simple enough addition.
As impressive as this “de-make” is, I have to generate discussion somehow, so let’s pit it against this earlier adaptation of OutRun that turned the game into an actual functional vehicle. So readers, which do you prefer? The retro stylings of Gustavo’s game or the OutRun car that will almost certainly kill anyone who plays it?
Source: Technabob
